Chainsaws

Tom,

In-addition to what Robert stated, making sure your bar and chain is well lubricated, Do Not over tension your chain. A big mistake and mis-understanding is that the tension screw_ does not hold the bar and chain on the saw. The Two large bar nuts take care of doing that, and they need to be tight, but the tension screw_ is just to take the excess slack from the chain, but there always should be a tad of slack in the chain, approximately the thickness of your scrench screwdriver blade thickness at the tip, or the thickness of a penny.

The reason the chain stretches when the tension is too tight, is the bar heats up which is normal (The bar and chain together are doing work and cutting thru that log, and hence a normal amount of heat), However it should never, never,  get so hot that it burns the paint off the bar or starts to turn blue. Stop immediately if your doing this, and let it cool completely down.

As the bar warms up it will be come longer and expand, If you have the chain tensioned too tight, the bar is much stronger than the chain so the chain stretches. Next, Never tension a chain when the bar is hot or even warm, let it cool completely down, and as you start to tension the chain watch the space on the bottom of the bar (between the bar and chain), and when it gets close within the thickness of a penny stop tensioning, and tighten up the bar nuts.

Now, adding Roberts Info, If the bar is Not lubricated it will heat up even faster and the chain will stretch even further and faster. However, If the drive links are hanging out of the bottom of the bar, then this is insufficient tension, and not good either, so you need just a little.

I hope this Info helps, If you need further explaination, Please let  me know and I will be glad to explain, I have studied this extensively including taking temperature readings with an Infrared temperature gun.

Karla

PS. I am Not a Husqvarna Representative or  Repair service, just an experimental chainsaw person.