Kind of a bad deal. I responded to a tree guys ad on craiglist for "trailer load of wood". Text what kind he had and he told me sycamore. Never had sycamore and I know it can be hard to chop but I'm bored and need some wood. I was out when they dropped off about 2 cords of huge poplar rounds. What a duck. Anyways, I'm having trouble noodling these rounds. I noodle rounds all the time but these almost feel like the chain isn't catching the wood. Tried two separate chains. The second was a shop sharpened chain. I also had to hand sharpen a few times to finish off the job. Filled my shed and gave away about half a cord of chopped. Has anyone else had any issues sawing poplar?
Poplar cuts like buttah! Can you post some pics of the teeth on your chain? After noodling a LOT of wood a while back, I saw what ended up being the top of the cutter at the working edge worn down lower than the rest. This left me having to grind off more material than usual to get back to the proper "height" for where the depth gauge/raker was set. It cut just like you describe, or didn't cut.. I'll try to find that pic as I posted on here somewhere.
I figured it would cut like butter. I guess it could be the chain. The first chain was almost brand new and the second had minimal use. I doubt I have a camera that can capture the cutting edge but I'll take a look when I get a chance. I had a new chain in my truck, probably could have saved some sweat.
I've had no issues in the past noodling large fir rounds, maple, madrona. No issues. What gives now. Sharpen my chains the same. I've only been doing this seriously for about 5 years. Always something new to learn.
I actually meant the wood. Guess I should have been more specific. I’m not a chain sharpening guru but plenty of guys in here are.
That doesn’t look like the scenario I had. Buy yourself a progressive raker/depth gauge and file them.
Here's my guess. The upper tip of the tooth appears to be slightly bent down??? I think this happens when you noodle a lot with a chain. Check the rakers (*depth guages) If you dont have a tool for checking (i dont) give each raker a couple passes with a flat file and try that. One other guess i had was being so soft poplar generates noodles faster than they can be ejected out of the way and it jams the bar. I had this happen noodling cottonwood. Obviously i dont think this is the case here.
Any chance there is a burr on one of your bar rails that could be catching the log? Another possibility is sometimes the sprocket rivets stick out proud and don’t let that part of the bar go in very easily. Your cutters look good but if the rakers are high it won’t feed well
I forgot about the rivet deal. I had that happen when I put .325 chain on a vintage .050 guage roller nose bar on the rotten raspberry. Chain was narrower than the bar tip. Worked fine as long as the bar tip was never buried.