limb saw and chainsaw question

[bluegrass]

"If you don't at some point the cutters will
get too low and you just won't cut."
True; but it will take alot of sharpening to get the knives to a point that they are lower than the rakers. Always use a guage when filing rakers; I touch mine up after probably 300-500 sharpenings. Maybe once or twice during the life of the chain.
Jeff, if you are only doing a little trim and clean up work you can just take your saw to a saw shop and have them sharpen it. While you are there buy a spare chain. If you keep the chain out of the dirt and metal fences and such you should go quite awile on one sharpening.
The article sundance placed a link to is a good basic article. One note to add is that you do not have to mark your place on the chain. If you look at your knives you will see that they alternate from left to right. All good brand store bought chains have two knives consecitively that are on the same side. This is done to mark your start and end point when sharpening. Most custom chains will have this same feature if the shop does not screw it up when they cut the chain.

[size="1"][ January 31, 2007, 01:01 PM: Message edited by: bluegrass ][/size]

[woodchopper]

Thank you Patrick and Sundance for posting those links. I've got a guide made by Oregon that clamps onto the bar. I can do a fairly decent job with it. Bought my first one at a yard sale for $3 and liked it so much I bought another one new so I could have one at each house. Nothing like having your woodstove cooking away and having the power go out. I look forward to cutting and splitting my firewood every spring.