13
Carlton
®
Maintenance and Safety Manual
Understanding depth gauges
The least understood part of depth gauge maintenance (aside
from not knowing that depth gauges need to be maintained at
all) is how much to file the depth gauges down each time the
cutter is sharpened. If the depth gauges are not lowered enough,
the saw chain will not cut efficiently. If depth gauges are
lowered too much, the saw chain will cut, but cut very
aggressively.
Please see page 10 for filing specifications for the
Carlton family of saw chain.
A
new cutter
(1.) has a depth
gauge setting that will feed
into the wood efficiently. The
depth gauge setting
is the
distance between the height
of the depth gauge relative to
the overall height of the cutter.
This distance determines the
size of the bite that a cutter can
take. As the cutter is filed back,
its overall height becomes
lower. The depth gauge must
be filed down as the cutter gets
shorter (and lower) to keep the
saw chain self-feeding.
The next cutter (2.) has been
partially filed back
without
lowering the depth gauge
.
This cutter cannot feed into the
wood because it has no depth
gauge setting. In fact, the depth
gauge in this cutter will actually
hold the cutter tooth away
from the wood. This condition
is known as “high” depth
gauges. When the saw chain
stops cutting effectively, many
operators will push down, adding more feed pressure. The saw
chain is forced into the wood, causing cutter bottoms to wear
rapidly and makes cutting wood much more difficult.
The third cutter (3.) has the same cutter length and height as
the second cutter, but the
depth gauge
has been lowered to
compensate for the shorter cutter height. As a result, cutter #3
will cut as effectively as the new cutter.
1. NEW CUTTER
Factory depth gauge setting
2. FILED CUTTER
No depth gauge setting
3. FILED CUTTER
Corrected depth gauge setting
Saw Chain Maintenance
