Chainsaw issues...

[Jimk]

A 4 X 2 clothes prop? Wtf are you washing?, wedding marquees?

[Tim+]

In an effort to eke a bit more life out of my chains on my cheapo lidl chainsaw I bought myself a Stihl 2in1 sharpener.

I think either I?ve cocked up the sharpening or there?s another problem. If I?m cutting with ?heel? of the chain closest to the motor or with the tip of the blade if produces good size shavings. Cutting with the centre of the bar starts off okay but when I?m sawing logs the blade seems to stop cutting and just produces fine sawdust. Moving the chainsaw in and out to use the ?heel? and the ?nose? enables me to carry on cutting but obviously it?s not right.

As an aside, I?ve never been convinced that the blade oiler is doing a good enough job. There?s never been any oil splatter when revved and held vertically over a piece of paper. The pump is pumping out oil though. I can see it if I run the engine without the chain but the chain and bar get very hot in use.

Could the bar be worn or in some way affecting the way the chain is cutting?

Tim

[John Rumm]

Lack of lubrication can cause some odd behaviours - including a hot bar, and lots of steam from the cut. It quite often swells the wood near the cut making progress much harder.

[williamwright]

File down the spur between the blades on the chain a tiny bit. Put a straightedge across the blades at the midpoint of the bar and the spurs should be about 0.3mm lower.

Bill

[Paul]

There are at least two weights of chain oil. Summer and Winter.

And, you adjust the tension as you cut. When the device is cold, that's one setting, then lock it. As it warms, the chain gets longer, and a tension adjustment followed by locking it, may help.

With the small saws, keep the chain out of the dirt. No flush cuts to soil level. That's really hard on the chain. The chain "likes" soft wood.

Check out a video and make sure your chain is facing the same way as the one in the picture. On the cutting link, one part of the link is the depth gauge and prevents the cutting link from taking too large a bite. The larger part behind it, makes the bite. If the difference in height between the two isn't correct, it will remove too much wood, or (sawdust) too little wood. The replacement chain has an instruction guide in the box, that includes the "depth", which is 0.025 for my chain (on toy chainsaw). On the cutting link, the nose is 0.025 below the cutting part that travels behind it, according to the instructions in the replacement chain box.

"How To Remove or Replace Electric Chainsaw Chain Quick and Easy" <=== Ha!

Paul

[The Natural Philosopher]

that does not make sense As long as I am producing big fat chips I know my blade is sharp, and if the oil is being used its oiling the blade. Check for blueing on the teeth for overheating.

HOWEVER deep cuts on fat logs with small chainsaws often seem problematic. I too occasionally have to give it less lentght to cut by rocking the saw a bit.

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

Tim+ wrote on 19/05/2020 :

I bought one as a distress purchase last year, when a tree blew down. My saw came complete with a sharpening kit, it wasn't difficult to use.

[The Natural Philosopher]

It's amazing that three hours of work and a chainsaw costs less than a tree surgeon...

[charles]

true, but real tree surgeons have proper climbing kit and don't mind going up high. That's no longer my idea of fun.

Mind you, I've acquired a lot of decent tools to do jobs myself.

[AJH]

Oddly I only see Paul's response in this thread but it sounds like the bar is a bit worn and your sharpening slightly uneven, the cut becomes biaised to one side which cants the cutter over and the bar catches on the edge of the kerf.

[Tim Lamb]

In message [e-mail]>, AJH [e-mail]> writes

Easy enough to turn the bar over for a less worn slot. Concur on the

*too little lubrication* effect on domestic saws.

[Tim+]

After I posted last night I suddenly thought ?When did I actually top up the oil tank??. Some time ago actually but I?ve just checked it and it?s half full despite quite a lot of recent chainsaw action.

I think I need to investigate the oiling issue as according to the manual, some ?splatter? should be evident in use and I?ve never seen this.

Tim

[NY]

My chainsaw (one with a rechargeable battery) has a little "window" in the plastic oil reservoir, but it is very difficult to tell where the line of the oil is if the tank is completely full or completely empty. Only if the tank is partly full can you see a line to work out the level.

The filler of mine is a real bastard, because there is a very small cup above a plastic mesh filter, and you need to "pour boldly" to make sure the oil goes downwards rather than running down the bottle, so there is a tendency to fill the cup to overflowing, then have to wait for it to drain slowly through the mesh so more can be poured - repeat until the cup doesn't drain. Or else get someone else to look at the level in the visibility window and say when the oil line is getting near to "full", because this is not possible to do while you are looking from above at the filler cap.

I bought a reciprocating saw for pruning trees, thinking that this would be better for thinner branches which a chainsaw may tend to snatch and get caught in. But the coarsest blade is still relatively fine and it takes a long time to get through a branch. My handsaw with a similar coarseness of teeth seems to cut far more quickly - as long as its blade doesn't bind in the wood. Similarly I was cutting a notch out of a length of 4x2 to make a clothes prop (notch to take the washing line) and it took a lot longer with the electric reciprocating saw than with the hand saw. I get the impression that the blades that the saw is provided with are very soft and go blunt quickly. I wanted to saw off the end of a screw, and the fine metal-cutting blade has much shorter teeth in the middle where it touched the screw - and that was after about 30 seconds use from being unused. Not what I'd expect from a household-name maker of appliances...

In contrast, the chainsaw goes through branches very quickly - and can even attack small branches without getting caught up, though it does tend to rip them off! Doesn't matter if it's a tree I'm cutting down, and I'm just trimming off the side branches before felling the trunk, but if it's a live tree, I'd probably use the hand saw or the electric recip saw to finish off any side branches that I pruned.

[Tim+]

Well I think the problem is a case of not RTFM! ;-)

The oil reservoir looked about half to a third full but when I ran the engine without the chainbar not a drop of oil appeared through the appropriate orifice.

I brimmed the oil tank and oil promptly started pumping out with the engine running. In my defence I did read the manual but didn?t accept the importance of following the instructions to top up the oil tank up every time I refuelled, thinking that the oiling would continue until the oil tank ran out.

Clearly there?s something a bit funny about the oil pick-up from the reservoir but the solution seems to be simple, just follow the instructions. ;-)

I?ve run out of wood to test it on at the moment though but I?m confident that it?ll function better with the blade getting some oil. (The ?splatter test? does produce very fine droplets now that I may have not noticed before. They are finer than I would have expected even with the oiler turned to max but then this is my first chainsaw so I?m not sure really just how much to expect).

Tim

[AJH]

Normal test is to stand with the saw tip a couple of inches off a clean piece of wood and rev it for ten seconds, a black line of oily debris should appear on the wood.

If not remove the bar and do the same while looking at the oiler hole in the crankcase, oil should bubble out. If not then common problems are sawdust in the pump intake or stripped plastic worm gear on the pump. If pump works the oil gallery on bar needs cleaning.

NB running saw without bar and chain on on some saws, particularly husqvarna, can result in the inertia of the clutch shoes spinning itself off on overrun.

You normally notice a lack of oiling by the chain stopping too quickly on overrun and dull cutter top plates.

As yours is a common problem from worn bar (which of course lack of oil can cause) jamming in the cut check that there is no lip on the bar which needs dressing with a file.

If the bar has a concavity just after the nose this normally points to the drive sprocket being worn.

[harry]

You'll probably find the oilway is blocked with wood chips that got into the oil tank.