Bench Chainsaw Sharpener Advice Required

[handymidi]

On 21/05/2025 at 10:56, doobin said:

They work well but be careful of heat build up blueing chains. Peck at it, keep your stone clean. Once you understand the settings it’s easy to do a decent job. 

 

i use a cbn wheel and waster mist cooling which is pretty much ultimate if you want to spend another £150. 
 

the grinder with the automatic clamp is well worth spending more money on, saves a lot of repetition. 

What is a cbn wheel and waster. 

I don't mind spending if it's the best method to sharpen the chains properly. 

[skc101fc]

44 minutes ago, handymidi said:

What is a cbn wheel and waster. 

I don't mind spending if it's the best method to sharpen the chains properly. 

Cubic Boron Nitride, a grinding medium almost as hard as crushed diamond, and Water mister to keep the edge cool and the wheel clean ( not 'waster' !).

Any grinder of any type, even lidl jobs, will do a lot of chains; hand eye coordination is the important key element,  along with small touches to the chain, not mighty long, spark blasting, steel burning, grinder stopping, leanings on the pressure handle. If you use milling chain professionally then sharpening a dozen or more of these things, up to 120" in total length makes it justifiable to invest in cbn etc. If its smaller standard chainsaw chains you're doing then learn to hand sharpen frequently when the chain starts to feel slightly dull, keep the grinder for the badly damaged ones. Grinders make you lazy and eat chain for a living 

[skc101fc]

On 22/05/2025 at 09:38, doobin said:

Baltic Abrasives.

Yep, these guys were great when I was milling with lucas mill.  Made me some extra wide custom wheels for edging the carbide teeth on the circular blade, no questions, no problems, exactly to my spec, even to the grit grade, - good sensible pricing, fast turnaround. 

[kram]

I have not used the decent sharpeners but the cheap ones have terrible slop in the pivot and screws such that no cutter will be the same length. I modified mine to improve it, now does a reasonae.job but its not quicker.

 

Had a problem yesterday, I have some cheap chains and saw, to abuse on low stumps, roots, risky cuts that are likely to damage it. The chains always used to sharpen up well after the abuse using a normal file. Im using good Pferd branded files.

 

The file blunted near instantly, one sharpen per file which was  a challenge, went through 3 files. I've never blunted a file before, very odd! I have worn out a good number of chains before this one.

 

I do have some diamond rotary burrs and a mini multi tool, plan to try that and see if the chain can be saved.

 

[doobin]

9 hours ago, kram said:

I have not used the decent sharpeners but the cheap ones have terrible slop in the pivot and screws such that no cutter will be the same length. I modified mine to improve it, now does a reasonae.job but its not quicker.

 

Had a problem yesterday, I have some cheap chains and saw, to abuse on low stumps, roots, risky cuts that are likely to damage it. The chains always used to sharpen up well after the abuse using a normal file. Im using good Pferd branded files.

 

The file blunted near instantly, one sharpen per file which was  a challenge, went through 3 files. I've never blunted a file before, very odd! I have worn out a good number of chains before this one.

 

I do have some diamond rotary burrs and a mini multi tool, plan to try that and see if the chain can be saved.

 

yes, one needs to spend on a decent brand bench sharpener, the cheap ones are a waste of money.

 

Even on the oregon ones I replace the plastic depth stop with a bolt with a rounded off head for a more positive stop.

[Stere]

https://www.tecomec.com/documents/20121/67321/P00802007_R18__Catal_F%26G_2025_A00_Lq.pdf/526d81e2-56a8-b39a-833d-35c6e583a4ae?t=1734431001816

 

There is a big range of models not sure what the important differences are i think the oregon are just rebranded jollys?

[Brushcutter]

I've got a little Aldi chain grinder. It's ok. Cheap and cheerful for how often I use it. It looks like a cheap copy of the basic Oregon grinder.

 

I've used the fancy Oregon one with hydraulic chain clamping. It's the one to have in the Oregon line up.the Stihl one is also very good but once you've added on all the extra bits it's very expensive. But these things do last forever so and you can charge people to sharpen their crap chains and blades.

 

Of course you could always import a simington grinder from the US and get a mess about converting it to run of 230v vat import duty shipping. It will make all the other grinders look cheap.