Carbide chain - uses, experience, maintenance, etc

Alta

This came up in another post and generated some interest and questions so here goes:

I work for a city fire dept in Ca and have been in charge of saw maintenance for a little over 20 years. Carbide was new to this area back then and not formally accepted with this dept. We use carbide chain primarily for venting roofs in residential and light commercial structure fires, as well as forcible entry when appropriate, and in numerous applications during what we call overhaul: the process of making sure we don’t have to come back later.

When I started with this dept. they had a two home owner Echos. They were underpowered and not in very good shape. I convinced powers that were at the time (I was a rookie here) to go with Stihl 038s and we have stayed with that general size since - current model is the MS460R. There are specialty saws for venting now but Stihl saws function well, are easially serviceable, have good parts availability, and can be used for wildland fires with no modifications. In fact we still have the 20 year old 038's in service on the brush rigs.

We used to use specially built carbide tipped .404 .063 chain from Big Ed's in LA (not sure if they are still around). That stuff was OK for opening a roof and reasonably durable, but slow cutting. When Stihl came out with the RD chain we went with that and used it for years. It was cheaper, and cuts faster, but it isn’t all that durable. We tried the "Bullet" chain (from Cutters Edge) and it will cut cinder blocks and metal lockers among other things, but is so slow in wood that it was rejected after a short trial period.

So it was back to the RD. Most of the work we do with it is opening roofs and it works for that purpose, but every chain that gets "normal" use comes back to me missing half or more of the cutters. It gets pretty labor intensive repairing them and cutters are not cheap either - at the time they were around $2 - now $5 or so. I think for frozen wood and stumps it would be fine but we tend to destroy it with what we consider one "normal" use.

Not too long ago, Stihl came out with the RDS (rapid duro special) and it came as standard on the MS460R "Rescue" saw when Stihl entered that market. It’s also known as "Raptor" chain and sold under that name by competitors. It is more durable than RD but is not easily repairable - can't just pop out a bad cutter and replace it with standard tools and I didn't want to tool up for the stuff. It was also twice the price of RD. It's since been discontinued by Stihl but can still be found sold as Raptor.

So far the best I've found is the new Stihl RDR - rapid duro rescue. This stuff has a more normal profile so it cuts wood well, and it is the toughest carbide chain we've ever used. In the 18 months or so since we started using it, I have replaced a total of 4 (FOUR!) cutters. This is worth some emphasis. This is the total number of cutters I’ve had to replace on all chains (25 or more) returned to me for service during this period. Normally I would have to replace at least twice that many on every chain and usually more - sometimes so many that I would just part out the chain and used the few remaining good cutters on the next chain. RDR costs twice as much as RD but it is worth 10 times or more (let's not tell Stihl that). For the most part I just sharpen it (diamond wheel 5203 757 0901) and send it back.

This has amounted to a considerable savings - both time and money, and since the stuff holds up under pressure, my feeling is that it greatly enhances safety since we rely on it for fireground operations. It has caused some confusion since it looks a lot like normal chain, but at this point I'm used to the slow learning curve with GenX/Y city boys (I call em "GEN WTF") trying to use chainsaws...

So that's basically it - I'll watch this for a while to see if it generates any questions.

CHEERS!

newguy18

How well would carbide chain work on palms?

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old schooler

Eric Frei

What about the bar, does it need a special bar?

Also, where online can I buy some etc ... might need it purchased USA and mailed here.

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newguy18

Baileys sells some ekka.

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Alta

I don't know about palms - the biggest problem with those seems to be the fiberous nature of the thing. I haven't cut many, but as I recall they just jam the saw up. I think the best weapon against that would be a really sharp chain, probably .050, and cutting slowly.

As for the bar we just use the ES bars as they are good solid bars. We used to use hard nose bars because the conventional wisdom was that cutting roofing material would gum up a sprocket, but long ago I decided to test that, found it to be BS, and we have been using sprocket tip bars ever since - 15 years or so - with no issues. With a hard nose bar it got way too hot and the chain would stretch beyond imaginable limits causing a variety of problems.

I just order chain from a Stihl dealer like any other parts - seems to work out fine. Dealer cost is $921/25' of RDR. About half that for RD.

kimtree

Centrephone services has Rapco tungsen carbide chain here in aus,i use one on my lucas slabber and also have an 18'' one for cutting dirty timber not that it gets much use now that i have a stumpgrinder,on bars your'e better off with a titanium bar they not dear also on normal chain ive yet to find any other supplier to beat his prices.Centrephone has a website,havent worked out how to link

TREEMONKEY

Hi Alta

thanks for the info my department is using the cutters edge with the bullet chain I will suggest the stihl rdr for the next chain we buy.

Greg

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Logger640

I cut alot of logs up with frozen mud on them. how would the chain hold up?I use square tooth chains and go through a chain a week

windthrown

Other than using carbide tooth loops for rescue saws (most commonly used here by fire departments for cutting through roofs during house fires) or for demo work on houses with tons of nails and the like, I do not see how the cost of carbide would justify using them. As I posted in another thread, you can get 8-9 standard top brand loops for the price of one carbide tip one. No special bar needed, but they do have rescue saw sleves to cut out towrad the tip of the bar. I keep my old worn out and rocked loops and safety loops that I got with some of my saws for yard trees that are suspect or apt to have nails in them. Ask the owner, and the answer is "No nails!", and sure enough, an old tree-house or fence was nails up in there and grown over. Wham! A broken chain cutter or three. I cut one tree that had a cluster of Simpson hangers inside of it. I killed off two old loops on that one. Even after that I spliced the good parts of them back into one 'new' nail finder loop.

For frozen muddy log conditions, I have used semi-chisel loops with pretty good results. Take a few sharp semi chisel loops along and swap them out as you go. Frozen wood is not the big deal. They cut OK. Its the mud, crud and sand that wear your chains down fast. Full chisel chains will get destroyed and dull really fast in those conditions. I used to salvage a lot of firewood from slash piles in winter. I fast became a fan of Stihl RM semi chisel chain doing that. It comes in RM full comp and RMF full skip. I have never found any RM in semi skip. The older RM2 was the same cutter with safety rakers, but they stopped making that a couple years ago.

Bruce Hopf

I too have excellent results using semi chisel chains for cutting tree tops, or logs with frozen mud, covered in snow or dirty conditions from skidding. They do tend to stay a little sharper than a chisel chain. This too is what I found as well.
Trick I also learned, is to try and have the dirty side of the log facing towards you, that way the cutter pulls the frozen mud, snow, or dirt out, and away of the cut towards the chain saw, there for the dirt doesn't fall into the cut, and get picked up by the next cutter in line, and so on down the line of the rest of the cutters.
If the mud, snow, or dirt is too bad, take a light axe, for trimming limbs, or tapping a felling wedge, and shave off some of the bark, where the cut is going to be, to eliminate some of the mud, snow, or dirty from getting into the cut.
I can see, and understand, using a carbide chain, for rescue work, especially when trying to save some one's life, if they are trapped in a building that is in a fire. Thanks for posting. Bruce.

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