Sawmill and bandmill blog

Sharpening your chainsaw

A well maintained saw will run for years, the most important thing to remember about a chainsaw is that you cannot do anything without a sharp saw, you will not be able to make even one straight cut into your wood without a sharp saw, I will outline the steps to creating a sharp saw with a round file. The chainsaw chain has a unique method of cutting wood the chain removes wood with the top of the chain(fig 1) and the hook(fig 2)

Fig 1


Fig 2

The hook must be low enough from the top of the tooth too curl the wood away from the cut. all this is accomplished with a stoke of the file, either a two handed stroke or a one handed stroke, stroke angle (fig 3) determines the hook size as well

Fig 3
Correct tilt
Correct angle


Place the saw on a solid surface or in a bench vise to begin, make sure you are using the correct size file for your chain, you can ask this when you purchase your saw, a file handle is also required so that the right pressure to the file can be applied, the file must be pressed hard enough to cut the tooth. Start with the correct position and file drawn back (Fig 4)

Fig 4


Push the file across the tooth while pushing down (fig 5)(black arrow) and back, (yellow arrow) also maintain the original angle of your chain

Fig 5


Start again from the beginning of the stroke and repeat until the top of the chain has a straight sharp edge (Fig 1), continue through all the teeth until the entire chain is sharp, if your tooth angles are not the same on both sides of your chain then the saw will not cut in a straight line, most chain has a small line at the back of the tooth (Fig 6) to help you maintain the proper angle

Fig 6


And thats it! easy as pie.

posted by Super sawyer @ 11:42 AM