As a pro, I need my equipment to be reliable.

I need it to do its job every time without complaint, and without a fuss.

If the equipment needs maintenance, repair, adjustments, tweaks, or “fussing-with”, the time to do that is the night before. When I get to the jobsite, downtime can cost me money and can hurt my credibility in the paying customer’s eyes.

Some chainsaw brands are known for being more reliable than others. But all of them are going to require some routine maintenance.

There is one chainsaw tool that it seems like everybody forgot about.

Even diehard chainsaw guys may be missing this in their shop. I swear some guys have never even seen one of these before.

Chainsaw Grease Gun

At full blast, the chain on your chainsaw may be moving at 60 mph.

Pretty much all chainsaws will have an oil tank dedicated to lubricating the chain. Don’t get confused – you probably need both bar oil and fuel oil to mix with the fuel. Missing either one of these is going to make you have a very bad day.

But greasing the sprocket at the end of the bar frequently slips everyone’s mind. In fact, you might have never done it before!

Take a rag and clean your bar really well. I mean give that thing a spit shine. Once you get that far, you may need a cotton swap to clean the greasing hole at the end of the bar.

Trust me, it’s going to be small. You may not even know it’s there, especially if it’s filled with sawdust and grime.

Once you’ve found it and cleaned it out, grab a chainsaw grease gun like this.

It has a small tip designed to interface with the hole in your bar. It is pre-packed with a very sticky grease, and has a spring loaded head.

After placing the tip into the bar’s grease hole, you just press down and the grease gun injects a load of grease into that sprocket cavity. You may have to give it a couple of pumps until you see grease coming out the edge of the sprocket near the chain.

You’re done!

I try to remember to do this every few hours of use. If I use a saw several hours in a day, I may need to do it once per day.

Keeping that sprocket properly lubed keeps your chain spinning with less friction, and makes your bar and sprocket last that much longer.

Fess up, is this something you routinely forget about? Leave a comment below and let me know.

If you want to check out the exact grease gun that I’ve been using for several years now, you can go here.