Today on Repairs101: Iím going to show you how to throw a quick edge on your saw using
nothing but a couple of files ñ the way you do it out in the bush.
OK so one of the keys to getting your chain sharpened correctly is getting the chain tension
right so Iíd ask you to please look at my other film ìChainsaws : Correct Chain Tensionî
before you watch this one, set up your chain tension correctly first and then watch what
follows here. OK the first thing youíre going to need is,
of course, a work surface. If youíre at home or at the shop you know you can throw it up
on your workbench. If youíre out in the bush find a nice comfortable work station like
the deck of your truck or the tailgate or a log or a stump or whatever. I donít know,
some guys donít mind using the hood of their truck for a workbench.
So the first thing I should talk about is that there are all kinds of time saving devices
like this Dremel tool with a rotary stone on the end of it and they are going to make
light work out of it. And there are all kinds of jigs that you can buy nowadays ñ little
round ones that you can lay on the top, thereís all kinds of table-top jigs that you can use
to hold your rotary tool in place. Now Iíll give you that thatís a lot easier
than doing it by hand but if youíre out in the bush, thatís not going to be an option,
now is it? So the best way to learn really is the old fashioned way.
If youíre a weekend saw user : a rat-tail file, a flat file, a file holder, a file guide.
Thatís pretty much it. Itíd all fit in your pocket although I sure donít recommend you
carry that stuff in your pocket ñ especially if youíre in the woods working with saws.
You donít want to be carrying stuff like that around on you. Keep it in a tool bag
or a tool box and keep that handy. Youíre going to need a rat-tail file the
same size as your chain ñ in this case itís 7/32. You know Iíd encourage anybody to use
a brand new file. Oh I understand trying to save money for sure but youíve got to pick
your battles. Try cleaning it up on a ìfile cardî, this is called a file card OK it looks
like a brush for cats but itís not itís for cleaning files, just like that. So if
you can, try cleaning it up but you know theyíre not that expensive and for the aggravation
itís going to cost you: just chuck it and get yourself a new one. Iíve seen guys try
and get decades of use out of a two dollar file and I just donít understand.
Alright so this file guide here fits in your tool bag you can carry it around you know
on the job if youíre out in the bush itís not too much to carry around. It does give
you a really great accurate idea of what angles to cut. So if Iíve chosen the thirty degree
angle what I want to do then is line up that score line on the guide with the bar and then
you can see itís giving me a basis for a thirty degree angle. Just go down the line
to the next one and itís offset at thirty-five degrees.
The tip of this chisel here has been blunted off OK itís obviously hit something hard
ñ perhaps a rock, perhaps a nail, perhaps a piece of chain link fence. The only solution
youíve got there is to clean it up to the point where the tooth is basically restored.
Itís going to be considerably shorter if you take it all the way back to get rid of
the damaged point but you know, to have one tooth thatís a different length than all
the rest isnít going to affect your performance or the straightness of your cuts. Once youíve
got three or four teeth that are damaged and got cut back and are different varying lengths
from your other teeth well then youíre going to have it start to pull to one side perhaps
if itís not evenly balanced. Once youíve got three, four, five teeth that are shot,
then itís time to get a new chain. In the meantime take your file and just push it back
like this. This tooth that was damaged here Iíve cut
back to shorten it. Much shorter than this one over here, OK? So weíll just do the other
side now and then weíll look at the rakers. OK so the idea is to take a straight edge
and lay it across from the crest of one tooth to the crest of the same tooth in front of
it and that of course being every other tooth is an opposite. So when you lay that out then
youíve got this height here of this raker. This raker you canít really adjust for this
way. You have to go up and check it against the next set of teeth. So Iím setting up
my straight edge from chisel tip to chisel tip here and therefore being able to measure
the height of that raker. Now I can tell you right now that Iím holding a twenty thou
feeler gauge in my hand and I canít get it in there. Twenty thou is only two one-hundredths
of an inch. Two one-hundredths of an inch of an inch not a lot of room so I would say
we need to cut down these rakers. So Iím just going to take down the tip of the raker,
just like that. That being the raker. Iím just going to take down the tip of it with
my flat file. OK Iíll just do one from the other side there. Again: point to point. Take
my feeler gauge. I canít get it in there. I cannot feel a half a millimetre or twenty
thou. Anyways so Iím just going to take it down a little bit.
Youíre probably thinking ìhow come he yea how come he says yea yea yea and heís still
using a dirty old flat file. Well: youíre right. I got a brand new one right I got a
brand new one right here. Well OK Iíve used it once. Take it down. There you go twenty
thou or half a millimetre. Easy. Iím not suggesting that you take a feeler gauge with
you out into the bush Iím just showing you how you would confirm that you had approximately
a half a millimetre or twenty thou depth on your rakers to make sure the depth of your
cut is about right. You donít want to be too aggressive, you wouldnít want a one millimetre
bight Iíll tell you that because youíre just going to be pulling in too much, youíre
going to be overworking the engine, youíre going to be overworking the chain, things
are going to get heated up, youíre going to consume oil. You know? Itís just not going
to be a good scene all in all. OK check your angles and check your depths. OK this is why
these kinds of guides exist and after youíve used them for a few years you start leaving
them behind and just doing everything by eye and then checking afterwards and thatís what
I do I do them all by eye. I check afterwards, if Iím out on a couple of teeth I buff them
up. I tweak the angle on them and Iím done.