Jonathan Goodish wrote:
I am a relatively new chain saw owner who has Googled extensively and
read the owner's manual several times. I have a good degree of common
sense, and try to take care, but I am destined to make stupid mistakes
anyway.

After about 2 hours of use on the new saw going through cherry and ash,
I started into some oak about 12" in diameter with a 20" bar on a Husky
346XP (fast saw). I worked through this for about an hour and noticed
that the the oak seemed to be getting progressively harder to cut,
requiring more pressure on the saw as I moved toward the base of the
tree (tree had been felled already). Eventually, the bar and chain
began to smoke, and I probably made 7 or 8 cuts until the bar and chain
were smoking so badly it became obvious that something was seriously
wrong... the bar oil on the bar was bubbling from the heat. I removed
the bar from the log and ran the saw for about 30 seconds to oil the bar
and allow the smoke to dissipate from the bar and chain.

I inspected the bar and noticed that the paint had disappeared along the
edges of the bar, the Husky lettering in the center of the bar was
completely gone, and there were a couple of spots in the center of the
bar where the paint had disappeared. I suspect that the paint had
simply burned off at these locations.

Obviously, the chain was dull. Why that wasn't obvious when I had to
force the saw to cut is beyond me. That's the bad news.

The good news is that I inspected the bar and didn't see any obvious
signs of damage. I didn't notice any "bluing" of the bar metal where
the paint is gone, and I didn't notice any burring or flaring of the bar
rails. I did flip the bar over and put a new Oregon chain on it, and
the saw now cuts like a champ. I am not sure why the original Husky
chain became so dull after only 3 hours on the saw, as I took care to
keep it out of the dirt and certainly didn't hit anything other than
wood during operation.


My question: What signs of damage to the saw, bar, or chain should I be
looking for at this point? I suspect that the paint burning off of the
bar is premature wear at this point, but I'm not sure if that is a
indicator of damage. Does it sound like I got lucky this time, or could
something have been damaged that is not yet obvious?


Thanks,
JKG

Smoking? And you didn't stop? yep, that is dumb, but you
know that.

The chain is unlikely damaged, you just sharpen it, and if
it dulls very rapidly you may have ruined the temper, but I
can't believe that would happen.

Lack of oil will screw up the bar. From your description,
it doesn't sound like it got hurt. You can tell by running
a finger very VERY carefully on top of the bar groove
(bottom of bar where the pressure is during cutting) and
along each side next to the groove. If you feel roughness
or metal slivers, you need to draw file it.

Draw filing is fairly simple, put the blade in a vice with
the edge you want to file up. Take a small fairly fine
flat,file; hold it crosswise to the blade edge and exactly
at right angles to the side (wide part), set it down on the
edge with a bit of pressure and pull it toward you.
Actually you can also push it even if it is called draw
filing. The main point is keep the file flat so the blade
is filed flat. You won't need to do much filing. Finish by
lightly filing the edge with the file surface essentially
parallel with the wide part of the blade to remove any fine
metal slivers. DO NOT round the edge. If you are really a
stickler, you could polish the edge by wrapping 400 grit
wet/dry sand paper around the file and running it back and
fort on the the blade in the same way you draw filed.

BTW, you should periodically flip the blade as you have done
and it is a good thing to lightly draw file the used edge
which will up after the blade is flipped.

So what have you learned? don't continue to try to cut with
a dull blade, sharpen it.

Good luck.