I thought I knew what I was doing but I’ve managed to confuse myself. (“That seems to happen more and more these days..” I rocked a green chain on my MS362. I cleaned it up with the new to me old grinder with no heavy grinding and light licks just enough to clean up the top plate edge at 30°. Then I noticed as I was using an Oregon run of the mill depth gage, it seemed like the rakers read good. But being anal, I went and got my brass straightedge out, laid it across two teeth(one on each side high point to high point) and measured with an actual feeler gauge from straight edge to top of raker. And it registers around 15 thousandths. That seems like a lot to have to take off to get down to the recommended .025 thousandths. Pictures follow. Then I put an out of the box yellow chain on and it measures .016 by feeler gauge. But the depth gauge reads good when checking. I read back through pallet Pete’s tutorial and surfed the inter web. I do know how to read a feeler gauge, and checked it with my digital calipers to make sure the gauge wasn’t screwed. So now I’m forced to sit here and drink beer in the shop till someone tells me what I’m missing. Lenny Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Yop, it stands to reason. when I got my 362, I also got a stihl 2-in-1…. yeah, it really takes the depth gauges down. Enough so, I took the flat file out of it so it’s not used every time. made a huge difference on the old MS180 that had never had the depth gauges touched though too.
I bought mine with the 18” bar. Little short so I built a bucking table, but not much will slow it down unless I really get into the dogs.
Id sure like to know what you find out. Woulda kinda thunk .025" would be .025"? Id suggest running it in some wood before filing anything off the rakers. I used to use a gauge myself but just do it by feel now.
Interesting thread actually. I use the cheap old Oregon gage and a flat file on the first raker and then set my grinder to do the rest but having said that, I too go by feel after grinding. If the chain self feeds nicely, I won't touch them and usually only after 3 grindings do they need lowered at all. 0.025 is the standard for cutting rakers but then it's all about personal preference as well. One thing I do, do is I dress my raker stone with a slight cant towards the front so the rakers get cut at a slight angle. that eliminates me filing a radius on the leading edge. Keep in mind that the lower you cut them, the more balls it takes to pull the chain through a cut and the chance of kickback increases as well. In reality it's all about what you are comfortable with.
That’s my dilemma. I know to try it a little at a time for personal feel. I am going to do that. But if the top of the raker is “supposed” to be at .025 under the upper tip of the tooth, then why a new chain would only read .016 by feeler. Makes me think I’m might using the wrong way of measuring the distance. I have the 20” chain from forester new in the box also as aforementioned. I’ll try to measure it also. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I do an awful lot of chains commercially, I made my own depth gauges for .025 and .030 These work from the top of the tooth same as a lot of the store bought ones, The reason I made my own was there are some being shipped with new grinders that stamped with mulitple depths and slots for same- no matter how I measured them ( I have a full set of mic of all kinds ) every single spot was the same. I have a couple of very old adjustable ones around here as well. One thing to watch out for when grinding and to a much lesser extent filing is a burr on top of the tooth , that can screw up your reading by quite bit at times. Generally I use the .025 gauge, cause I have no real idea what the chain is being used on- in the case of 50-60 some drive link chains. over that dl count I use the .030. I can pretty much just eyeball them or feel it with my finger. Got to be conservative with these battery saws as far as the depth gauges go they do not have the moxie of a dino fuel unit.
I havent used one in years. When the saw seems to not want to self feed in the cut after a fresh sharpening, ill give the rakers a couple strokes. Once in a while ill eyeball it to check after sharpening. If it bites too hard and gets too grabby i know i took too much off. Sorry if this isnt any help, but just the way i do it.
I do not want the chain to be grabby so .25 would be the max and .15 would be the other end. Anywhere in between is good cutting.
