I recently ordered a few fg2's from England for myself and a few buddies. I have one left new in the box. $250 +$15 shipping. Let me know if anyone wants it. Thanks
You obviously don't spend a lot of time on Arboristsite. It's a nice bench-mount filing jig that Stihl discontinued in the U.S. and so is now difficult to come by.
They're expensive, but worth it if you do a lot of hand touch-ups like I do. I like to put a fresh edge on my milling chains after about 4-5 cuts. I prefer to swap chains instead of touching them up in the field, so I often have several 28 and 36" chains to do. So I've spent a lot of hours with mine. The only gripe I have with it is the length stop pawl. Mine has a little side-to-side play, which makes it nearly impossible to register accurately against the back of the cutter, because they're all angled. The one on the granberg file-n-joint works much better. (The 'trick' to it is, you want to register against the DL and tie strap, instead of the cutter itself.) However the granberg has a tendency to move around on the bar a little bit (especially if there's oil on it); and if that happens, it can be difficult to get the chain perfectly jointed without having to re-do every cutter. That's not a problem on the FG2. The thing I like most about it is, when it's time to do the next chain, you just put it in the vise and go back to work. With the granberg, you need to dismount the jig, then put the next chain on the bar, tension it back up, re-mount the jig, dial it in again, and then you're ready. I figure I save around 10-15 mins per chain not having to do all of that. Anyway, that's my review if anyone is interested.
Agreed, the design of the stop is infuriating. I wouldn't blame it on side play, though. I'd say it's because the stop is tall and narrow so it can only register on the back edge of the top plate, whereas the stop on the Granberg is low and wide, to hit the very base of the cutter. Besides doing a poor job of stopping the chain where it's supposed to, it also gets in the way when the teeth get short. I've been playing around with making an improved stop for it.
The other problem with the stop is that there is no way to lock it. The adjustment wheel lets you dial in a nice length, but as you use the jig, the vibrations turn the wheel and the length adjustment doesn't stay stable. I'm planning to add a wing nut on either side if I can find ones that fit and lock things up tight once I set my length. It will add a few seconds to the adjustment process but save time in the long run and result in more uniform cutter length. I just spend about 2 hours with mine last night rehabbing a chain. Can't wait to get out tomorrow and see how it runs.
The chain I sharpened cut OK, but nothing special. Turns out I didn't use the right size file, so that may have had something to do with it. Also, I'm not sure I used the right depth gauge. Ended up rocking it on the second cut so it didn't matter anyway. I did another chain yesterday with the correct size file. Ended up using the stop pawl in the link behind the cutter rather than against the angled back of the cutter. It worked MUCH better. I'm wondering if that is the preferred way to go. The chain I sharpened yesterday cut extremely well. At least as well as a new Stihl chain. It was throwing chips that were closer to ribbons than chips.
