Universal Chainsaw Field Sharpening Kit

Excellent. Husband pleased with it. In a handy kit he takes with him when tree felling.

I purchased the sharpening set to sharpen the teeth on my chain saw. very well made and well packaged it comes in a nice case to keep it all together very easy to follow instructions. Very easy to use and for a first time user was very happy with the job this set did. Pros Very well made and comes in a nice fabric pouch to keep it all together. Very strong and well made easy to follow instructions. Cons None

All the parts in the kit are useful, but it's an odd design of pack which rolls up the wrong way. I've rearranged it by moving the file holder from the far right pocket to the far left one so that it doesn't poke out and scratch anything when the pack's rolled up - that pocket's shorter than would be ideal, but it works. I leave the far right pocket empty. The file handle is best removed from the pack: it doesn't fit the flat file, and if you put it on a round file it won't fit in the pack any more unless you keep it loose so that you can take it off, in which case it will cause endless trouble when using it, so my solution was to fit the handle permanently to one of the round files that I don't need to use on a chainsaw and to keep that elsewhere for other use - I was wanting one of those anyway to go with a much rougher round file. I'm going to make permanent-fit handles out of resin for the other files, and I'll make them small enough to fit in the pack - they don't need to be long or fat as it's just a matter of making them comfortable to use, protecting my hands from the sharp spikes. Because they'll likely wear out before the chain does, I bought a set of replacement 4mm round files and put them into the pack too - you can fit two in each of the three pockets designed to hold round files. When using them clipped into the file holder tool, they don't need a handle beyond something minimal just to avoid injuries from the spike. I did consider just buying a pack of 4mm round files and not bothering with this kit at all, using my auger file in place of the flat file too. However, the two special tools in the kit are too valuable not to have because they speed up the sharpening process many times over. The file-holder tool isn't just for getting the angle right, but to maintain the right height of the round file relative to the chain, which automates that for you as you don't need to keep checking carefully where you're filing to decide how much downward or upward pressure to apply. The other special tool helps ensure that you keep the non-cutting projecting parts of the chain the right length relative to the cutting bits, and again that allows you to work fast without having to check carefully by eye and make guesses. These two tools turn a long job into a short one, so they should be considered essential. All the tools in the kit are high quality and will last.

I only have a little electric Makita chainsaw but still a new blade costs more than this sharpening kit. I’ve been trying to eliminate a massive tree trunk that just refuses to die and it’s gradually claiming a chunk of my garden since it’s actually rooted in my neighbours garden. Problem is that it’s grown through and become part of a chain link fence. So every time have have a stab at reducing it, my little chainsaw hits some metal. If that happens more than a couple of times then it’s done for and I have been then buying a new blade and discarding the old one at a cost of about £17 if memory serves. So I bought this little kit, watched a couple of YouTube videos and had a crack at sharpening the blade rather than replacing it. I’m so glad I did. It worked a treat. And having spent half an hour working on the blade as instructed, it gave me another day of trouble free cutting (not the tree trunk). I will be revisiting the tree trunk after I’ve given the blade another spruce up so I’m well armed. The videos recommend to sharpening them often. I’m pretty sure that I could get mine in an improved condition by spending just ten minutes on it whereas my first attempt was very thorough and maybe even overdone it somewhat. The teeth on my blades are small compared to the big chains on the pro chainsaws so they will only benefit from sharpening several times before they’re worn down too low but apparently the big toothed chains can last for years. In a nutshell, this kit was fantastic value when offset with the potential cost of replacement, it is very easy to use as the little guides and jig thing makes it all very simple. Just gotta choose the correct file for the corresponding sized chain and choose the correct angle to file at. It’s basically 30° usually I think. It comes with basic instructions but you can’t beat a YouTube video to learn a new skill as I have found over the years. I have 1000’s of £££’s worth of tools but I’ve never really owned metal working tools so I’m not sure how long files should last but I guess they dull themselves over time. At least if that happens I’ll only need to replace that one component of the set which’ll be just a few quid. I do have one small gripe. The files are manufactured such that they have a ‘prong/spike’ on one end to fit into the little wooden handle supplied. I found that this spike kept bending. I thought the metal would have been made of a harder metal so that wouldn’t have been a problem but it wasn’t too much of an issue. I’m very happy with my purchase and it feels good to know I’m not being wasteful by now practicing good maintenance.

Just sharpened my first saw in an over a year with this toolset and it does the job perfect. The pouch is a really nice feature for organising the tools and the equipment it came with is very high quality. If you need a saw sharpened this is most certainly the one I choose from my experience.

Sharpened by saw really well.