How to Grind a Chainsaw Chain With Your Hands?

Hello everyone! In this article I will tell you how to sharpen a chain of a chainsaw at home.

For this, you should use a special tool for sharpening a chain of a chainsaw. A round file of a suitable diameter or an electric machine.

Sharpening with a file is more correctly called editing. The chain is sharpened with a file using templates with or without rigid fixation. In the case of rigid fixation, if the chain does not pass by accident, for example, through nails, then you can do without sharpening at all on an electric machine. When using files without rigid fixation, after 8-10 edits, the chain should be sharpened on an electric machine, since the cutting angles are gradually knocked down even if the editing was carried out by a person with the hardest hand.

Sharpening the chain on an electric machine immediately, as soon as it is slightly dull, is not recommended, since with such sharpening a sufficiently large part of the cutting tooth is “eaten”. The chain in this case will serve much less than it could. Sharpening on the machine also needs to be carried out if the chain went, for example, on the same nails. In this case, to straighten the tooth with a file is unlikely to succeed.

120 varieties of chainsaws at very competitive prices. Click to view

The following recommendations apply naturally to electric chain saws.

How to sharpen a chain of a chainsaw with a file

In order to sharpen a chain on a chainsaw with a file, you will need, in fact, a round file of the required diameter, a template for the correct determination of the angle of sharpening, as well as a template and a flat file for grinding the cutting depth limiter (guide tooth).

How to Grind a Chainsaw Chain With Your Hands?

Sharpening set: round file with a template, flat file, template for grinding the depth of cut saw

1. Without removing the chain from the chainsaw, we apply a round file to the cutting tooth, observing the desired sharpening angle, and draw the tooth 2-3 times in the direction “away from you”. If you press the file to the tooth when it moves in the direction “toward you”, it will roll and stop grinding. Therefore, in order to sharpen it correctly, we press it only when moving “away from you”.

File sharpening without rigid fixation

The correct angle when sharpening using a non-fixed template, we look at the risk applied to it. It should be parallel to the tire chainsaw. The angle of sharpening should be 30 degrees for transverse sawing, and 10 degrees for longitudinal. It is more convenient to first grind all the teeth of the chain looking in one direction, and then go through the teeth looking in the opposite direction.

When using a rigidly fixed guide template, it is fixed on the tire of the chainsaw and does not allow the file to go sideways. The quality of editing in this case, as was said at the beginning, does not suffer from hand shake. Next, the desired angle is set and other actions occur as well as with the non-fixed template.

Rigid chain sharpening

It is also worth noting that there are such devices for editing with a file, when using which the chain will need to be removed from the chainsaw.

Editing a chain with a file and removing it from a chainsaw

2.Now we take a template and a flat file for grinding the guide tooth. To do this, put the specified template on top of the cutting tooth so that the guide tooth protrudes into the slot on the template. With a flat file, grind the part of the guide tooth sticking out of the template. This is done to maintain the required height difference between the cutting and guide tooth of 0.65 mm. Usually, such a procedure should be carried out after 4-6 edits, since the cutting tooth does not grind very much with a file for one or three edits, in order to decrease much in height.

Grinding depth limiter (guide tooth)

Diameters of files for chains with a certain step:

Sharpening the chainsaw chains on the machine

When the chain is sharpened for a chainsaw by an electric machine, it is removed from the chainsaw itself. Further, everything will depend on the type of machine. There are varieties that generally do not require human involvement in the grinding process, but such devices are too expensive. Usually the process is as follows.

Sharpening a chain on an electric machine

The chain is installed in the existing slot on the machine bed with the guide tooth towards the operator. Next, the bed is rotated at the angle at which sharpening is necessary. For this, risks must be applied to it. With a special emphasis that is applied to the back of the cutting tooth, the tooth itself is adjusted under the working disk so that when it is lowered, it “eats” as little as possible from the tooth, but at the same time that it is sharpened completely, without leaving pits and cavities.

Sharpening a chain on an electric machine in process

It is advisable to find the most “eaten” tooth on the chain, put an emphasis under it, and grind all the other teeth in this setting. However, few people bother with this. Usually they align on the first tooth that comes across and sharpen it all the others. And if you get a tooth to which such a setting does not provide complete sharpening, then align it, and then sharpen the remaining links according to the new setting. But, again, to correctly configure the machine precisely for the smallest tooth on the chainsaw chain.

You should also set the maximum depth to which the working disk will lower. This is done using the regulator, which is usually located on the back of the machine.

We sharpen the teeth, bringing each under the working disk, and do not forget to tighten each sharpened link with a special side clamp so that it does not “walk”.

So they go first along the teeth of the chain directed in one direction, and then for the other side they again adjust the machine according to the smallest tooth and sharpen the teeth on this side.

In order not to start sharpening the teeth in the second circle, you can mark the first sharpened tooth with a marker.

After such sharpening, again you need to go through the cutting depth limiters (guide teeth) with a flat file with the appropriate template to give the necessary difference in height between the guide and cutting tooth on the link.

Thus, in order to properly sharpen the chain on the chainsaw, follow the above instructions and you will succeed.