I had got one a few year back for Xmas. A red one with quick link adjustment. I too experienced the same think. IMO the bar is too thin and I couldn't keep the chain tight.

If you like the saw I would try an Oregon bar and chain Or maybe even go to a 16" bar. Sorry I couldn't help, but I couldn't fix mine either and I elected to get rid of it.

Chain teeth are left and right, alternating. This problem is pretty common is caused by the teeth facing one direction are simply not the same as the one facing opposite. One side may be duller due to striking a nail or the dirt. Could be from not sharpening both sides equally. The angle and amount of tooth remaining can cause warped cutting.

If your cut is going right, look at your left facing teeth as being in worse condition.

the one I had was brand new and cut like that from the begainning. IMO the bar is too thin and flemsy and the engine does have enough torque to run an 18" ineffecient chain. sharpen didn't help mine. I been sharpen chains for 40 years and sometimes I sharpen the teeth off or so much they break off. So, in my case the chain was sharp and had less than 2 hours on it and never touched dirt or metal.

A poor design if you've got the quick link adjuster IMO. IMO oregon bars and chains are better than polan's. But, maybe they are the same and I just got branded.>>>>>that saw may work with a 16" bar????I just guessing cause I dumped mine before I dumped more money into it.

I have a Craftsman 18" chainsaw that does the same thing. In my opinion rcmoser is on the right track when saying it is a bar and chain design problem. I have noticed that the saw cuts great for a while as long as the chain is tight. Once the chain develops some slack the saw stops cutting if you hold it straight. By giving the saw a little twist the chain cuts great but in a curved pattern. You can watch what is happening. The chain gets sort of twisted and almost out of the bar groove it rides in. The teeth get out of alignment with their cutting surfaces and it stops cutting. I have solved the problem by keeping my chain tightening tools handy and re-tightening the chain often. I avoid ever hitting dirt. I keep it sharp and oiled. When it's tight, sharp, and well lubricated it will cut every bit as quick as my neighbor's new Stihl. I just have to tighten my chain more often than most but it isn't a big deal. I am using the Oregon bar and chain. It was no different than the Poulan. By the way if you continue to cut while the chain is loose it will come off. Mine has come off many times before I realized it just can't run loose at all so I just re-tighten it before that happens.

NevadaWalrus is on the right track, if any of you non-believers live in Central New York or want to pay to ship your junk to me I will prove it on digital video. He just didn`t go far enough in explaining his position.

Tooth symmetry is important but what is even more important is that each tooth takes the same bite as the other teeth. It is very likely and common that the teeth on both sides of a chain can appear to have angular symmetry but if the lengths are even slightly different, one side will have more depth gauge clearance than the other, meaning that one side is taking bigger bites. For a graphic demonstration of what happens try this. Stand up, take 10 sequential steps with both feet but take 1 foot long strides with your left foot and 1 1/2 ft strides with your right, squaring your feet after each step so they are parallel, can you walk in a straight line? Let the length of your strides represent the thickness of the chips you are producing and you should see how they relate.

Unfortunately the most commonly available depth gauge reducing guides average over several teeth and only serve to perpetuate this problem if tooth length or symmetry is not exact. An unevenly worn bar can also be the cause of curved cutting but even that is a sypmtom of improper sharpening.

The bar being too thin is not the cause. Centripetal force is going to cause the chain to want to stay in orbital motion unless overwhelming forces acting on the chain cause it to do otherwise. A perfectly balanced mechanism is not going to have significant harmonics and the bars do not sway in the breeze on their own. Bars on some racing chainsaws are thin enough to almost sway in the breeze and they do not bind, just like crosscut saws don`t bind unless force is applied counter to the intended plane of motion and their bodies are far deeper than any chainsaw bar.

Another indicator of improperly sharpened chain is the apparent high stretch rate. Chain doesn`t actually stretch nearly as much as it wears but a sharp chain should and will go for many hours of use without requiring retensioning. A chain requiring frequent retensioning is almost always sharpened poorly in some way.

Thanks to each of you for your help and information. The original bar supplied by Craftsman is an Oregon, and I imagine the chain is as well, which made me reluctant to purchase an Oregon replacement bar. The new one was no help, but I suspect the problem never was with the bar. I purchase a new chain a couple of days ago, and the saw is cutting normally, so that is obviously where the problem lay all the time.

I don't recall that the saw ever cut normally, and I am sure I never hit metal with it, possibly some dirt. My resharpening efforts were no help, so I'm inclined to think there was some problem with the chain from the start, though I can't imagine what it would be.

At least I'm getting work done again, and I'll return the chain to Sears and ask for a replacement.

Again thanks.

I too suspected a chain flaw do to the one I had done the exact same thing from out of the box. Glad you figured it out. I tend to agree with some that recommend a quality saw pass 16" bar. You get a better chain an bar to cut bigger logs. Which IMO the low end model struggle to rip through that much wood.