Please clarify this for me. When I'm sharpening I am looking at the discharge side of the tooth I'm working on. I push the file away from me or "out" the face of the tooth, opposite direction of the wood chips that are cut. Am I doing that backwards???
I understand you to say when you are sharpening you are looking at the intake side of the tooth that you are working on. You can't see the filed edge?? Then you push the file past the tooth just like the wood chip would flow??
I've never done it that way.
CM, how do you do this??
Here's a picture (pictures worth a thousand words). I push away from me .
As you are standing your saw body is to your left, in your pic, and the tooth your holding your file guide on, push away from your body, through the tooth, from the center of the bar to the outside edge of the tooth/POINTY end, which hangs furthest from the center. Only forward away from the square back of each tooth toward the tip of the tooth, parallel to the floor, and with the same pressure on the groove of each tooth and at the angle cut into the tooth by the manufacturer, if present.
In other words, think of how each tooth grabs the wood. If you stand over the bar and look down on the chain, if each tooth alternated from left to right side of the bar and didn't overhang no cutting would be accomplished. The cut starts at the pointed edge overhanging the bar and the wood is drawn from that edge to the center of the bar and then cleans itself of the chips as the chain draws them around the bar to the bottom of the chain/saw body entry where things fly out. The chain runs forward pushing the teeth into the wood. That is why a good sharp chain, with a straight, no pinched bar, with clean oil passages and groove in the bar, will pull the saw into the wood and you toward the log, in a crosscut, for example. There is less to no effort for the cut to happen the torque and chain teeth do the cutting, NOT the operator pushing on a dull, poorly maintained saw. When a dull chain or any of the other items just mentioned are not fully functional the saw bar/chain can bind. It can also bind or pinch when sharp, but there is less chance/frequency to this happening. Pinching occurs due to not knowing whether to top or undercut a log, tree, branch, etc., and gravity moves the wood and the sawcut closes on the chain/bar and renders it immovable without releasing the pressure by moving the wood in the opposite direction. This happens to less experienced sawyers regularly. The thing to do is not fight the pinch by trying to wrestle the saw out of the pinch. It can often take having another saw handy to free the stuck saw. Fighting the pinch can damage/pinch the bar and in extremes bend it beyond fixable. In situations where kickback occurs the saw chain and bar tip are often trying or are pushing the saw up and away from the log/tree, (if the bar tip gets under the log), without the saw operator controlling that situation the saw bar/chain can fly up at tremendous speed and hit the sawyer or other objects/people in the nearby vicinity. Many sawyers are injured/killed because of uncontrolled kickback. This is why all saws come standard with chain brakes, low kickback chain, etc.
Proper stance, and clear escape paths when felling trees is essential to staying alive.
Hope I've answered your question in an understandable way?
