Understand Sharpener Function and Safety

to start sharpening so we defined all the parts of the chain on the chainsaw now let me show you exactly how this critter works so these guides they're just metal guides and they will ride right on top of the teeth of the chainsaw these round files will go inside the gullet of your chain okay so those round ones there's one round one there and then there's one round one here the flat portion right here and this only cuts one direction you see that arrow you only want to cut one direction just like this okay and i'll show you in just a second that will take down your what we call rakers or your depth gauge okay the more you take your depth gauge down the more aggressive the cut of your chain you don't want to overdo it if you've got a really small uh chainsaw and you also don't want to overdo it because you run the risk a higher risk of kickback okay and that's when you're running your chainsaw and it kicks back just like that and that can hit you in the face and cause some serious damage so time to slip on safety glasses just so we don't get any metal shards in our eye because there's no use in taking an unnecessary trip to the hospital to get that fixed again you can see there's an arrow right here and i marked the arrow right here with a sharpie so you guys can see it so we're only going to cut in that direction you will press down gently as we cut forward and then let up drag it back and you don't want to press backwards you can't you don't file like that because you will collapse all these little i guess flutes on your file you will collapse them so you don't want to do that by dragging your file backwards i see so many people doing that drag it