Carbide or normal

[Undercut]

Hi who would choose a carbide chain over a regular ?

I'm cutting 'clean ' oak but fancy a chain with a bit of oomph

 

 

He who dares...

Wins!

[treequip]

What makes you think it has "oomph"

 

Carbide chain is a specialty thing for dirty timber, it doesn't cut as well as standard and its a real PITA to sharpen.

[agrimog]

it is nearly impossible to get a sharp edge on carbide, its designed for cutting all the "crap" stuff, a freshly sharpened normal chain, and a touch up whenever it needs it, nothing akward about oak

[redmoosefaction]

I think you need to send it away to have it sharpened, and I think if you hit a stone it blunts like a normal chain, and it cost £1 per link, or did back in the day, but hey, don't take my word for it, buy some and find out.

[arbwork]

no to carbide as above , if oomph = cutting speed and wood is clean then go with the square profile teeth

[woodyguy]

Happy to share my experience.

I thought I'd try one. It cut fairly well. Not as sharp as full chisel but pretty ok.

Easy to sharpen with a diamond file (no need to send away)

but....

was doing some hedging work. Lots of imbeded barbed wire. Coped fine for most of the day but then it hit a bigger bit of metal. With a normal chain it would have been blunted and need half an hour to sharpen back up.

With the carbide the whole right hand side cutters all sheared off. Chain in the bin and won't be wasting my money again.

Just my experience.