Rob D

I find that - sometimes it feels so easy and then other times the saw will just not chew through the wood right... always a learning game this

Big J will love this thread if he catches it! It's all a bit of a piece of string questions as depth guage reduction and how you tweak it depends on what wood your cutting, saw choice, bar length, chain type, have you ramped or just flattened them etc etc... ... so one persons experience may not match anothers even though they have said they have tried the same thing.... so you really need to learn it yourself... If you're really interested then go here: http://www.arboristsite.com/community/threads/raker-depths.264395/ as over the pond they are a long way ahead of us.... It's the angle of between the working corner of the chain and the top of the depth guage that you need to maintain ie. so as the tooth gets smaller you need to reduce the depth guage more than .025" to maintain the angle.... BobL on there knows his stuff - the cutter rocks its way into the wood - a reason why chain tension is more important than you think in the way a chain will cut: It doesn't matter whether it's cross or end grain cutting a CS cutter does not work like a wood plane. The cutter rocks its way into the wood as determined by the cutter angle and chain tension. The raker and a constant cutter depth is maintained during the life of the chain the amount of "rock" available to the cutter decreases and it just cannot bite enough wood no matter how sharp the cutter is. It's a combination of factors with how a chain cuts - if the saw does not feel like a live thing in your hands then the chain can be improved! I struggle with getting it right by eye and have to use a guide to get a chain spot on...

Nice looking boards - I did a load of chestnut and it seemed to stay pretty flat even though was through sawn...

Thanks shavey only just seen this - any idead where these could be sourced/cost?

Nice looking lump - get some pics up when you mill it

Milling manually is fine to start with but when those elbows start to nag you the winch is a godsend.... it doesn't make things faster - just (as said) sooooo much easier. Very easy to control the pull and match it with chain speed and throttle....

Dunno who you would say is best - both very different... On the whole though foresters are better chain sharpeners I'd say - they need to cut fast, they're cutting clean wood, they and only they tend to use their own saw and so a near to perfect chain goes with the territory.... Arbwork lends itself to average chain sharpening - after all why get a chain perfect when you hit a nail or similar just afterwards! Or when the customer doesn't want to pay for the stump to be ground out but wants it 'as close to the ground as possible' or when your cross cutting it's easier to just go through to the ground rather than near the ground then roll the log!... or the new lad is on the saw and insists on using it as a rotovator:sneaky2:

Quite a high powered performance saw for carving - you're limited to toonie bars really either Cannon or Sugihara... Better of with a 35cc saw or therabouts for carving really... gives you a lot more options and you can then get the detail bars.

Good find - wonder how they have stablised it underneath...

Brilliant - great detail!

That's interesting Bill - why do you think it blued the nose? I've been playing around with it but only an hour or so at the moment so not really had a chance to really test... but bore cutting etc is amazing with no kickback virtually... I need to work mine a bit more and I think longevity wise you're not going to get many sharpens out of it - teeth are so small but... but really liked the way it performed.

I've been playing about with the newish 1/4" pitch picco chain on an MS192... beautiful to cut with, very fast and very smooth... But there are limited bars out there at the mo - (the only ones really are the 10" and 12" Stihl bars that go on the MS150T). I reckon this 1/4" P chain could be the future for all smaller saws - smooth fast no bogging down...

I've scored I think perhaps x2 pistons in my time - at the time could not understand why - now I know it was user error. First was an MS170 - thought I'd have a go at carving - hollowed out some old rings to make bird boxes - was using near full throttle (instead of half/feathering) - over heated and this scored piston.... Second was an MS880 - continuous milling in hot weather - not resting the saw down the cut - dull chain - switching off without allowing saw to cool off for a min or two... It's not always fuel but how you treat your gear. Don't run out of fuel (I have found always running the saw until it starts to miss and rev begins to effect how it will start and how it idles) and if doing long prolonged cuts allow a min to idle to cool off.

It looks a nice log but is there a soft bit in the middle? Hard to tell from pics...

Just need the chequered shirt for the hat trick

I've got them for the large noses - you need a proper ungiving metal surface to use it but they seem to work well. Getting x100 of both small and large kits for next Sugi order.

Good stuff! Those B&Q legs look good Ian - may get a few of them. Def a quick way of doing things.

Pleasure Looked at the Bahco website and like the history behind the company... What are they like?

Sorry that should have been changed - I have the 3/16" save edge files now but only 3 packs left. 7/32" out of stock for 2 weeks. 13/64" out of stock for 2 weeks. I have to get them sent over with my mills shipments or they are too expensive. Have a bumper load coming in in 2 weeks though and then I'll be able to overlap stock.

That would be a small nose kit but not got any of those until next order is here...

Drive sprockets especially on the big saws seem to wear quickly... When they have started to wear beyond a certain point they start to damage the drive links making them burr... this then scrapes the inside of the bar out very quickly.

The bar looks like it's done a fair bit of work looking at the paint etc in one of the pics. It's interesting ref bars - when and how often should you replace them? On the whole they get replaced when they start causing problems like this one is now. It's not necessarily how many hours the bar has done - if the drive sprocket is worn it will burr the drive links which will increase wear on the bar x2 to x3 times. Sometimes if the old chain has worn the bar grove out because of peened drive links problems start when you put a new chain in that is then sloppy in the bar. You can pinch up the rails but this is only ever a bit of a temporary fix and needs doing fairly regularly. At the end of the day I expect the bar needs to be replaced and also a good idea is to change the rim on the drive sprocket and put a new chain on. Cost a few £ but PM me and perhaps I can do a bit of a deal for you

I have got some Sugi nose fixing kits for the larger noses... These are £16-00+vat need to get them up on the website Or you can just use a punch to drift the rivet out - put the new nose and rivets in then flatten out. I've used the chain breaker for this then ground the rivets flat.

I'm thinking of making one as well! If you do stick some pics up.

Not sure - what bar is that you have?