chain saw blade sharpening?
what size grinding wheel do i use on different size chainsaw blades. i just baught a chainsaw grinder it came with 3 wheels but i cant figure out which wheel for which blade
First of all a chainsaw is used to saw trees, it doesn't have a blade it has a metal bar surrounded with a chain with sharp steel teeth on it. A grinder has blades, if you are having trouble figuring out what size blade to put on go to a hardware store. They are able to help you out.
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 CHAINSAW GRINDING SHARPENING WHEEL 425 diam sharpener  US $5.99
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 16in Chainsaver Chain Saw Sharpening Grinding Wheel 453 US $18.53
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Sharpening teeth
Marking and measuring is one of those really key skills that makers have to wrap their heads around. I see fast makers, always on the go, moving quickly between process and process, stop, and sit and think carefully, getting this step right before galloping off. They know that, to make a mistake here it can affect the whole job months down the line.
So I'm going to talk to you about marking gauges. In simplest terms they are just a sharpened nail protruding through a bar with a movable stock sliding up and down the bar. Nowadays we are offered complicated shiny expensive marking gauges that really aren't what we need. Firstly we need quite a few gauges, they are tools that are often set up and left until that process of the job is complete. So one or two gauges wouldn't be enough, simple wooden gauges are relatively cheap but some of the new engineered metal gauges are extremely expensive.
A marking gauge is a one handed tool. This is a key misunderstanding that many tool manufacturers fail to grasp. The job is held in the left-hand, the tool in the right-hand and the gauge is set to the dimension needed by tapping the heel of the bar to give a larger distance from the stock, the toe of the bar to give a smaller distance. Once the tool is set to the correct distance it can be tightened and fixed. Fancy micro-adjustments are an unnecessary pain in the bottom.
You have a choice of marking gauges and cutting gauges. I use the generic term marking gauge but most of the gauges around my bench are in fact cutting gauges. Tool manufacturers would like you to buy a full sets of each of these suggesting that you use one for scribing with the grain and one for scribing across the grain. This is nonsense, you need gauges that leave a clean and sharp line in all circumstances. This may mean taking a small file and sharpening the pin of a marking gauge or honing the blade of a cutting guage to get this sharpness and clarity of line.
Like a marking knife the pin or blade should have a bevel on one side only - see my article on marking knives if you're not sure of this. The bevel should face towards the waste side always, so you may need some of your gauges with a bevel facing towards the stock and some with a bevel facing away. Those of you who know me know that I'm in favour of minimal number of tools about the bench, this is a case where you do need a few gauges.
Looking at my tool catalogues I still see the Joseph Marples wooden gauges and would recommend them. For those of you who don't like the wooden gauge the Veritas Wheel Marking gauges are a solution. The Tite Mark marking gauge is a kind of expensive over complication that I would advise you to stay away from. You could buy 10 wooden gauges to the price of this overengineered plaything.
At the top end of the market I have a rosewood gauge with nice brass fittings made by Cullen. The benefit of this tool is that the beautiful sharp cutting blade can be turned around to suit the job easily, it can be projected to stand out a long way or drawn back. It is a precision instrument and I think I could still buy two of these for one silly Tite Mark guage but its still an expensive toy and if I were new at this there are other tools I would get first.
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