Sharpining Chain, Chain grinder, TIPS, do's, n, don'ts

Angles, cleaning chain, adjusting grinder, details, etc., etc.
This is just a start , more questions to follow ,share your knowledge
Me ! , Upgrading from HF grinder , much more solid tool, Northern Industrial Tools Bench- or Wall-Mount Chain Grinder

 

Can't help you HD, I gave up on grinding and came full circle back to hand filing. Looks like a nice tool though, a number of folks here use it!

 

At least you got yours out of the box, further than I got .
Anyway good sticky thread Idea

I will start, with any grinder Do inspect wheels for damage.
I had a drum grinder wheel explode like a grenade

 

Different final edge on the right versus left sides of the chain, chains would not cut straight after getting slightly worn. I realize that this was due to "operator" error and/or cheap equipment.............. good equipment in the hands of a good operator will obviously turn out a great chain.

However, after watching the Mennonite guy who helped me timber out the 120 big trees last year hand file his chains, I went back to hand filing. I can turn out an incredibly sharp chain in nothing flat now with a simple hand file. Fits my lifestyle perfect, and my chains last much longer.

 

Good thread... Hopefully Mike will make an appearance and chime in.
From my experience, hand filing will produce the fastest cutting chain, but only in the hand of someone who knows what he's doing, and WHY!!!
Same person could use a grinder and get great chains, because they know why they do what they do.
I use a grinder and hand file both... I have never seen a grinder that would produce the same cutter left and right without "tweaking" by the operator... I would copy and paste some info from another site as a building block for some to expound on, but I think it's dead... May be starting from scratch here...

 

Oh, and Go Bulldogs!!!


HD will know what this means...

 

Call me paranoid, but I grind with a silvey, and still use a caliper on the changeover from right to left, to make sure I got everything indexing right...

 

I have a grinder but hand file my chains. I use an 8" vice to clamp the bar of the saw and go at it. Grinders are good if you rock a chain, but most people try to do each cutter in 1 pass and overheat the chain.

 

Used to take chains in to get sharpened.
Buddy got a grinder, used his a few times.
Seemed to always have overheated cutters & they didn't stay sharp as long as when I filed.
Now, just hit it with a file now & then when needed.
Figured since I just cut firewood, (near 10 cord / year) it'd work just fine. & does.
Faster & easier for me.

 

I too, think a minimalist approach is good...
I would encourage everyone to learn how to make a decent cutting chain with a file...
I wanted to learn how to square file, so I bought 2 loops of square, and used NOTHING else, until I was comfortable just grabbing a double bevel file, and making a chain cut... Once I was good enough at it to get by, I was ready to start asking the important questions... Same goes with round chisel or semi chisel... Once you get good enough to get by, the little tips and pointers given by those farther down the path than you, start to make more sense...

 

What kind of grinder are you using Gary?

 

I've got a grinder but I'll take my Dremel or hand file any time over the grinder.

 

I don't want to steal HD's thread here, although I think us hand filers already have, sorry HD. I'm going to start a new one on hand filing. HD is looking for grinding advice and tips, help him out folks!

 

Well, I did put it together , just didn't mount it or plug it in, put a little WD40 in a couple of places to smooth things out .
The grinding wheels came undamaged and rang true.
I was thinking of doing a review of the Northern grinder , changed my mind and started this

 

In the past I did not know that it is generally accepted that you need to tweak the grinder to get the left and right cutters the same .


FYI, I had never sharpened a chain before, about this time last year , I picked up the files in guides ,like in the pic, I needed for my chains and have been getting my chains sharp .
The only chains I sharpened on the HF grinder were my short low Pro chains , the other ones I just hand file.
So far I have never used calipers ( although I do have 4 pair) to check the teeth.


Question : 1 when starting out with a chain do you check every tooth with calipers, until you find the shortest one .
2: do you clean a chain before grinding , if so how , a bristle brush? brass brush ?, do you use degreaser ? gas ? Kerosene? pressure washer ???

 

Thanks Boog, that's a good idea because hand sharpening is a separate subject .
PLEASE ! don't anyone take offense to this but , this is not a debate of which is better of all the different ways to sharpen the chain , it's about using a chain grinder.

 

Yes HD, I would always start out by finding my shortest tooth to set up on, then carefully (so as not to overheat) grind the others back to that. That gave me a consistent setup. I didn't bother cleaning my chains unless they had been used cutting roots or such and were really dirty. When I did, I just used a big brass brush to get the worst off. I remember reading some old posts where folks said the best thing they used was "old transmission fluid" .......... figure that out? I think any of those cleaning methods would work considering you will just need to oil it again with something to protect it. I keep mine in old "Grandma's Potato Salad" tubs with WD40 on them if going to storage after sharpening.

The biggest problem for me was trying to get the exact edge cut on both sides of the chains. That's where the tinkering and tiny amounts of adjusting came in. As your wheel wears down your angles will change a tiny bit too, you need to keep that in mind. I'm no expert on grinding, but those were the basics I tried to follow.