new guy, (possibly) stupid questions

second-gen_monkey

Hello , i'm a new addition to the south florida (usa) arborist family. I've only been training for two years with my father in the family business (he just started it about five years ago with twenty years climbing experience and fifteen in utilities) and as you can probably guess i'm not comfortable asking too many questions about certain things. maybe you can answer this one for me.
last month i took out my first tree solo. nothing exotic, a golden Royal Poinciana, nice and soft but our 210 (sthil) went out and The Shop was further than the store so my father went and bought me my first saw, the sthil MiniBoss. sure it's not a climbing saw per-se but it seems pretty nice, easy maintainence and adjustments as well as larger, easier to close gas and oil resevoirs. my only problem is the length, it seems weird. i'm not near it right now but the bar is (i beleive) 18.5 inches with a 55 tooth chain. well, my chain is dull beyond sharpening now (lots of ground work cutting, reducing limbs for easier movement and such as well as reducing debris piled in the swale for county pickup, and finally removing a couple palms) i cant locate a chain that fits now. is there a better bar, maybe one that would allow the use of a 20"? and is there an advantage to having the narrow nose(tip) that came with the saw and if so would it be best to just stick with the oddly sized bar i have?
oh, last thing, my brother works ground crew (we jokingly call ourselves "resulting debris removal and positioning technitions" or "bush monkeys") and he managed to bend my bar slightly, it's off angle by 2/16" between the rear and tip. i'm not about to use a bent bar and was wondering if there is a safe and reliable way to straighten it. i ran it for an hour today before noticing the bend. it kept pinching at one spot so i looked and saw that it wasnt right, the paint on the bar also looks burnt. would the tiny angle cause this or is there something i'm missing?
again i'd ask my dad but i feel like a, well, a child asking such basic questions.

Therrin

hah! that's funny!

I've had minimal luck straightening bent bars. If you get a bench vise and some pieces of metal plate or thick strips, sometimes you can press the bend out of it by sandwiching it between them and tightening the vise. And sometimes you can clamp in below the bend and leverage the bar the other direction a few times. This occasionally works, but if you're not pulling in the right spot you'll just put an S curve in the bar. So.... it's up to you.
(oh, but check after you're done and make sure the bar groove lips haven't curled in, otherwise it'll pinch your chains.)

18.5" seems like a weird length. However, most of the saw shops I've gone to have spools of chain and can make a loop for you with however many links you want. Or at least, a good saw shop can. If you know how many links your old chain for that bar has, you should be able to tell a shop you want whichever kind of chain, with whichever amount of links/cutters and they should be able to rivet one together for you in that exact length.

Personally I'd go with the standard bar sizes though. Get 18" or get 20". That way at least in a pinch you can get chains anywhere, instead of needing a specific wonky size of some sort. Someone else will have to answer your narrow bar nose question.

Cheers =)

second-gen_monkey

i figured the vice thing. i tried it this afternoon and heard a funny sound, i can only describe it as a cracking, like layers of metal were being peeled or something. any idea on the burn marks? thanks sir ninja monkey.

Brent Ferris

A new bar is the best way to go. Straightening seldom works. And crackling noise - is warning you to get rid of it before the chain flies off.
An even length of bar certainly makes it easier to buy chain. I have bought bars for my climbing saw, and while they are supposed to be 15", sometimes the dealer gives a 14.5 and fits a 15" chain on it- and once it slackens, you have to get one or more links removed. So get an even length and save time and aggravation. The narrow nose bar, as far as I know is a style, I like mine a little wider, I think the chain goes around the tip a little better. Try and gert one with a grease hole; the permanently lubricated are ok until they get too hot.

Therrin

Yeah the crackling bar thing isn't good. If it's a laminated bar, you could be popping the laminated sections apart. If when you're done the nominal overall width of the bar isn't the same in all areas, it could cause the bar to bind up while in the cut.

TOSS IT! GET A NEW BAR!
(I prefer pressing to bending, but its a somewhat inexact science)

I've seen the guys who do chainsaw carving and stuff use narrow nose bars for detail work, but I think the rounder noses are better for keeping the chain in contact with the bar grooves.

second-gen_monkey

thanks guys. that's what i thought. it's a lamenated bar, i figured that was a bad sound. been using the 210 instead but it's not as nice for ground work. keeping both hands on is not comfortable cutting up grounded branches, as you probably know, the wrapped handle on the Mini is much nicer.
i tried switching bars with one of the other 210s but the chain from either saw won't fit, the origional 55 tooth is one link too short and the 210s 20" is now just a little too long to adjust correctly. we found a nice shop today (kinda hard to find a nice shop with well informed people in miami, asplundh owns this city, oh and onetwotree) so i'm getting a new bar.

i've also found a reson to favor the narrower nose too, i had to make a stump cut near a stone wall with a pipe about a foot out from the wall and a few inches from the trunk. the narrow tip allowed for the extra inch of clearance i needed to avoid being in the way of kick back. i've heard that kickback sucks though i've never had it happen to me...yet.

again thanks for everything. sorry if i ask a few dumb things, i'm still learnig.

Bumpoh

yeah the smaller radius tip is to reduce the kickback area,
safety bar basically

second-gen_monkey

yeah, i have an anti kick chain too, it's got a funny shaped guide link (not the right name but i can't think of it right now and i'm sure you know what i'm talking about) it doesnt seem to cut as nice as the old chain as it doesn't bite so good but it's what the shop had on the reel.
new question! the boos said i can sharpen the new chain the same exact way as the old, your thoughts? the non cutting link is kinda ~ shaped...
oh, got a new bar too.
thanks everyone