Chainsaw Repair

Oregon sprocket rims.

From a guy that says he works there. =  Get ready for Chinese rims. Rims made in the USA soon to be no more

If anybody on this sub-reddit uses Stihl, Husqvarna, or Oregon rims get ready for a drop in quality in the coming years. Oregon Tool, formerly Blount or Omark, will cease production of rims made in the U.S. and will be outsourced to China by June 2023. I'm one of the guys who makes those rims and Oregon tool makes the majority of all those rims for those 3 companies. If you're wondering why it's because Oregon Tool will likely not be around for much longer they're furloughing all production workers worldwide and are cash poor. The company has been managed into the ground. The company just keeps getting passed from one investment banker to another and bleeding the company dry. If you enjoy the Oregon brand, I'm sorry but I don't see the company lasting another 5 years unless something changes or is bought by another company.

The biggest reason for the outsource was Stihl and bad management on Oregon's part. The high temp furnace is from 1969, anneal was rebuilt a couple times but is WW2 era. Goff is from the 80's. In other words Oregon didn't invest in the department and the equipment is failing they asked Stihl for a price increase to fund new equipment as about 70% of what we make is for Stihl and it's not very profitable as it was first introduced to act as a bridge between Oregon and Stihl for another deal decades ago.

No they are made in a foundry.

If you care the process is as follows: First a plastic model of the rim is made, then 108 of those plastic rims are assembled into 18 layer trees, those trees get sent to ceramics and a robot dips them in sand and ceramic to make the mold. After curing they are sent to the foundry loaded into a 2100 degree furnace where the plastic is melted and all that's left is the ceramic mold we pull them out of the furnace and pour steel into them while they're still hot. After they cool we load them into a goff where it blasts the ceramic off the parts then a hammer is used to knock the pieces off the center of the mold. After that the parts are weighed out and loaded into a 1700 degree furnace to soften the steel then they get sent to id size where they are punched to widen the inside diameter of the part. The parts are then loaded into a vacuum furnace to harden them up, after that they go to cnc grinders which grind the outer diameter to size. They are then sent to shot ping which uses an abrasive machine to give them a uniform finish. Lastly they are sent to functional gauge where inspection is performed on 100% of the parts. There a few more steps but that's a brief overview of the process

There's going to be a drop in quality our foundry has 40 years experience making the rims, it's a long process about 5 weeks from start to finish for a batch. They've tried to outsource before, but no suppliers could qualify. A supplier still hasn't qualified and they've already eroded most of the infrastructure in the department.

I would like to buy Made in USA oregon that are made properly.

Warning about unbranded Chinese, most of them are not made correctly, the clutch drums are not round = the clutch slips, the hole in the clutch drum is too big for the bearing. The drum is too narrow, the oil pump lever not properly in place.

The sprocket teeth wrong size, and not round = The chain tightens when the rim rotates half a turn (I have bought many for testing over a long period of time (+15 years)  Ebay, hutzl 80% defective = money back and product for scrap metal)