Hey there! Welcome to FarmCraft. I've got two
chainsaw chains here. Both of these have good properly sharpened teeth, they're both nice
and sharp. This one won't cut worth a darn, this one cuts great. At the end of this video
you're going to understand why. I've watched a lot of the videos that are on youtube about sharpening
chains there's a couple things that they leave out. One in particular that is much more likely to
be a problem for the non-professional. Sharpening a chainsaw chain for a lot of hobbyists and home
gamers is a bit of a mystery sometimes, but it's really not that hard. You just have to have some
basic understanding of how a chain works, how it cuts, and then you know how to sharpen it. And
you can you can make even an old ragged out chain cut great. And i'm gonna go through all of that in
this video. So this is everything you need to know on sharpening chainsaw chains. There's three
things you need to do to sharpen a chainsaw chain- No, but seriously, there really are three things
you need to do. First you need to get the teeth sharp. So here i've got my chainsaw grabbed in
a vise. This is very helpful and this is how i do it when i'm around the shop. Let's take a close
look at this chain here. So these are the teeth. That right there, that right there, that right
there. And that's what you need to sharpen. The chain goes this way, so the teeth are going back
on the bottom. And you do most of your cutting on the bottom, but you can cut on either side of the
bar now. I want you to see these teeth in action, and doing this by hand I can't do it on
a piece of wood, but i think we can do it with this piece of cheese. This tooth
here is going to contact this cheese, and it cuts a chip off of it, like
that. And then the other side comes and cuts a chip in the opposite direction.
And then this side again...the other side. Nothing like the taste of bar oil in the morning. So doing the same thing with a piece of wood you
can see how this raker tooth contacts the wood, and then the tooth comes and strikes the wood,
and then of course i'm not strong enough to rip that chip out because this is a piece of wood.
It would then chisel a slot through there, and then the next tooth would come. The
raker would hit and then it would chisel. And it's on the opposite side so the two teeth
together make a trough. One does the right side one does the left side. So the big secret the best
way to sharpen is with...the humble hand file. Seriously, this really is the best. You don't have
to buy some expensive grinder or jig. This is what you want if you own a chainsaw. Do yourself a
favor and learn how to sharpen with a hand file. It's going to serve you very well. The reason is
is because you need to sharpen a chain often. When you're out in the woods cutting, it's guaranteed
at some point you're going to hit the dirt, you're going to hit a rock, you're going to hit a piece
of metal in the wood that you're cutting. It's going to dull your chain and now you're out in
the woods with a dull chain. What do you do? Well, if you know how to hand file and all you have
with you is this, you're back up and cutting in just a few minutes. This is what the professionals
use. They use it multiple times a day. One rule of thumb is every time you have to put gas in your
saw, sharpen the chain. A hand file can actually do a better job than a grinder. The problem with
grinders is they can remove too much material, they can overheat the teeth, they wear your chain
out faster. If you do a good job hand filing and you're careful with your chain you can sharpen
a chain 10 times and it'll still be cutting just like it was new. Now a quality chainsaw is going
to have a mark on the tooth, and that is the angle at which you're supposed to hold your file. So you
want your file at that angle. Not that...not that. That. And you know it doesn't have to be perfect.
But basically this is your your sharpening motion. All right, so i'm going to do all the teeth on
this side first so that i don't have to keep changing my grip. I line up the angle, i hold both
ends of the file, and give it a good firm stroke. Now i am pushing it...kind of into the
tooth, so that i'm getting both that top edge and the side edge. This top edge
here, and then this side edge here. And it should come to a nice point. Now what i
do, i just take the file against this raker tooth here, and i push to the next tooth with the file,
so i don't have to touch the chain with my hands. So this tooth, it's not in bad shape, but
you can see the top's a little irregular. Now that top is nice and straight, comes to a nice
point. Good sharp tooth. Let's go to the next one. Yeah this one's pretty rough. See how
it doesn't come to a point and that's it's not even straight there. The
top of that's really rounded off. There. Good looking tooth. Not
rocket science here. You know, the angle is right there. It doesn't have to be
absolutely perfect. If you're off a degree or two, it's going to cut just fine. You know, you
don't want to be way off. You don't want to be like this, but just follow the angle
that's there and it's going to do fine. Now when you get all the way around and it's
time to do the other side, it's the same thing. You change your position, change your grip, and
then you follow that tooth angle just the same. So i should mention i haven't used this
chain in years because i hit something with it so i'm really having to take a lot
off these teeth to get them back up to par. Typically when you're out on a day's cutting
and you just want to freshen up your chain, three or four strokes is all you need to do. Now for the other side, I step over to
the left side and i do the same thing. And this is where the vise really makes
you much more consistent, because i can i can look right down that angle, and make
sure that i'm keeping that file on the angle. So you're out in the woods and you don't
have a vise, set your saw down straddle it, pinch the front of it with your knees, and i'm
holding the back sort of with my my calves, and file like this. And then the other way. Now for us old-timers this is a little harder
on your back. I wouldn't recommend doing this on a real beat-up chain because you'll be here a
while. But when you're out in the woods and you just need to touch up your chain, three strokes
a tooth. You can knock it out pretty quick. Another option is to buy a stump vise,
which is a little clamp that you pound into a stump that allows you to grab the
bar and still be able to move the chain. So that's how you sharpen a single tooth. Now
the issue is all the teeth need to be the same length. They don't have to be perfect, you don't
have to get out calipers and measure each tooth. But this tooth i can kind of look at it. And
you know what is the distance from from this angle line here to the edge of the tooth? And
i get a feel for that distance. And let me show you...that tooth is significantly longer. So i
need to take off of this tooth to about there. And that's going to include the other side,
now this tooth is about the right length, and doesn't look to be in bad shape. So i
won't have to sharpen that one a whole lot. That one will need some, this one will
need less. Can you see that that tooth is a little longer than that tooth? And just
in case people aren't aware what i'm talking about with the length of the teeth- So this is a
brand new chain, right here. And this is a chain that's most of the way through its service
life. And see the length from here to there? versus from here to there? See how much shorter
that tooth has gotten with repeated sharpenings? Let me show you one that's worn out. That one
is done. those teeth are just nubs. You could make this cut, but it's just not worth your time
at that point. If your chain is not marked with the angles or you prefer to use one of these,
these file guides...some people like them. It's just your file and it's just clipped with this
this guide on it. This guide has various angles, just check what angle you're supposed to use on
your chain. This one's 30 degrees. So i can see the 30 degree mark there. Ijust make it parallel
with the bar, and then run the file at that angle. So what i don't like about these is that they
cover up the tooth. I can't see the progress that i'm making. I can't see the tooth length
while i'm doing it. This does do one thing though that's really good for beginners. It gets
the right amount of hook. It holds the file at the proper height to the tooth, because if
you're inexperienced you may take this file and you may push down too much and you'll drive
down into the gullet too much, or you won't do it enough and the file will be kind of coming up out
of the tooth, and then you don't have enough hook and it won't cut right. So this will keep you at
the right elevation with the file as well as the right angle. So if you're just starting out and
you're not having great luck give one of these a try. So what happens if you have where the teeth
are all longer on one side than the other side. Well it's not going to cut. It's going to
try to curve in the wood, because the bar is flat, it's going to bind and it's not
going to cut. It will cut a little bit, but it's not going to cut deep into a log. The
reason for that is these teeth are at an angle. So that is not flat. It's an uphill slant there. And
this one also, it's on an uphill slant. So as you shorten this tooth, you are also lowering the
tooth. And if one side is longer than the other, then what you have is the long side wants to cut.
The short side is not cutting because this has already cut deeper than this can reach. So they
have to be the same length, not perfect. You don't have to get calipers. Eyeballing it works and it
works well. And that brings us to step two. You have to adjust the depth of your rakers. This
is called a raker. The raker height relative to the tooth height is what determines the depth
of the cut. So look at this raker right here. When i hold that flat file across there's barely
a gap underneath. And that is what determines the height of your cut. The more you take these
teeth down, the more you're going to have to file the top of that off, so that you're not just
making little tiny sawdust chips, and making real chips. For most chains the depth is supposed to
be 25 thousandths. 0.6 millimeters. Now they sell depth gauges like this that you hold across your
teeth, and then it gives you the proper depth. Right there you feel and see if your tooth is too
high or not, and if it's high you file some off. I don't use these. This is a lousy
one. I'm going to show a picture of a of a much better type of depth
gauge if you want to use one here. This type protects your freshly sharpened
cutting teeth and makes this process a lot easier. So there's a debate on if these are
called rakers or depth gauges. For those of you who prefer to call them depth gauges, what
do you call this tool? A depth gauge gauge? So this part is really easy and fast but
absolutely necessary if you want your chain to cut right. So i need to take a little bit off of these
and it's better to file from one side. You'll see what i mean. If you go the wrong way it wants to
chatter. But if you go from the right side it'll make a nice cut. And a little a little goes a
long way on this. A swipe or two is all you need. I like to kind of push away
from my freshly sharpened tooth. And that's it. That just gave me additional depth
to all my cuts on those teeth. Some people when they do this they don't like the flat spot on top
of the tooth, and they want to round it off. I've never found that necessary. I don't think it makes
any difference. The chain cuts just fine either way. I actually like to get a feel for my saw and
its power and how aggressive i like it to cut. I take a little more off the rakers than most do
which makes it cut faster. It also makes kickbacks and stuff like that are going to be more powerful
because the teeth dig in more. For a beginner who's not really used to using a chainsaw, keep
these light. Keep it cutting small chips and the the chain's not going to be so aggressive and
so grabby on the wood. I should mention when doing your depth, if you have a less powerful saw
and the chain is stalling all the time... it's grabbing in the wood and it won't keep turning-
then your depth is set too deep. So you need to back off on that so that the saw has enough power
to power through. So there we go. We've sharpened all our teeth. They're all the same length. We've
got the depth set right. But your saw still not cutting right. Now what? The next thing we need
to do is step three, which is check your bar. You want to rotate your bar up and down. Even
though the writing's one way, there's no up or down on these. You're going to wear out only one
side if you always keep that writing face up. So rotate it periodically. But as you're cutting,
and especially when you're cutting with a with a chain that maybe isn't so sharp you're pushing
the equipment hard, this bar is going to get hot. And when it gets hot it's going to start to
roll over, and you'll get a burr right there. And i actually have a little bit of a burr there. See right there on the edge of the bar, a burr
has rolled over. It should be perfectly flat. When that burr gets big enough, as you're going
down through the log a piece of wood will catch on that burr and it will hang it up. And the
saw won't be cutting and you'll wonder why. It's not the teeth, it's because a little fiber
of wood keeps lodging on the edge of this burr. This is an easy problem to solve and just takes
a minute. Feel the edge of that, take your file, and just knock it off until there's no burr left. There, now that's nice and smooth. There's nothing
to hang up as that bar is going through the wood. And you want to do that on all basically four
edges. This side, this side, and then flip it over and do those sides too. The other thing
to check with your bar is is it straight. If your bar is bent or twisted it is not going to cut
right. Now you could try straightening it out but most likely you're just going to need to get
a new one. So that's it. That's step three, check out the bar. Make sure it's not bent
twisted. Make sure it hasn't built up burrs on the edge here. Beyond that there's no reason
your chainsaw won't cut, and won't cut great. All right so here's a little quiz. This is
the chain that we looked at at the beginning and this is the one that i said had good sharp
teeth but won't cut right. So take a look at that and see if you can see what the problem
is. Let me show you the top of it as well. There you can see the red where i mark it that way i don't sharpen the same tooth
twice when i'm going around. You can see that this tooth is just touching
this line, and the raker is too. This one's touching and this one's touching. So the
rakers are just as high as the teeth on this. So this chain is not going to cut well at all.
It's just going to be making dust because these rakers are sticking up and blocking the tooth
from engaging the wood. So that that's the problem with this chain. All right so take a look
at this chain. I've got it lined up on the line, let me tip that towards you so you get a
good view. Now this has a two-part raker, that is uh that's what's on a safety chain and
that helps reduce kick back. Most of the chains i use are not this type. Let me show you the top
of the chain. So what's wrong with this chain? The answer on this one is the teeth are filed
incorrectly. All of the right-handed teeth are short the left-handed teeth are longer.
So short, long, short, long, short, long ,short, long. And that is not going to cut right.
That is going to cut on this side of the groove and not on the other side of the groove, and
try to make the bar curve and then it will bind. So here's another chain. What's wrong with this chain? This one is
totally worn out. There's hardly any teeth left. This is probably a little bit
beyond needing to be retired. And a couple other things i'll quickly
mention. Uh...you can put a chain on backwards. Only an idiot would ever do it. You
know...I...I certainly never have. No. No. Never. ;-) If you throw a chain on and
your chain is not cutting at all, you might want to just take a look at that. Make sure the
teeth on the top of the bar are facing that way. Another thing i want to show you is the
oiler. On your bar your bar's going on this way facing toward the saw at the
top there's going to be a little hole. Right there, is a little hole. And that can
get plugged with sawdust. Well that's where the oil comes into the bar and lubricates your
chain. So if your chain's getting really hot, it's getting dull very quickly, it's smoking,
it may be that this is clogged. So you can blow that out with some compressed air or just poke it
out with a pin or something. If you use the other side of the bar it's going to be right there.
I hope you guys learned something in this video useful to you. If you did consider subscribing and
sharing the video with your friends and on your social media, that's always appreciated. We'll
see you guys on the next one and happy cutting.
