Chainsaw Sharpening Guide Stihl

Chainsaw Sharpening Tool Stihl
Chainsaw Sharpening Guide Stihl Trimmer
Chainsaw Sharpening Guide Stihl Chainsaw
Chainsaw Sharpening Guide Stihl Trimmer

Содержание

Hold the chainsaw bar in a vice. Place them chainsaw sharpening guide on the bar, and start filing. The sharpener guide will control your filing angles and position. They offer you an easy step to learn how to file your chain the traditional way discussed in the eight steps below. STIHL Guide Bar & Saw Chain Selector This tool will help narrow your choices for STIHL Guide Bars and Saw Chains. The selector will ask several questions. Based on your answers, a recommended Guide Bar or Saw Chain will appear.

Introduсtion

Sharpening the saw chain is not more difficult than other cutting tool sharpening, but only if you have a set of special tools for sharpening it. Its tooth has a complex geometry. Chain element has two cutting edges – the upper edge and the side one. The second of which is chamfered at a predetermined angle to the line of motion of the chain, making this operation a bit trickier.

Is it time to sharpen my chain?

Tooth chain cuts wood like a shaving plane, and the chip thickness is defined by the height of depth gauge.
Intensive work with a saw leads to rapid dulling of chain. Within one day, it may require several sharpening procedures. The tooth quickly dulls when it meets the ground, which makes the situation worse. Touch the ground once or twice with the bar, and work should be stopped – chips become shallow, and saw doesn’t go into a wood any more. See pictures below to learn the difference between states of the tooth.

Sharp tooth

Dull tooth

Chainsaw tooth after a collision with a ground and a stone in it

The earlier dulled teeth is sharpened the less material needed to be removed for sharpening. As a consequence – the life of the chain becomes longer. It is simple enough to find out if the chain requires sharpening. A significant criterion is the pressure you apply to work. Properly sharpened chain is pulled into the cut even with a little effort. If a chainsaw work requires increasing pressure, the teeth are dull. Dull chain can also be easily recognized if you see fine sawdust instead of big and thick chips.

Chips after working with a sharp and dull chain

In this situation, the chainsaw must be sharpened immediately. Do not to cut with a dull or faulty saw chain or you’ll get a strong tension in the body, a large cyclic loading, and poor cutting results as a consequence. Furthermore, this leads to poor performance, higher fuel consumption and increased wear on all the chainsaw gears.

Chain teeth parameters

Overall cutting link description

The cutting chain link consists of a basic toots body (1), top plate (2), the depth gauge (3). Tooth blade has a vertically oriented side plate cutting edge (4) and an angled back top plate cutting edge (5) that is oriented horizontally.

Cutting link

Upper rear angle

For optimal cutting properties, tooth blades have certain angles. The upper side of tooth blade is angled back by the upper rear angle of the blade. This angle is needed to make upper blade plunging into the wood.

The rear upper angle

Top plate cutting angle and side plate cutting angle

The angle formed by the front surface of the top plate cutting edge and the top plate of a teeth form a side plate angle and a top plate cutting angle. These angles of the various types of saws chains differ. It varies depending on the type of a chain you have.

Side plate (1) and top plate (2) cutting angles

Filing angle

The filing angle is measured between the top of the cutting edge and a line perpendicular to the guide rail.

The filing anlge

The filing angle can be changed, depending on the application. General rule: the larger the filing angle, the higher cutting performance when cutting not frost and soft wood.

Reducing the sharpening angle for cutting the frozen and/or hard wood makes saw run smoother and reduce vibration.

However, you should avoid sharpening angle greater than 35° and less than 25° (with the exception of the chains designed for cutting along the fibers, in which this angle is 10°).

Side plate angle, top plate angle and filing angles change when sharpening. These angles have a decisive influence on the cutting ability of the chain. Be sure to follow the recommended values.

Depth gauge

Each cutting link has a depth gauge, that defines the amount of wood, shaved by the saw tooth per stroke.

Depth gauge

Chainsaw Sharpening Tool Stihl

The distance of the depth gauge determines the depth of insertion of the top plate edge into the wood (chip thickness) and, thus, productivity. Distance of the depth gauge is set depending on the chain pitch and the kind of chain. Normally it should be 0.5-0.8 mm, usually 0.6 mm. The chain link usually has a number stamped on the side of depth gauge which indicates the correct depth. High values will lead to an increased probability of chainsaw kickback, too high vibration and chain capture. Lower values lead to a drop in performance. Since the depth decreases with each sharpening due to reduce the upper side length of a tooth, the depth gauge also requires periodic shortening – every 5-10 time you sharpening the chain.

8 steps to sharpen your chain

You have to find out the pitch (size of a chainsaw link). There are a several types of chains, which have different pitches. You can take a look on a chain link to find a code digit. It is located on the outer side of depth gauge. See figure below:
These numbers are referred to actual pitches of chains. According to it, select the proper round file from the table below. You can only use this specific file for sharpening your chainsaw, or your chain will be spoiled and unable to restore.
Table for selecting the file
Diligently clean your chain. You can use hard brush to remove dirt, sawdust and debris. Use conventional store bought detergents or mineral spirits to get rid of oils. Do not purchase too aggressive cleaners, because some of them can harm the plastic housing of your saw.
Examine the chain for damaged or excessively worn links and teeth. If you find a tooth that is chipped, broken or bent, replace it with a new one. Broken links are dangerous to use. The upper plate (the upper side surface of the cutting teeth) should be at least 1/4 inch long. Shorter upper plate is overly worn and can break during the saw motion.
Fasten the saw and its bar. This will ensure you a safe and accurate sharpening. It is best to hold the blade in a vise so that the chain could rotate freely.
Correctly fasten chainsaw
Keep the file with both hands. One on the handle, and the other to direct it accurately. While sharpening, hold the file horizontally (assuming that the chain is oriented horizontally). The angle between the file and the bar (when you look at it from above) must me 25° or 30° (read the saw specification). Keep the file 1/4 of its diameter above the top plate. And note that you only sharpen the tooth on forward movement. Don’t touch the teeth when you move the file back. You have two main aims: first to make all the cutters the same in height (so every link will cut the same amount of wood with each stroke and every tooth will wear equally) and second is to make all the teeth match the angle they were machined at the factory. You can sign the tooth you started with using a felt tip marker.Filing direction Filing angle Horizontal position
Regularly rotate the file at a little angle, to make its wear equal everywhere. We recommend to move the chain during the work, so the link, you are sharpening is always near the tip of the bar. Remove the metal filings while sharpening.
To check the quality of sharpening, carefully inspect the cutting edge. Its surface should be equally bright.Not bright enough

Uniformly bright tooth.

Dark area under the cutting edge

In a hot summer day of 2012 when I was using a chainsaw to cutting wood gradually I found my chainsaw tooth gets dull. In this sequence of getting tired and weaken the tooth takes more pressure from me to cut and eventually the cutting finish is not so well. At that time replacing it needs much more money than I decide to sharpen it from local sharpening shop. I give it to them and get it back after two days. They sharpen it well, and the teeth also shine but never follow the Chainsaw sharpening angles, I wondered when using it. The tooth much sharpened but it never cuts so well. I see the inside and outside of top plate looks sharpen, but it’s not at a proper angle. Anyway, at that time I don’t know about the teeth angle and other maintenance.

I went to my father as he was using the chainsaw last two-decade and expertise one. In his reply, he shows that angles and their benefits, what I am going to reveal today to you.

Contents

chainsaw sharpening angles basics
- Chainsaw tooth angles

The chainsaw is nothing else a steel bar unless there have teeth. The teeth also useless when it does not sharpen or never cut the wood. For having well furnished cutting we always busy with sharpen the chainsaw teeth and mostly forget to secure the proper angle of a tooth thus helps us for having excellent cut in a short while. Chainsaw teeth angles are the angle of inside and outside of your top plate and the side plate of every tooth. You might think why it’s so important? It’s important because when the teeth plates cut into the teeth, these angles help it to cut fast and quite easy also help not to stop or stuck on wood in time of cutting. So why in time of sharpening a chainsaw chain be careful about these sharpening angles for getting better performance.

For having, the perfect angle in the cutting tooth see the manufacture of your chainsaw or see the manufacturer website to know the diameter. Then pick the perfect diameter round file that attaches perfectly to your saw cutter and maintains these angles.

http://www.madsens1.com/GRAPHICS/chain/angles.jpg

In every tooth, there have two angles in both top plate and side plate. Everyone has different works destination and working tactics though all of them work to help each other.

Inside Top Plate angle: Looking into a cutting tooth from above, the horizontal angle of the cutting tooth you see is the top plate inside angle. When your cutting wood is clean and soft and it seems easy to cut then this angle would be around 35˚. If the wood is much hard and frozen, then this angle should be blunter. The blunt angle may reduce the cutting efficiency but help the edge and gives strength to work longer period.

Most user says,” 30˚ sharp fast even also dull fast”

Outside side plate angle: It’s the outer edge of vertical part of the teeth. In cutting this outside side, plate plays the vital role, and it should be 90˚ and not less than 85˚. This angle makes a small back slop in the side plate, and it helps the chain feed. This back pile also helps develop the cutting efficiency, but it seems difficult when it goes into the wood so why some people also grind small beak in this area. But I always recommend to go with this beak and sharpen it 90˚ angle.

Outside Top plate edge: The outside of the top should be sharpened in 15˚ angle. My father also says about this angle that most of the operators work with his claim that it should be more angle like 20˚ or more thus the back corner works fast to go through the wood. The outside top plate helps to keep the same pressure on every tooth.

Inside side plate angle: In looking into the front tooth, the vertical angle you see is the inside side plate angle. It should be around 45˚. It should reduce for soft and clean wood in keeping a proper innovative balance. For frozen timber, it needs little more angular to maintain the balance of cutting edge. This angle prevents the flow of cutting toothy inside the wood.