Fulltilt wrote:Why would you use a file in a shop environment ?????
I used to do the same as well.. 2 reasons - first, greater control over the quality - grinders actually will change the temper of the cutter, depending on the operator, and the chain's condition - cutter teeth get a hardened face (and very hard to file away) and leave burrs.. hand filed chains last far longer (ask any professional hardwoods logger like my brother, couple family members and a lot of customers.. lots and lots of real world experience over the last 30 years..) and secondly, a chain grinder can be a pricey investment until you have enough chains to sharpen (and recover your investment) to justify the expense.. especially for a small one-person shop.. It was not until we got so busy that I could no longer justify the time spent hand filing chains (in the off-hours when I didnt have work booked) that we finally went with a Oregon grinder.. which even getting the cheapest one on sale from distributor, took 2 years worth of sharpenings to finally pay for itself.. (at 8 bucks a chain while local competitors are charging considerably less) So, there's plenty of reasonable reasons why one might just go with hand filing a saw chain - might could be the grinder is on the "tools to buy when there's free cash available" list.... unless he's got enough volume of sharpening jobs coming in regularly, it'd be difficult to justify buying a grinder for a shop that might sharpen 15 to 20 chains in a year.. (we used to do 300+ a year, but that's dropped off a LOT as we "charge too much - shop so-and-so down the road charges less" - and we refuse to play the "race to the bottom on price" game (most of the customers that wanted stuff done cheap are also the same ones that want cheap crap fixed for next to nothing, so.. good riddance)
How poor are they who have not patience. What wound did ever heal, but by degrees? - Iago (Othello Act II, Scene 3)