Sharpening a Damaged Chainsaw Chain | Razor Sharp in No Time

[Music] [Music] [Music] i'm gonna tell you it is a crispy one out here tonight uh get that light turned off it's really not that laid out but as you guys know in the winter time here in uh here in ontario canada the uh the daytime is very very short so it's really not that late out but i try to hide out in the shop at any time i can't be outside and in the bush what i'm doing today is i'm getting my equipment ready for uh the next day when the sun comes back up so i can get back out cutting now um what we're going to do first off is i'm going to check over my chainsaws i think i got a i think i got to sharpen up one of the chains and then i also have a few blades that i'm going to set and sharpen using my equipment here for my sawmill before that happens though i sort of need these fluorescent light bulbs you see up on the ceiling to warm up because it is not overly warm in here and if those things don't get brighter i'm not going to be able to see too much it's about negative 20 celsius negative 4 fahrenheit we're starting to get into the colder days of winter and i'm starting to feel it you guys can see i got gloves on but don't worry wow i got my sludge so welcome back we're gonna get down to it glad you guys are all along if you're brand new here well this is the inside of my shop it's pretty much a glorified pole barn i got some equipment in here if we make our way over this way i got some projects on the go over here and well i got projects on the go over here and well this is where i hang out when i can't be outside so welcome back i'm gonna have some sludge i'm gonna get things fired up and we'll see how sharp things are here we go okay well the lights are getting a bit brighter here i'll sort of introduce you to some of my equipment if you haven't been around too much i have two general chainsaws that i like to use i also have a steel that i don't use all that often my dad actually has it right now he uh did a little switcheroo with me for a while uh oftentimes he uses this saw instead he's got my steel right now i'm using this thing this saw is what i use for lemming this is my husqvarna 435 this thing's a great little saw to be honest unless you're cutting massive trees this thing does everything i need to you put a sharp chain on there and you're good to go fires up every time as i said a really good little saw that's what that is for my living saw this saw over here is my go-to for most things you probably see it in my hands most days my husky 555 great saw 60 cc saw relatively light um it came out with some of the newer technology this has the auto tune definitely a high revving saw i'm very impressed with it i run a 20 inch chain on there 20 inch bar and the other one i run a 16. so this is my go-to i do a little bit of limbing with this but that one is definitely more fun because it's lighter anyways we're going to get this thing opened up oftentimes when i bring it into the shop it's in the evening usually it's in the evening because during the day i like to be using it cutting i bring it into the shop in the evening get it fueled up again 50 to 1 is what i use for fuel i run premium with two-stroke two-stroke oil uh then i just throw my bar oil in there one thing i'm going to note right about this time of year even before now when the temperatures start getting colder i start using a colder bar oil mix a little bit more viscous or thicker doesn't fly off the bar let me back up there a little bit less viscous and so it stays on the bar but by having it less viscous meaning it's more slippery it actually gets around the bar and lubricates it in the summertime you can use stuff that's just a little bit thicker and uh that way it provides adequate lubrication i think i got that right let's uh as i said let's get this thing opened up we'll check things over first things first i'm going to loosen off the bar nuts and before i go any further i'm going to put on my safety glasses if you haven't been here before not all that long ago i took a impact driver with a robertson bit and i accidentally jammed her into the old eye i wear safety glasses at all times now although some of you might think it's a little bit overkill i can tell you the first time you jam something like a robertson bit into your eye well you'll be wearing safety glasses just like i will every time one thing i can tell you when it's this cold out the trouble is everything starts to freeze and so this saw here i went from the bush and then i brought it in here well any moisture that had sawdust in it inside this inside this cover is probably going to be frozen not to mention it gets colder out your fingers stop working there we go so we're definitely in in time for a cleaning if i'm thinking which some days i am and some days i'm not i actually take the saw into the house and i warm it up and then all this stuff just pries right off nice and easy unfortunately this is not frozen on here so it looks like it's gonna come off nicely anyways you know some people get in there with a fine-tooth comb and yeah i do every once in a while but let's be honest i want to cut more than i want to clean this thing and so i do enough cleaning so that it's good and reliable but i'm not going to polish this thing up by any means while i'm in here you guys might know this already i find that you guys see the the spring the spring there that goes around the clutch i find that in the winter time you get a bit of caked on sawdust in there it freezes and then your your chain break doesn't work and so i always make sure to get in there and clean that dust right out from the edge of that spring first thing you can have is you're out in the bush and you know you want to cut some trees cut some material the next thing you know stuff's not working on you and then your down time especially dangerous if you're filling trees cutting them down and you start making a face cut or whatever and then you go around the to the back cut and for whatever reason something breaks on you well that's a dangerous situation to have a tree half cut so at the very least i always make sure the saw is never gonna have a breakdown at least not one that's preventable all right well that's gonna take a little while longer use a brush every once in a while and i even use my air compressor yeah that's pretty good for now so we'll call that good for now i know for a fact this chain is relatively dull truth be told i drove it into the ground by mistake if you're new to chainsaws you don't ever want to drive the center of the ground you don't want to cut dirt uh they'll dull it in a second maybe two anyways i drove it into the dirt by mistake cutting in the snow and as a result it's relatively dull so it's time for time for a cleaning or uh sharpening and although i got gloves on i still don't like wearing them there we go so i have a tooth on here and you may not be able to see it but i got a tooth on here that's pretty worn that's one's worn pretty good right there you see on the very the very uh starting edge of that you'll see how it's rounded down a bit we don't want that so we're gonna cut it back here in just a second you can see the same thing on that tooth see how the front cutting edge is rounded down we want that nice and sharp like that tooth looks good so it's nice and sharp on the leading edge that's what we're going for so we're going to run that in just a second on the sharpener i'll show you guys exactly what i do anyways there's the bar it just came off this way every time i get in here and i actually clean things i flip the bar over and so that we get even wear on the bar that's why from time to time you'll see myself and other people with the bar and the words are upside down it's because they flipped the bar to get even wear on both sides anyways just got to remember gotta go back word side up reason i don't like gloves i don't get a good grip on things we're gonna just clean that little groove here and they actually this uh this scrunch i think they call it this scrunch here it doesn't have the best uh the best flathead there i have some they have a perfect groove and they fit right in right in that groove nicely just cleaning out any dirt now this is a relatively inexpensive bar you can get all kinds of different bars with different uh different price price ranges this bar does not have a spot to add grease to the uh to the sprocket on the nose some of them do and it must be my other bar but some of them have a little hole there and you can use this thing see if i can find it there we go you can use this thing right here this push and lube deal and uh basically what you would do if there was a hole it goes somewhere like that and you push down on it and then it greases that sprocket this bar not the case another thing i do with these bars in addition to cleaning out that top groove i make sure that the holes here you guys might not be able to see it see a hole right there you got to make sure that hole is open so that when your bar oil comes out of your chainsaw it actually goes into that groove if that gets all bunged up and filled with who knows snow or ice and freezes you may not get bar oil into the grooves and then you're not lubricating your bar that'll be bad okay we'll just leave that for now and then the power head i do the same thing i just give her a check over and you guys i don't know you guys see that down there come on in here yeah come on in there i just try to get all this gum stuff out of here any sawdust i leave in there inevitably it'll get ice on it and i clean out that little slot anyways i just cleaned all this out this is a husqvarna this model has an outboard clutch so there's the clutch mechanism some of the other manufacturers they have an inboard clutch my other steel over there i actually forgot about i've got a steel um what do you call it a 660. it's a clone actually it's made by pulse forma but regardless it's got an inboard clutch so i just get all the hard stuff off here and i didn't do that throw over job but if you guys can imagine you get it off i use the use the brush i also use the air compressor and get her cleaned right out it's also a good time for me to check these springs i have had before not on the husqvarna but on my other chainsaw my holes forma i've had a spring break and as a result that had to be replaced anyways that looks good there and last thing we'll do here i'll just check the air filter now it is the winter time but uh some people will say you don't really have to deal with that in the winter the air air cleaner but i deal with it year round just uh just to be sure you can see there's the air filter also gives me an opportunity just to see what's going on with the engine here make sure there's nothing in here little bits and pieces of twig and whatnot and you can see they're a little dirty but not too bad every once in a while i'll just give that a blow out with the compressor as well so everything's good there we'll put her back oh it's cold on the hands tonight oh i don't complain too often about the temperature tonight i'm complaining anyways there you go that's that nice little power head there we'll get the chain sharpened up put her all back together that saw should be good to go all right guys well let's have a look at my little chain sharpening setup and this is for chainsaw chains now uh it may be a bit hard to see in here i got the biggest bright light on like i got but right here is an argon chainsaw chain sharpener i bought this probably all probably three years ago give or take this thing was around 320 canadian i think i don't know what it cost now definitely paid for itself just for just for simplicity i guess this thing's very simple to use and it's also saving me some time because i'm not out having to hand file everything this thing really shines when you have a really damaged chain on a chainsaw because you can cut back a lot of material really quickly whereas if you were using one of these guys which don't get me wrong i still use them from from time to time if you're using a round file it just takes you a lot longer so this thing's nice you can also go easy on it and just touch up each of the uh each of the teeth if you need to that's what we'll be doing here today in the manual that comes with this thing there are these settings depending on the the chain you're using and so i've got this already set up for what i like to use um if you have a look here the settings i tend to go about 25 degrees 26 degrees on this uh on this angle here and then the other angle that i'm dealing with is uh it tilts backwards so you'll see the chain actually tilts this way or this way i've got that at about 10 degrees and then the other thing according to the manual is i've got the uh the head angle set here and if you look up at that back part there you can see the angle i think i'm if i remember right it's like 55 degrees or something don't quote me on that but it is in the manual uh that's what i got set up for so let's put a chain on here uh once once the chain goes on there you'll be able to see it in action what happens is the chain once it sits there it doesn't actually have to come off until it's sharpened on both both teeth both directional teeth and so that's very handy let's get her set up you guys can see what we're dealing with that just sort of sits in that slot there and the hardest part working with gloves is moving this stuff there we go since right in that slot there this lever essentially once you get everything set up it just locks the chain in position and then you come down and give her a go with the old wheel you just want to make sure that the wheel is profiled exactly how you want it and for my case it's good to go so when i'm setting this thing up i just pull up an old tail and what i'm doing is i'm going to look at the teeth and you'll notice some teeth go this way some go this way the way it's set up now if you guys can imagine it's designed to cut these teeth the teeth that are sort of angled this way uh so what i'm gonna do is i'm gonna look at the most damaged tooth and i know there's a good damaged one or two on here but they all appear to be going the other way but anyways i'm looking for the most damaged tooth because that will be the most amount of material that i want to remove alternatively if you don't have any teeth that are really damaged it's just lightly dulled because of use then you're just going to pick any tooth to start on and i'll just pick one to start on doesn't really matter per se let's just say i'm going to start on that tooth what i'm going to do is i'm just going to mark it with a marker and you can do whatever you want maybe you don't want to do this but i mark it with a marker because i don't want to sharpen the tooth twice i only want to hit them once and that way if i mark it i know i'm going to start on that tooth and you'll see this piece i just flipped over all you're doing here this will line up this will line up and provide sort of a stop so when you pull on the chain backwards to sort of hold it in place and then you lock it in it's going to keep that tooth from moving backwards uh while you're locking it in and then all i do is i just very closely have a look at where the where the grindstone is going to hit the hit the tooth and i had this set up before for a different uh a different chain and so i'm gonna have to make some adjustments i'm gonna have to pull the chain back just a little bit and i've got two adjustments back here which will allow me to move that that advance arm there forward and back and that actually looks quite good that was a good guess and so if i think i'm close i can just lock this in place we'll lock that in place i always put just a little bit of back pressure i pull the chain back a little bit so it's right against this this um what do you call it metal arm and then i lock her in place firmly and i just check it one more time and that looks pretty good and you'll notice the marker that's the first tooth i'm going to hit so just make sure when i get back to it i stop just before it great thing about this unit when you turn it on it actually has a light on it so kind of nice and i'm just watching just before i touch the tooth where it's going to touch [Music] very light touch and uh you guys jump around here so you can have a look-see you probably won't even be able to see it it's that tooth there but what i'm looking for yeah here let me grab a light you guys got a light oh it's cold out hands are cold okay you guys see the tooth that i just did right there you guys see how you can see the shiny metal that's what you're going for just make sure that shiny metal goes all the way through the tooth right down into the gullet when i'm talking about gullet i'm talking about the bottom of that tooth all the way up to the very top leading edge so i'm just gonna have a quick look at it and make sure it's sufficient for what i'm doing and that looks pretty good to be honest the top edge could use a little bit more and because it could use a little bit more i'll just unlock it and i'm going to advance this arm forward just a little bit so the grinding stone takes off just a little bit more so i'm just gonna just a little just like that and then we'll lock her in place and we'll try her again you're probably saying you're probably saying gee it looks like you're taking a lot of material off and keep in mind some of these whoops some of these teeth are a little bit damaged and so they're gonna have to have more taken off now if the uh chain wasn't damaged you know i'm just gonna be barely touching this and that will be all you need to get them sharp [Music] when it's not this cold out you can move a bit better [Music] and ideally [Music] you want to take off as little material as possible [Music] that will come down to as i said whether your chain's damaged or not see how that barely took any off the top that is a bit of an issue the truth is because it barely took anything off there if i wanted every tooth to be ground down the exact same i would now reset this to whatever that tooth took off because that took off very little [Music] and all i'm doing is i'm going to look for that black mark which i see it coming up [Music] and my eyes are i can't quite see here with the uh glare off that light i think we got a little further to go you can always check the uh check the gullet too if you see it shiny you know you've sharpened it before [Music] i think that's our last one right there no i actually did that already so there we go that is all of it on that side and i gotta tell you my hands are freezing i gotta tell you i don't complain a lot about the cold but i am not seasoned yet i don't think we're under an extreme cold weather warning tonight and i think we're going to get down to about negative 32 or something celsius i don't know what that isn't fahrenheit but i can tell you it's not warm okay as i said let's flip this thing around we'll do the rest of the uh do the rest of the chain there so we did the we did the teeth going that way we're now gonna do the teeth going this way all you really have to do in this case is loosen this off here and uh then what you're gonna do on this dial it started at 26 or 25 or 27 degrees can't remember exactly but just after the 25 this way we're going to move it over to this direction on the same measurement so right over to about 26 27 right there and the last thing you're going to do that goes all the way this way and your locker in position the head angle on this unit stays the same and so then you just gotta pick a tooth to start on and we're gonna maybe we'll start with that one if you guys get right in here you can see what i'm doing okay have a look down there no down there okay see that right there i just have to make sure that that is in line with the middle of the tooth and we'll just crank her in just a little bit again that should be good and once again i'm going to use the marker and i'll just pull this mark in here so we know what we're starting on i can barely see that as it is so cold the marker is barely working [Music] okay we might have to be especially cautious so we don't do the same one twice locked in position and i sit on a bucket so i can see i suppose you could mount this higher but allows me to see real well [Music] gotta remember to look for that marker a mark you made so you know where to stop generally you can see it like i can see it's the next one and so i know that's good enough gone all the way around so guys that's it that is a sharp chain now the last thing i'm going to do in just a minute i'm going to take a flat file and i'm going to file down the depth gauges let's go do that over on the bench i don't just drink uh sludge for the camera i tell you i do love this stuff uh let's get the uh what do you call a chain back on here and the reason i put the chain on the saw first is that allows me to uh allows me to file down those depth gauges easily so we'll put that on let's make sure we get the bar in the right spot here we're going to put it letters facing up make sure we put the chain on the right way wouldn't that be fun i actually have to face the other way i don't know about you guys i can show you the way that uh you might see it better but and i won't get it on easily this once again is one of those times i hate wearing gloves especially with a sharp chain they just the chain just sticks to the uh [Applause] chain just sticks to the uh all right well let's get this back on here we're going to put the bar on and we'll put the chain on the bar and then i'll file down the flat uh depth gauges right on the saw letters up this time around so we slipped it from last time and we'll make sure we get the get the teeth going the right way i'm sort of putting this chain on backwards not literally but what i mean is facing you guys normally i have a face with me i think i'm gonna have to do that there we go another reason i hate wearing gloves when i'm doing work like this the sharp teeth tend to stick on the glove anyways here we go we got it in position here looks good uh just if you didn't know you can once the once the chain goes on there just pull the bar forward a little bit and it just pulls the tension out or adds the tension in i guess and then we'll go ahead and put the cover back on and i'm gonna have to face me to do this or i will get her on it's pretty good making sure that the spring here is clean especially you don't want material between the spring and the uh the clutch there one nice thing with this husqvarna it's got the bar nuts that are retained like it they don't they don't just uh like see how they're they're stuck there nothing like dropping this in the snow if you if you're out in the bush and you're fiddling around you know changing the changing the uh what do you call a chain out in the woods next thing you know you take these bar nuts off they go into the snow and that's the end of them oh it's cold i can barely handle this just before i tighten this up i always just make sure that the uh the screw here the adjustment screw for the bar to go in and out i just make sure it actually went into the hole it's supposed to you can tell because when you loosen it off the chain will get slack which there it is and watch what happens now when i tighten it that chain should then suck up and you know the screw is in place see the chain coming up so you know it's in the right spot there all right one thing i do you guys might not do this maybe you do i don't know i just get a block of wood use this 4x4 actually that's too big use this 2x4 and just when i'm uh just about to do my final tightening on the bar nuts what i do is i take a piece of wood and i set it underneath the bar so that there's a bit of upward pressure on the bar and that way when i tighten the bar nuts with the tension i want it'll actually stay there if i were to tighten it just like this there is potential after i tighten the bar nuts that i go out and start cutting and there's ever so slight motion of that bar upwards which then makes my chain a little bit too slack so i just put it on something when i'm tightening these for the last time i put a bit of down pressure that will keep that bar as far up as it'll be and so it'll never go any further up especially when you're cutting and you won't have to readjust things anyways uh let's see here tension wise you'll get 90 different answers from 90 different people i'll just do what i do and you guys can decide i don't want a ton of resistance but i also don't want it too loose a little more than that i like it a little tighter maybe than some that's pretty good i don't know what that measurement is maybe it's a quarter inch when i pull up on it i want it to snap back i think we'll go with that and i'm not going to tighten these to the hills or just snug them up and i'm just putting a bit of down downward pressure with my hand here as i mentioned on the on the grip good enough if you're ever cutting in my experience and you let off the throttle if that chain stops instantly you probably have your chain too tight uh so you want to back it off a little bit but as i said 90 different people we'll give you 90 different answers okay next thing we're going to do check the chapter check the depth gauges and so i'm going to use this right here this made by who oregon you basically set it on your two teeth in between the two teeth if you guys duck in here is a depth gauge jump on in there as i was saying in between two teeth there's a depth gauge right there you take this and you set it on and that little slot you have one of your depth gauges in between it like so and then i'm just going to use my flat file and i'm going to feel by going back and forth whether i hit that depth gauge and this one actually i don't hit it and so i'm not going to grind that down then i'll move on to the next and usually what you're going to find if one needs to be ground down they all need to be ground down but right now i'm noticing that i must have taken care of this recently because they're pretty good this is not a high horsepower saw i don't know what it is i think it's 4.3 horsepower or something and so i don't want to take these down too much because if i take them down too much the tooth is gonna have to do a heck of a lot of cutting on every pass and this saw has to be able to pull it and i don't think this is uh something that this saw is designed for it's designed to rev high spin fast but not uh do a ton of cutting with every pass so these dogs are actually good if they weren't good i'd take that block again just give it a little bit of support underneath like so and some people actually leave this in place and file it i don't like to do that because i don't want to file down the material on the top i just take it off put my hand here as a guide and you just go to town you give her a few goes i usually will count one two three on to the next one two three one two three and away you go so that's it that saw is good to go as i mentioned just make sure there's some fuel in it put some bar oil in it back to the woods all right guys well there you have it this is what i generally get up to in the evening when it's really really cold out and i'm trying to get my saws back up into tip-top shape to get them back out in the woods i hang out in here i get them sharp i get them clean and i do a general check of them what i have here is my husky 555 auto tune three years running strong very very happy with that lots of power fast revving really light relatively speaking and over here my limiting saw my husky 435 this thing also runs really really well that thing's probably a good 10 years old and it starts every single time husky's great saws in my books but let's face it any saw that will start every single time and can cut a log that's going to be a good saw in my book aside from that my oregon sharpener over here this thing saves me a lot of time i still do some round filing from from time to time maybe you want to melt in the bush or i'm not anywhere near this this sharpener but this thing i really like it i have no affiliation with oregon but i'm going to share with you guys when it's a good product and i like using that for the price come on back next time because i am going to continue my evening nighttime sharpening series i guess we'll call it but this time around i will be back and i will be sharpening my bandsaw blades for my sawmill this general setup here involves my woodland mills tooth setter i'm going to get those teeth all set left and right and straight and then i'll get them over here onto my sharpener and get them back into tip top shape just like i did my chain saws anyways guys i appreciate you being here stay warm out there if you have a chance to get out there and make some dust with some nice sharp chains or sharp blades make sure you do that if you like this video give it the old thumbs up make sure you come back next time and i'll see you then [Music]

Channel: Sawing with Sandy

Views: 54,952

Keywords: sharpening a chainsaw the right way, Oregon chain sharpener, easiest way to sharpen a chainsaw, sharpen a chainsaw fast, how to setup a chainsaw sharpener, make a chainsaw razor sharp, Husqvarna 555, making a chainsaw cut better, how to maintain a chainsaw, cleaning a chainsaw, chainsaw maintenance, proper chainsaw sharpening technique, making an old chainsaw new again, sharpening a dull chainsaw, sharpening a damaged chainsaw chain, Oregon 410-120, repair broken chainsaw

Id: pOGV-QW2Xzk

Length: 35min 39sec (2139 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 02 2022