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what is the proper tension to have on a chainsaw chain I'm going to tell you this right now if you
get five professional chainsaw users in the same room whether they be fallers loggers buckers tree care
guys spacers pruners whatever you take five of them you say hey guys tension up all your chains
to where you think they should be they do that you check all five of their chains you're gonna have
five different tensions I'm just saying there is some leeway here you don't want it too loose
you don't want it too tight if you have it too loose in your chain is kind of bagging down off
the bottom of your bar like this you're cutting limbing got it cockeyed a little bit in a piece
of firewood something like that it's really easy to derail your chain if it's too loose you derail
your chain you're gonna destroy your chain for one worse than that you derail your chain it can
actually come off and whip around and hit you in the leg hit you in the hand something like
that you don't want it too loose you also don't want it too tight now when a chain is on your
chainsaw it's a big long oval pretty much when it's spinning around your bar at 12,000 RPM
centrifugal force is trying to make that thing into a circle it's trying to turn it from what
your shape of your bar is into a circle it's pushing or pulling on the tip of your bar on the
back of your sprocket the tighter you make that chain the more pressure it's putting on the tip
and the back of the sprocket just from trying to do that with centrifugal force it's trying
to force itself to be a circle you're going to prematurely wear out the tip of your bar or your
sprocket so you don't want it too loose you don't want it too tight I'm going to show you what the
manufacturers recommended suggestion is for how to tighten the chain on what the proper tension
is they're going to show you that you want the bottom of that chain you look at the bottom of
your bar and the bottom of the chain you want that snugged up just enough so it holds itself up into
the bottom of that bar so to do that first of all you have to verify where your adjustment screw is
you're either gonna have your adjustment screw on the front of your chainsaw right here it's
going to be in between your bar and your inside dog or it's going to be on the outside of your
bar cover right here right where your bar nuts are themselves verify where your screw is now I
want you to turn those nuts off loosen those nuts off just enough so you can wiggle that bar up and
down now you know it's loose enough that when you tighten that screw up it's going to slide the bar
out easily to tension that chain up now this is the most important thing about doing this your
bar moves up and down this one is not bad it moves up and down about 1/2 an inch but you can see even
on this one as I do that move it up and down it actually changes the tension of that chain just
by moving it up and down I've seen some chainsaws that move up and down about an inch changes the
tension on the chain drastically as you move the tip of that bar up and down as you're cutting wood
it's putting pressure on the bottom of that bar it's going to try to move your bar up and it
will no matter how tight you got those nuts on there you're gonna start cutting it's going to
push the your bar up to the top position it's going to change your tension on your chain unless
you hold that tip up when you do it in the first place when you do your tension on your chain hold
that tip up to do it especially when you tighten those nuts back on again continue to hold that tip
up into the into the position where it's going to end up anyways when you're cutting wood then you
know it's not going to change the tension on the chain as you're cutting wood because it's already
up to the top where it should be ok so this is how we actually do this then we hold the tip
of that bar up we start adjusting that tensioning screw in and turn it in and in and in until that
chain is just holding itself up into the bottom of that bar continue holding the tip of the bar
up and then tighten those nuts back on tightly and that's it hope I helped you guys out a bit
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