Free: Contests & Raffles.
I buy and trade old Homelite chainsaws for whatever silly reason people do such a thing. The three things I see when picking up old chainsaws are; the cutting tooth surface angle on one side isn't the same as the other. I've found numerous chains where the teeth have obviously been sharpened numerous times but rakers that set depth of cut have never been touched or were filed so far down the saw isn't strong enough to cut that much wood. I've found them so uneven that it causes the chain to bounce and jump while cutting. I've been given saws where the bar is so worn that the chain is flopping back and forth from side to side to the point where the owner says, damn thing won't cut anymore. It won't matter how sharp the chain is if the teeth can't stay in the wood. If when you apply pressure with your file, the cutting tooth moves more than a 64th of an inch, replace your bar. There should be very little play between the tooth guide and the bar. My opinion only; sharpening grinders in the wrong hands can destroy a chain so fast you might as well get a new one. Once the tooths temper has been affected, the days of nice big even sized chips flying are over and it only takes one or two of the teeth to be affected to render the whole chain useless. Stick with a sharp round file, set at the right depth. Tighten your chain before sharpening until you can just move it to keep as much tooth rock and side play out of it as you can while sharpening. Then loosen the chain until you can get a penny between the chain links and the bar. There may be no greater feeling than having your sharp chainsaw chain make large evenly cut chip piles at your feet!
