Sharpen a Chainsaw - World's best method

hi I'm gonna show you how to sharpen a chainsaw that's very fast very easy to do absolutely the cheapest way well yeah the cheapest way that you'll be able to find to do this and very accurate in other words it does a very accurate job of getting the angles and and so on so that the saw remains true and doesn't doesn't wander around the place it says it's at least as good as any of the best machine that you could buy in the end the final product is probably better so let me show you how we do that okay here's how we're gonna do it here's a here's a chainsaw obviously chain needs to be sharpened I have Amanda Don this little contraption here so it'll stay steady although you'll see in a few minutes you don't necessarily have to have this but I'll explain that in a few minutes first I'm going to show you what this does and then I'll come back and show you how we did it so pretty simple I'm gonna take an electric drill I'm gonna put a chainsaw file in it in a very special way don't you can't just put it can't be just anywhere he has to be a special way I'm going to show you how to do that in a minute then I'm gonna set the chainsaw I mean set the file lined up to each little cutter knife on the chain has a laser mark that shows you the angle that the cutting face should be cut out so I'm gonna make the I'm gonna make this drill worth it with the file exactly parallel through that little laser mark that's on there so that I get exactly the right angle on this it's really important otherwise the the saw will tend to cut in an angle or something like that you'll also find that it's very easy I'm going to put my glasses on here so I can see so with it set like that angle this way is very important lined up with the laser mark angle this way is very important you can't come in here like this you'll screw it up you got to have this level you can cheat with a little level on the drill or I can just eyeball it leveling it with the top of the cutter knife you turn the saw you turn the mm drill on and we drill [Music] the saw is typically dull it takes about three or four strokes back and forth I'm only going along the first inch or inch and a half of the file because it's easier that way I'm not working out on the end of this thing and what I just did has left a perfectly sharp cutting knife on the edge of this thing with the angle correct the top of it so sharp that you have to be careful about touching it and as you can see it took a few seconds so I go to the next one by sharpen that and I'll keep on going for all 72 teeth it takes about it takes me about two minutes to sharpen this saw the chain all the way around when I get to the end of what I'm where I'm cutting here I loosen the brake move this chain around a little further put the brake back on and keep cutting one two three four you can see it's very handy to have this thing mounted firmly with this little vice that allows the thing to stay in place and yet allows the the chain to move in it's on it's bar in terms of sharpening that's it cut all the way around as you're cutting you can see very easily when you're at the point where it's sharp enough you'll see this sort of dull and ragged edge becomes real clean as soon as it becomes real clean and sharp across the edge stop go to the next one that's how you Tarpon and change that with this method now the question is how do we do it and there's a couple of real important points it's not that complicated but if you get them wrong it won't work first of all the file this is a regular chainsaw file size to be the proper file for this chain in my case it's a 13 64th or something like that and I have it put into the drill with the handle and down here's a new here's a new chain I mean a new file you can see the only difference is is that I've been cutting cutting this one off as I used it up I'm only sharpen with the first inch or so of the of the file it's easier to do that way that wears it down you can usually sharpen the whole way around with that first inch and a half and then the next time you come along and use the next inch and a half except in order to do that what you do is put it in the vise and break up break off an inch or so does these things are brittle they'll just break if you if you if you twist twist it in half or bend it in the vise put the new part back into the drill and away you go now you notice that when it's new it starts out it has a little handle on here that the file comes with for the for putting a wooden handle or something like that you can't put that in the drill and yet that's the end that has to go in there so what do you do you cut it off the way you do that is use a use a bolt cutter huh here I just happen to have a bolt cutter sitting on here you can't break this end off because very down at the end it's really not brittle it's still it bends and so it's only fitting down in here and so you put this on here this takes quite a bit of pressure it's better to have a it's better actually to have a bigger bolt cutter than this but this one will do and so I just go like that then it cuts the base off my file and it's ready to go into the drill now again I can't say this too many times very important the end that you cut off has to go into the drill first that's number one number two is when you begin using it you have to use the drill in Reverse in other words run it counterclockwise in its in its reverse direction the combination of those two makes the cutting edge of the file turn against the the knife and push forward on it if you put any other combination it doesn't work properly either the file will fall out or it won't cut or something like that so handle in first reverse drill sharpen away that's it you can see that each drill each time takes about 15 to 20 cents worth a file and that's the only cost I don't have to take the chain off I leave it right on the saw it's nice to have this thing to hold it up I have used these out in the woods where I use a cordless drill take this thing with me and I can be you know a mile from the nearest road and keep in mind my chain the sharp all the time is so easy that what I do is sharpen it every time that I fill it with gas it's like why not I'm always always working with the fresh very sharp chain and you know how much how much more pleasurable that is and trying to deal with a dull chain that's producing a bunch of small sawdust that's it I'm going to show you one flying a little thing and that is how I built this this little holder here and again you wouldn't have to do this I used to just do it with the bench vise and held this in the bench vise and used it that way but this is real convenient and it's simple to do for the little project I just made this out of plywood that's all there is to it it has a knot in it so that the vise the little less the little screw on vice can go into that and then it sits properly so that the saw will sit back away from the edge with the bar in here and not be tippy if this thing was all the way out of the edge it would be falling over all the time so that's why I have a notch and put it there it's all there is to it I went one lexer step and that as I drew but you probably can't see it on the camera but I drew a little cross lines here those lines line up with the proper angle but you're supposed to cut the knives that that comes in handy if the chain that you're sharpening doesn't have those little laser marks then you can use these to line the file up with and make sure you have an accurate an accurate cut angle all the time so I hope that's useful to you I've shown this method to lots of people dozens of people and several have asked that I put it on a video instead of having to have a personal lesson so here's the here's the video if you if you have any comments on this once you add it to the end of the end of the comment section and I'll put it up on YouTube thanks for watching see you later [Music]

Channel: Curtwpk

Views: 1,102,800

Rating: 4.2740765 out of 5

Keywords: sharpen chainsaw, chain saw, Sharpening, Best way to sharpen a chainsaw

Id: D6di3joo6Tw

Length: 9min 59sec (599 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 24 2015