Hardwood wants shallower rakers

For hardwood, set your raker depth around 0.020" (0.5 mm) below the cutter; for softwood, you can drop them to 0.030" (0.75 mm) and the saw will practically feed itself.

The raker is the little lip in front of each cutter. It sets how deep the tooth bites. Less clearance between the cutter tip and the raker top means a shallow bite — smooth and safe in hard wood. More clearance means an aggressive bite, which is exactly what you want in pine or spruce.

Hardwood resists. If the rakers are set too deep, the chain tries to take a bite it can’t chew: the saw grabs, stalls, vibrates, and in the worst case kicks back. Softwood cuts like butter, so the same deep-set raker just means bigger chips and faster cutting.

Don’t eyeball the setting. Use a depth gauge tool with a flat file. Most combo file guides default to 0.025" (0.65 mm), which is a fine one-size-fits-all if you cut a mix. If you mostly cut one species, adjust from there. And file the rakers after you sharpen the cutters, rounding the front edge the way the factory did.

A grab