Chainsaw Sharpener Tips

As discussed, sharpening your chainsaw regularly is an important part of your chainsaw maintenance program. However many chainsaw owners overlook the step of adjusting the depth gauges on the chainsaw chain at the same time as sharpening the teeth. In fact, just last week I was talking to my father in law about how I was starting a site about chainsaw sharpeners and we got into a conversation about it. Turns out, although he has a property and sharpens his own chainsaw, he didn’t even know what a depth gauge was!

Chainsaw depth gauge

The role of the depth gauge is to control the thickness of the chip that is removed by the cutting tooth, which follows behind it. As you can see in the diagram, the chain gauge should be a little below the top of the cutting tooth. This distance is quite small, so a specialized tool is used to get the correct distance. Check your chainsaw manual to find out what your cutting depth should be set to. As a rule of thumb, check the depth gauges every second or third time you sharpen your chainsaw and adjust them at the same time if necessary.

The depth gauge is adjusted by holding the depth gauge tool over the depth tooth, and filing straight across the top of the tooth with a flat file until the tooth does not protrude from the notch in the tool.

Filing the depth gauge tooth will naturally mean that the tooth loses it’s rounded shape. You can use a saw chain tool to measure the height. Once the height is correct, restore the rounded shape using your file. This will stop the tooth from sticking in the cut as you use the chainsaw.

As with the tooth sharpening procedure, rotate the chain around the chain bar and adjust all of the depth teeth equally before you use the chainsaw.