Carving bar or not? And what chainsaw?

[Dan Maynard]

I'm not a carver, so don't know much about quarter tip bars. I guess it will depend on manufacturer but Canon seem to say 1/4 or .325 for theirs, .043 or .050 gauge (which is narrow):

How to Choose a Cannon Carving Bar - Cannon Bar Works, Ltd.

WWW.CANNONBAR.COM

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How to Choose a Cannon Carving Bar We offer a large variety of carving bars to choose from, from lengths of 8” up to 28”, and in various gauges, and tip sizes. It can be overwhelming as a beginner or novice chainsaw carver to figure out which bars to purchase. We have developed this guide […]

In general the drive sprocket must match the chain pitch, whatever gauge the chain is (so you can run .050 or .058 on the same .325 sprocket).

Normal bars have a sprocket at the tip, in which case the bar must match the chain pitch as well as gauge (and saw mount).

Some bars don't have a sprocket, usually either very big or carving. That means no sprocket to match but must still match gauge (and saw mount).

Rim sprocket and spur sprocket enables you to change the pitch more cheaply and eventually a rim sprocket is cheaper to run as you can just change the rim, but that takes a while to make any difference.

My 2p would be it sounds like one of those things where there are too many possibilities and it's best to just start basic and build up rather than spend loads on stuff you might not want when you have learned more. Other people seem to use smaller saws for carving fine details, you might find a small tip on the OleoMac doesn't really work well anyway because the saw's too big but you won't find that out till you start cutting wood.