I've thought about that too.

Teeth look good, but they may be pulling to the left...

 

How worn out is the bar?

 

The chain is literally eating into the bar.

But only a few inches before the bumper spikes.

 

As posted chain is sharpened wrong, and the chain might be too tight on the bar. There is also the possibility that the bar is too thick (top to bottom) in that area making the chain wear that area faster than normal. Some saws need a tapered bar right where it's wearing on you.

 

On a chain saw chain there are teeth that cut and others called rakers that do not cut. Usually if you are cutting at odd angles to what you should be it is because the rakers are to tall.

Sometimes it is because you have sharpened one side of the cutting teeth more than the other. You really need to have a sharpening guide when this happens. You need to file the rakers down correctly. To tell if they are short enough find a nice flat part on your bar and put a straight edge against the teeth. If the rakers touch the straight edge they are to long.

Of course if your rakers are to short your chain tends to bite into the wood very aggressively and will most likely kill the saw a lot so it is important to have the whole chain properly sharpened.

I got pretty good with a file and sharpening guide. I used to cut 100” sticks for the paper mill when I lived up north. I helped clear cut hundreds of acres for different farmers so they could plant them with crops.

That lead to cutting a lot of branches and tree tops into firewood. The real money was in the wood the papermill used. On most of the clear cut jobs the hardwood would go to a saw mill somewhere and we would get a pretty good percentage of that.

Naturally the hardwood tree tops and branches went to firewood that was sold for a decent price. Sometimes I'd make as much or more on a load of firewood than we got for a load going to the sawmill. The last few years I did this we had a chipper shredder that we would feed the smallest twigs and branches into to make mulch.

The mulch was also sold to folks to use in landscaping and stuff.

The thing is with the amount of cutting I was doing I had to be pretty good at sharpening the chain. You could bring a dozen or more nice sharp chains and most likely you would go through them in just a few hours so you would have to sharpen at least one in a days time. There was a lot of metal in the trees even in pretty dense forest. Lots of nails and bullets sometimes wire. My worst problem was when I'd be limbing downed trees I'd hit the dirt a lot.

If your chain is eating into your bar you need to get some grease worked into the chain groove. And probably a few more chains. A little grease along with the bar oil will go a long way. Running your chain too tight is almost as bad as running it too loose. For me I would pull on the chain near the middle of the bar, if it moved more than 1/8” I'd tighten it a bit, if I couldn't pull it at least 1/16” I'd usually loosen it a tad.

I'd generally go through two bars in a season of cutting 100” sticks. Of course this was with cutting most every day through the winter months. I didn't cut much wood in the summer because I had a job with a roofing company through the summer months. Sometimes I would do a little cutting on weekends but did not like all the bugs or heat much.

 

 

Darwin award candidate.

 

It amazes me just how stupid people can be.

 

Welp sharpened the chain last night, took off the metal bumper spikes and happy to report it's cutting like a Stihl again!

Still going down to an 18" bar...

 

Never underestimate the stupidity of your fellow man.