This has been the best sharpening advice I’ve heard. I’m a nerd and upon reading this the lightbulb went off. I took a few clear pics of the cutters on a new chain and saved them on my phone. I use them as a reference whenever I file. Prior to using referring to the pic of the new cutter, I feel like I was sharpening and adding too much hook to the cutter. The chain would cut, but was way too grabby if you leaned on the bar while in the cut.
I cut dead wood 95% of the time. As I learn more and my understanding for how a chain cuts and and should feel in the cut evolve I’ll develop my own “recipe”.
+1 on the Philbert advice. If you need to lean on the bar and your cutters look good, you should look up progressive raker maintenance. Filing them to .025" is fine on a new chain and gets worse from there. Ends up cutting like sandpaper at the end of the chain.
Couple deadwood chain tips that I learned by screwing it up:
Stick with semichisel. Full chisel cuts dead hard oak but semi stays sharp longer. I don't think it's a night and day difference, but semi is somewhat better.
Don't gauge your success by pictures on the internet. The guy who posts pictures about how he gets foot long chips by grinding at 45° or whatever- he didn't mention that he is cutting green softwood with the grain, not crosscutting hard dead oak. There's no magic formula to cut like that in dry hardwood.
Give up on thinking that you can buck in such a way that your bar will almost sever the round without kissing dirt. Sure, maybe you can do it almost every time, but almost sucks. Roll that log. Bring a chain, a peavey/cant hook if the tree is that big. (I was taught as a kid to roll the log, then at some point decided I was smarter than that, and it took me a long time to realize that I wasn't!) You can roll a big ass log with a steel handled cant hook.
(not chain tips but they might help you avoid a bad situation) The taller you make the stump, the more chance you will have wood for the hinge on most dead trees. Learn to plunge cut the backcut before the notch and use the plunge cut to see if there is any wood in the middle. If you find an empty or punky middle, pull that sucker over- you cannot predict what way that thing will fall and a barberchair is as likely as not. Always be ready to run, cutting dead isn't near as predictable as cutting healthy trees. Use your hatchet to see how deep punk/rot goes on the outside, assume it is also rotten inside until you lay eyes on the hinge wood.