Dirty wood, and nails, dulling chains, ripping and cross cutting!

Well, I have been busy, doing a lot of cutting. I used 4 of my saws, today. I started out with my Jonsered 2255, but didn't use it for very long. It's still cutting, but I could tell it was getting a little dull. I have been building more dog pens and ripping Red Cedar logs into boards but doing final fitting more or less in place on the fence and hit a nail or two, surprisingly it was still cutting Cedar pretty good, but didn't do as good when moving to the hardwoods, cutting firewood today. I was running a 20" bar with skip tooth square filed chain on it. I have hit quite a few nails lately, and surprisingly, sq filed skip held up, about as good as any chain can, when hitting nails.

I then went to my 461 with 25 inch Stihl Bar on it and a Carlton full chisel, converted to square file. It had been used some, before, cutting and ripping Red Cedar, and it didn't do as good at ripping Red Cedar into boards as my 462 did with full skip, semi-chisel, round filed. The skip tooth seems to work better for ripping cedar logs into boards, and that semi-chisel skip tooth, was really surprising in that avenue. But anyway, I was cutting firewood today, and the 461 got the brunt of the work, today. It cut really good for a long time, cross cutting the hardwoods. I did a lot of bucking up of wood laying mostly on the ground and tried to keep the saw out of the dirt, but I was cutting dirty wood, and occasionally lightly nicked the ground if I was too lazy to cut part way and roll the log over, although I did do a lot of that too. The 461 is my heaviest saw, but the weight didn't bother me much, as I was able to buck standing up, with the long bar. That chain was still cutting pretty good at the end of the day.
But after a couple of tanks of gas or so, I did switch to my 462 with the full skip semi-chisel, with the 28" bar but it was a little duller to start with because I had already used it a lot, but it had a full tank of gas so I switched over to it. It still didn't do bad for a while and had impressed me with a sharp chain on both ripping Cedar and also cross cutting some large Dead Black Locust Rounds previously, but it had been used a lot, and I had also hit the dirt a few times, and could tell it needed sharpening by then, so I switched over to my 362 with 24" lightweight bar and full skip square filed chain and cut some more, but I had previously cut quite a bit with it, and soon decided that my sharpest saw was still my 461 with full house square filed, and finished out the rest of the day with it.

None of my saws started the day with fresh sharpened chains on them so, considering the dirty wood etc, and getting into the ground slightly from time to time, I still felt like they did alright. The 461 is heavy but really growing on me, and now that I have ran several tanks of fuel through it, I think it doing even better.

The worst thing is, I have a bunch of saws to sharpen. I still have a bunch of logs to cut up, that we dragged out of the woods with a tractor. But that will be for another day, with fresh sharpened chains.

 

I hear ya on chains. I did good yesterday though. Cut 4 ish cord of Ash, Poplar & Elm on one brand new 24" semi chisel chain. Dropped 3 trees, the rest were down. Some dirty, some not. 3 tanks of fuel & oil & one chain isn't too bad. Got about 5 chains waiting for the grinder tomorrow after work.

 

Well, we built about 400 yards of woodland fence today. I didn't really want to work today, being Sunday, but my brother in law wanted to get it done. I figured I might need a saw or two and still had my 261 CM which was fairly sharp and my 461 which was still cutting ok, all of my other saws being dull from yesterday. I ended up needing to cut a road through the woods for a little ways, had to fall a few small trees and one White Oak which I cut into stove wood. I used the 461 for most of it, then picked up the 261 because I knew it was still pretty sharp, and saved the stumps for last, which I cut down real low so we could drive over them.

Then I ended up having to cut some more brush and a few more small trees, and I don't know exactly what happened but I think I hit some barbed wire laying on the ground, and instantly threw the chain on the 261 and must beat up some drivers because they wouldn't go back in the groove on the bar. Back to the 461 for a few more cuts and that was that. The 461 was the last man standing, out of five saws in two days. I guess I will be working on saws tomorrow. And we still have a few strands of wire to put up to completely finish the fence, because we got rained out in the end.

After the last couple of days, five saws doesn't seem that excessive, anymore.