chain saw losing chain too often

[Deet]

I have a 455 rancher and I have a heck of a time keeping a chain on when doing a lot of limbing, trying to work fast. Normal bolt cutting or firewood work, etc, is not a problem. I understand the importance of keeping the chain tight, etc.

Father-in-law had the same trouble until he put on a different style sprocket. Trying to figure out exactly what that's called. Rim style? Local shop said that shouldn't make a difference, but whatever my F-I-L did with his saw made a big difference.

[BLACKJACK]

I know that personally felling trees scares the hell out of me, anything bigger than my 16 inch bar stays standing. 

[BobT]

The biggest tree (diameter wise) that I ever felled with my 18" bar was a gnarly old Box Elder. Once down I measured over 4' across the stump. Took a little while to take it down. 

The tallest I ever felled was a Red (Norway) Pine that gave me over 8 100" lengths before I got down to less than 3" diameter. I estimated the tree to be somewhere around 80' tall or a bit more. When cutting pine we usually were cutting it for lumber so we had to do things differently. Our shear didn't use a cutting chain or saw blade but worked more like a scissors and so it shattered the wood when it cut the trees and that was not favorable for lumber. Therefore, we had to hand fell them with chain saws. We also had to make our notch upside down so that when the tree fell, the bottom of the tree was cut flat with no notched out portion to take away from any lumber that would be cut from it. If I remember correctly, that tree was pushing about 3' in diameter and grew so straight that I had to use my push stick to get it to start falling.

When you fell trees that large you need to keep your saw extremely sharp so you can keep up with it once it starts to go over so you don't barber-chair it. I actually found that I could do a better job with my round file than any sharpening machine so I would even touch up new chains by hand before using them.

[Powerstroke]

Felling trees is a skill to be sure. The only way to get better at it is to start small and work your way up and becareful when attmepting things that look more complicated. There is no way to back up or start over usually when you start cutting a tree. 

Using a chainsaw is also a skill but most people who grew up around them seem to forget that. 

Del, I wasn't trying to bash you in any way. Your question is a common one and its hard to answer without standing next to a tree and explaining while we are cutting. LIke I said before, felling trees, especially if you're trying to make $$ on it, requires a lot of skill and hands on work any maybe sometime in front of a whiteboard to explain it. I'm hardly an expert at it since I mostly worked in residential tree care, but I did a lot of felling and I preferred to work on removals rather than the trimming aspect. Dropping a tree in the woods has its issues, but nothing makes you focus like trying to land a tree around a million dollar home and million dollar garage and a million dollar landscape. 

[BobT]

20 hours ago, Powerstroke said:

Dropping a tree in the woods has its issues, but nothing makes you focus like trying to land a tree around a million dollar home and million dollar garage and a million dollar landscape. 

Man, you got that right. I worked for a logger once in Grand Rapids removing trees from around homes and garages. There were times when you would question your own ability. Working in the woods was much preferred because making a mistake there only adds inconvenience and some additional danger but working around homes adds a liability issue on top of all that.