Chainsaw Cuts in a Curve? Why?

Chainsaw Cuts in a Curve? Why? - Intro

I have an old Husqvarana or Husky 136, which is fine for my needs. I was cutting like a dream until the end of last week, when it strated to cut in a curve, jamming the bar after a few inches of cutting. The saw was freshly sharpened and the bar was straight, so why had this suddenly happened.

Chainsaw Cuts in a Curve? Why? - Cause

At the time I thought I must have hit a stone or something so I immediately resharpened the saw, this did not help so I sharpened it again. Odviously I was hacked off, and in a rush and had no vice to hold the bar.

The result was that I filed down the left hand cutters more than the right hand ones.

The below picture shows the result, you have to look hard, but the right hand cutters are consistently longer than the left hand cutters. With a larger gap between the depth gauge and the cutter edge a shorter cutter will cut a longer piece of wood. If all of your short cutter are on one side then the saw will cut to that side. If you look at the difference between cutter C and D below, you will see what I mean. Cutters G and H are obviously different lengths also.

Chainsaw Cuts in a Curve? Why? - Solution

Guess what more sharpening. but only the long cutters. This was my first time thinking about cutter length and after 5 - 6 file strokes over the longer cutters the saw was back to cutting well again. The moral of this storey is keep an eye on you cutter length.

I guess a good thing to have would be some measuring callipers, as this would take out the guess work, but the M1 Eye Ball did an OK job in my case.

Happy Chopping.

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