Not again! You are fed up with the dullness of your chain saw chain. From the last two days, each time you took it for sawing.
Instead of a smooth cut against the tree trunk, your sawing experience had been more of a shower of sawdust! It is all splinters and wood burning.
The cut edges have been rugged and chipped too. Today, you decided to sit back and fix this problem. But as it is your first experience, so you are wondering how to sharpen your chain saw chain?
Nothing to stress about! Just keep your cool. Get your tools ready and read this article to guide you about the rest of the steps.
How to Sharpen a Chain Saw?
Chain saw is a convenient tool in woodworking when it comes to ripping. Since it is a hand tool, so you don’t need a table or proper set up to use it. It is portable. So, taking it where you want.
The chain saw is power operated so you can treat big logs with it. So, you use it for cutting tree trunks, treating the concrete sleds, carving sculptures out of hard snow. Thus, this handy tool has a wide range of applications in our carpentry life, particularly.
As we are concerned with the sharpening so, we will focus on its biting components, and how we treat them!
Biting components of the chain saw:
They are two in number riding on the chain of saw. They are the teeth and rakes. Both are significant in sharpening. Let us take a brief view of them and their role in biting!
Teeth of chain saw:
They are the main biting component. They have a base that is attached to the chain. The elevated protruding part is the one that moves into the wood.
This is the point where most grit is connected and, if treated repeatedly with hard, dirty woods, can result in losing sharpness earlier.
To prevent teeth from going too deep into the wood, the angle is provided by the rake and power of taking it out and moving further by the electric supply.
Rakes: They give the angle of bite and help in avoiding teeth from deep impaction in the wood surface.
Signs of dullness:
A seasoned sawyer needs a glance at his tools to know what is wrong where? You will observe the loss of luster on your saw chain.
Plus, the foremost thing is sheer burning. It is slow to make its way through the woods. Now it can cause buckling too. Overall, it becomes a dangerous working experience.
Options for sharpening it and how to go about it!
There are mainly two options available. One is tedious, requiring time and lots of effort. However, it is cost-effective. The other one is power operated and needs to be careful.
In short, the option you choose depends upon the sawtooth, a task they will be undertaking, the money spent, and the speed of the operation.
Manual filing:
This is simple and no big rocket science. Except with the angle and number of times you use your filer on a single cutter.
Wear your gloves and safety goggles. Then after disconnecting it, apply the brakes for the chain. Clamp it lightly. Now put a marking tape from you are starting. Put a depth bar on the cutters step wise.
It will show the level of the rake and the teeth. Make sure the rake is neither too high nor too low with respect to the teeth. As it affects the biting power and time of exposure.
After grinding the rakes, take your filer towards the tooth base. Give it two to three strokes of filing. The position of the filer is critical. Keep it below the edge in a slanting diagonal direction.
File it sideways, moving from down to upwards direction. Don’t overdo the filing. You can remove any dust or wood sprinkles from the gullet.
You can clean any impacts on the drive links. Oil them for a better experience. Likewise, treat each tooth separately. Keep moving till you have treated them all.
Using a power machine:
You can do that with your Dremel machine but to make the work simple, accurate, and sharp enough. There are special sharpening tools for a chainsaw. They are of two types commonly.
Bench sharpeners are power operated. As their name suggests, they require a bench or table for their set up. You can sharpen your chain saw by holding the chain in the clamps.
The sharpener is adjusted for filing the teeth on the chain. Turn it on. It will remove the impacted grit, sharpen the teeth, and level up your rakes.
Another electric option is handled sharpener, which is power operated. They are portable and do not require many protocols.
You have to adjust the angle and move on. It has the advantage of sharpening it while still on the saw, or you can remove it. If you don’t remove it, you will be saving some time.
The only issue or more so of a precaution is angling them accurately. It needs fine hand control. Since it is power operated, it has a spindle to shave off the dirt, so slight tilt can do a lot.
Electric options are fast and furious and should be handled with care.
It is saying, “I am ready to give a sharp bite again.”
How will you confirm if the sharpness is restored? The shine and biting edges are prominent. As you test it, it cuts smoothly at a steady pace, with no burning, chipping, or fragments flying all over the place.
Conclusive words:
Sharpening a chain saw is a simple task. You can use either chain saw filters for manual work out. Another quick but delicate option is using an electric chain saw sharpener.
Whatever option you are restoring upon, make sure you don’t overdo the task. It can make them brittle and easy to break. So, do it with care.
