If you've cut Ironbark for firewood or milling before, you know full well it is one of the hardest timbers you'll face.
Ironbark will test your chains, test your endurance and definitely test your patience when cutting large amounts for any purpose.
Sharpening chains as you may know is a vital skill when getting stuck into firewood. But sharpening chains is time consuming, having loads of spare chains is expensive and can be frustrating to deal with.
I hand sharpened chains for the majority of my wood cutting career to date. I had tried tungsten chain a few times and found it to have more cons than pros. UNTIL! Someone introduced me to a good quality (and highly expensive) tungsten tip chain.
What a game changer! From counting logs between sharpens to experiencing a single chain on it's first sharpen cut a semi load of wood before it warranted a touch on the grinder. The time saving was mind blowing!
Setup cost was significant. The chain itself is extremely expensive, diamond hand files were a waste of time so a diamond wheel for the chain grinder was also a necessary purchase. If tips hit rocks they usually need replacing which guess what- is expensive.
The price alone would make me hesitant if I was a hobbyist or someone just chopping wood for my own fireplace. But for professionals I fully stand behind the tungsten chains and through my own experience the cost is definitely out worked with chain life, time savings and continued performance.
I've just started trialing a (much cheaper) tungsten chain on the firewood processor and so far the results have been very encouraging. Being a much heavier, much much longer chain I am testing every aspect of the chain before I start buying bulk.
Stay warm out there folks!
Joe - JRI Firewood
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