Damaged Carving Bar

[John T]

I have a damaged 1/4 tip 12 inch carving bar (Stihl ) I am using a Stihl 192 for carving detail work. Well my carving bar is damaged at the tip (as you can see in the pictures), and by this it also damaged my chain. To the best of my knowledge this tip was damaged only by wear and I have only been using it for approx 1 1/2 yrs and only carving as a hobby. I have been carving in cedar and pine and the very odd poplar and spruce.I have been told that cedar has sand in it and that is probably whats doing the damage ( I don't know ). I am asking if there are any other carving bars on the market that have a harder tip if so where might I buy one or any suggestions.Apparently Stihl does not make any hard tip bars.

Thank You in advance

John

[Bob's Birds]

John,
Have a look at Robbin's tutorials on his website. He has a topic regarding bar maintenance. It looks like you could do a repair on that bar to work for you for a while.

Bob

[Rwenzoski]

Hi John, All carving bars have hardened tips. Hey aren't the same piece of material as the bar but are a Stellite insert welded into the Titanium alloy that the rest of the bar is made of. These tips need to be dressed well beyond what you have shown in the picture, to keep them in good working condition. The Stihl Carving bars are made by Sugi Hara which have about the hardest stellite tips available on the market at 58 to 62 Rockwell (HRC measure of hardness). I would say this bar can still be dressed to be useable but needs to be done properly also top create the correct radius. If the damage is repaired but not done propery it will just degerade again quickly as if there is any resistance to the path of travel for the chain it will generate friction, heat & in turn damage the chain & bar again. Are you running regular petroleum chain oil on this & does the chain that came off the bar have stiff links in it (I would definitely suspect this)? The bar must be dressed properly, the chain most likely replaced & then the bar must be kept dressed as soon as there is any evidence of wear, causing resitance. What are ya up to this weekend? Could get it fixed up for you & a good Stihl chain to go with it also?
Thanks, Robbin

[schizoidlogger]

Hi John,
I would suspect that you might have a defective bar or that it really was the sand.

If it was sand it would have dulled your chain and the evidence would not have just been at the bar tip.

There is little indication that the bar tip was overheated (and thus taking the temper out of it) so I think that it may have just been a defective bar.

Robbin obviously knows his stuff and his advice is golden. If it was me I'd try test the bar tip by trying to drill it with a normal high speed drill. If it drills easily you have a temper/metal problem. It should be very, very hard.

Hope this helps.

Merv