Processor bars

[Firewoodjoe]

My firewood processor runs a Oregon 18hx bar and it seems like I have a lot of wear. The chain gets sloppy side to side and will start to stick in the cut. Cut bowls and such. My question is do u guys that run a .404 on a i woods processor have to deal with this much trouble? How often do u change a bar? Seems like I go through more then I used to.

[Corley5]

Oregon bars don't last as long as they used to.  I don't get the mileage out the new ones on the Block Buster that I got a couple years ago.

[Firewoodjoe]

Will yours cut bowls? Even with a new chain. Acts like its sharpened wrong but like I said its a out of box chain

[Firewood dealer]

I run the same bar & chain and do not have that much trouble. I can usually cut several hundred cord before it is time to get rid of the bar. What might be happening is if you try to run a new chain on a worn out bar, your drivers on the new chain are taller than the rail on the bar, this will allow your chain to roll and all kinds of aggravation.

[Corley5]

I have issues with worn chain too.  The drivers getting thin cause troubles too and especially in a worn bar the chain will lay over in the cut and won't cut.  That's when it's the worst but a new chain in worn bar or an old in new bar will cause issues. 

[Firewoodjoe]

Ok so I'll start with new bar and chain. Now I use about a gallon of oil in ten hours. Give or take. Prolly less then a gallon. Is that enough?

[snowstorm]

a hammer and a grinder help. i find the rails spread after a while. and they fill with sawdust an oil. when the rails spread i grind them so the are flat then hammer a bit till the chain fits better. i like the iggesund bar better than the oregon. and sthil chains. comparing a sthil to a oregon chain this first thing you notice is it weights more. if you hould it out straight is dosent defect as much. the cutters are thicker and a tiny bit longer. as far as cutting speed about the same

[Firewoodjoe]

Yeah I grind then wich helps a lot and try to hammer but boy u got to be carful

[BargeMonkey]

 We where running the GB bars and then started having trouble with them. The 18X oregon we have had lately have performed great. Every 8-10 cord I pull it off and clean the rails up on the bar grinder. 100-150 cord to a bar is doing pretty good, they start to get worn down and when they act up we junk them.

[lopet]

200 - 300 cord on a Oregon bar . Well the chain is different story , it always depends how dirty the logs are.  I found that sand in the bark is the biggest chain eater.
Using a gallon of bar oil in ten hours seems a lot to me. I am not sure what the original set up was on my block buster, but I remember the previous owner telling me the machine was wasting a lot of bar oil and the operator gets covered too . ;D
They changed that to a pressurized tank with a control  valve on it. ( Can't really tell you about the psi , but it's very low and you can set it that it only applies a drop every few seconds).  I only use about gallon per 50 cord or so.
Don't know how it works on the harvester saws, but it might be worth looking into it. 

[Firewoodjoe]

Well tonight I put a brand new bar brand new chain and had the oiler maxed out. Cut for about an hour and it started to stick again! It burns the paint off one side the chain appears to push against and rubs the paint on the log side. Something bent or what?!

[treeslayer2003]

the bar mount......it has bearings in the pivot point i would think. maybe they wore.....

[beenthere]

Firewoodjoe
Don't recall seeing a pic of your processor. What is it like?

[snowstorm]

Well tonight I put a brand new bar brand new chain and had the oiler maxed out. Cut for about an hour and it started to stick again! It burns the paint off one side the chain appears to push against and rubs the paint on the log side. Something bent or what?!

is the wood pushing against the bar sideways as it cuts??

[Firewoodjoe]

It's a Dyna and nothing is any different. I grabbed and wiggle and pulled everything and nothing appears to be loose. The main problem is the helper runs it. I haven't ran it in a month till he says hay it's broke. Hear we are. Oh yeah he didn't "do anything"

[BargeMonkey]

Did you check the bar mount ? I ran into this and found that I had a crack and it wasnt square. How bad is your sprocket ?

[Nate379]

I must be doing something wrong?!

I have about 600-625 cords on the bar on my Blockbuster and it cuts just fine.  I've dressed it maybe 2 or 3 times.

We where running the GB bars and then started having trouble with them. The 18X oregon we have had lately have performed great. Every 8-10 cord I pull it off and clean the rails up on the bar grinder. 100-150 cord to a bar is doing pretty good, they start to get worn down and when they act up we junk them.

[BargeMonkey]

I must be doing something wrong?!

I have about 600-625 cords on the bar on my Blockbuster and it cuts just fine.  I've dressed it maybe 2 or 3 times.

We where running the GB bars and then started having trouble with them. The 18X oregon we have had lately have performed great. Every 8-10 cord I pull it off and clean the rails up on the bar grinder. 100-150 cord to a bar is doing pretty good, they start to get worn down and when they act up we junk them.

You must be doing something im not.  :D   yeah 150-200 cord and its time, and thats running the bar thru a rail grinder every 12-15 cord. Ive never seen 600, a guy with a valley down the road claimed 250 once. What are you cutting for logs ? I run everything from the 4" top wood to the 22" ugly frozen HM logs.

[Nate379]

Alaska Birch, cottonwood, aspen, willow, and spruce.  Mistily birch.

I get about 8-10 cords on a chain sharpening.  Sometimes less if the bark has a bunch if blown in glacier silt (some areas get 100+ mph winds regularly)

I'd almost be loosing money with firewood if I had to be on a $75 bar every couple weeks!

[BargeMonkey]

 Cutting softwood... as I suspected.  :D 
  We run some hemlock and WP thru our processor ever year for the outside stove, goes like butter. Frozen HM with a touch of mud, snow and ice takes the life out of a chain, and beats the rails up pretty good. We dont leave much in the woods, if its over 22-24" and ugly we sell it log length but otherwise it gets trimmed and ran thru. If  you get 200 cord on a bar its long since paid for itself, @ 250 a cord thats 50,000  ;)  Bar rail grinder is one of the best things ever, grind and flip every 10-15 cord. Having a new chip separator made for my conveyor this week, the cleaner the wood the more you sell around here.

[drlewis]

where do you get the bar rail grinders. i  had  to hand grind my bars after about 30 or 40 cords thats the oregon bars  getting  about 100 cords  from them . frostbite bars are gone in 50 cords, been in alot of mud lots this year too.

[BargeMonkey]

 We bought ours from baileys about 15-16 ? Yrs ago. Ours is a "silvey" which is no more, but they have another one. The trick with the grinder is we have another bench grinder next to it, before you run the bar thru, just lightly clean the extra pushed steel back from the bar edges, doesnt take much. Not straight, tipping the bar on edge, and nice and quick. Then run it thru the bar grinder.

[Nate379]

Birch isn't softwood.  It's actually harder than many of the L48 hardwoods. 23.6 million BTUs a cord.  Better than oak, maple, etc.  95% of what I cut is birch.
First processor they had at the shop was a little Mulitec and it self destructed itself, the birch was too hard.

I sharpen the chain every 8-10 cords, I have no reason to grind the bar that often.  I do it maybe every 100-150 cords.

The wood I sell is stacked on the truck so all the junk is shoveled out and burned in a "campfire" or in the shop stove.

Cutting softwood... as I suspected.  :D 
  We run some hemlock and WP thru our processor ever year for the outside stove, goes like butter. Frozen HM with a touch of mud, snow and ice takes the life out of a chain, and beats the rails up pretty good. We dont leave much in the woods, if its over 22-24" and ugly we sell it log length but otherwise it gets trimmed and ran thru. If  you get 200 cord on a bar its long since paid for itself, @ 250 a cord thats 50,000  ;)  Bar rail grinder is one of the best things ever, grind and flip every 10-15 cord. Having a new chip separator made for my conveyor this week, the cleaner the wood the more you sell around here.

[Nate379]

Birch isn't softwood.  It's actually harder than many of the L48 hardwoods. 23.6 million BTUs a cord.  Better than oak, maple, etc.  95% of what I cut is birch.
First processor they had at the shop was a little Mulitec and it self destructed itself, the birch was too hard.

I sharpen the chain every 8-10 cords, I have no reason to grind the bar that often.  I do it maybe every 100-150 cords.

The wood I sell is stacked on the truck so all the junk is shoveled out and burned in a "campfire" or in the shop stove.


Baileys sells rail grinders but a spinny disc bench sander works just as well.

Cutting softwood... as I suspected.  :D 
  We run some hemlock and WP thru our processor ever year for the outside stove, goes like butter. Frozen HM with a touch of mud, snow and ice takes the life out of a chain, and beats the rails up pretty good. We dont leave much in the woods, if its over 22-24" and ugly we sell it log length but otherwise it gets trimmed and ran thru. If  you get 200 cord on a bar its long since paid for itself, @ 250 a cord thats 50,000  ;)  Bar rail grinder is one of the best things ever, grind and flip every 10-15 cord. Having a new chip separator made for my conveyor this week, the cleaner the wood the more you sell around here.

[BargeMonkey]

 Oh boy....
Eastern white-silver and black birch is an acceptable hardwood to sell in limited quantity per cord of firewood. Im showing 19.5-20 btu per cord, about equal to cherry and tamerack. It lasts about 1 yr from stump to stove or you have punky firewood. Maybe your birch is harder but we treat it as a tiny notch above softwood. 1-2 logs per load. HM, SM, RO, Ash is what your going to find around here. Ive run ironwood and pig hickory thru my processor without issue, 6,000 cords and going strong. I see a woodbine rapido loco 60" in the future.