making chains up.

[bill]

whats involved in making up your own chains from a reel? what do you need and how much money would you save?

[MattyF]

a chain breaker and rivet spinner....it a piece of piss but a reel of chain is gonna cost 300 and breaker and rivet spinner around 100-200? alright if you got about 20 saws and more than 4 blokes working for you but you would save money in the long run atleast a third i believe....

[jpbeaver]

depends on the chain. i was buying sarp chain @ £190 per 100' including postage and VAT. that would do about 30 chains @ 13" or 15" i think. should be able to get a riveter and breaker for £100 + VAT. its easy enough to do.

[Magnus]

You need a roll of chain and rivets.

 

I prefer preset tiestraps, but cutters is also availeble..

 

You don't need breaker and spinner for hundreds of money...

A rivet is strongest if it is taken out with a tiny ball hammer or bowl chaped plunge. (Not sure of the Eng words here.)

 

Rivet spinner does a good enugh job and is faster, but if it cost effichiant I don't know... It is induvidual.

[Quickthorn]

You need a roll of chain and rivets.

 

I prefer preset tiestraps, but cutters is also availeble..

 

You don't need breaker and spinner for hundreds of money...

A rivet is strongest if it is taken out with a tiny ball hammer or bowl chaped plunge. (Not sure of the Eng words here.)

 

Rivet spinner does a good enugh job and is faster, but if it cost effichiant I don't know... It is induvidual.

 

The cost of the breaker and spinner wipes out the saving of the first roll if you buy in the UK. I wondered how safe this is to do (whether there's more chance of a chain breaking), but I've seen people break the chain by filing off the head of the rivet, then knocking it out with a centre punch. They make up the chain by peening the rivet with a ball peen hammer. This may be ok for chainsaws, but I'm told not advisable on harvesters or processors.

 

You might save by ordering the chain, breaker and spinner direct from the US, from Baileys or Sherrills, especially with the £ situation now. I'm sure I costed this out years ago, and the whole package, even with the shipping and VAT, was cheaper than the equivalent number of loops. I didn't go for it, because it would have taken me a decade to use it all!

[Old Monkey]

I am a small business with just one guy working for me. I wanted to break my own chains, so I offered to sell chains to my old and much larger tree service to underwrite the venture. They save money and I do as well.

[Magnus]

I have a breaker and spinner and fix chains for harvestors and wood prossessors from time to time.

 

I fail to see why these are weaker than a factory made rivet unless the tools are badly worn or the guy is no good at it and careful.

 

Ball point hammer and tiny strokes makes very good resoults and are better than spinner if you are used to do this, but it is way more time consuming.

 

If it is .404 or bigger I grind the head down before I punch it out or press in the tool.

The 1/4 chain I alway's do by hand as I have no tool for the press, but .325 and 3/8 I just press out.

[Marc]

I used to make the chains for one outfit, one thing that I liked is they converted all the saws to 3/8, apart from the 260 which remained .325 and the 88's which stayed .404

[Gavin Hodges]

its easy to to do the rivet up to tight if your not careful then the tie strap snaps

[Jamie]

easy as to do, i do em all teh time at work. in 4 years i've had maybe 2 failures and thats me being pessemistic. once you are spinning yourself the chain is cheaper. I find spinning chains and coiling rope very theraputic...but i find splicing theraputic.

 

Easy as no breakages.

 

My tip, mark the work bench (all our saws run 3/8s and we have 3 bar sizes 56, 72 and 92, well we have bigger saws but the chains get counted out as and when required) with your sizes makes it super quick.

 

Jamie