Is there anyone you know who just loves to cut firewood? Buck logs into usable lengths with a handsaw and then hand split them with an ax? Great exercise and who doesn't love to have a fire in the fireplace, especially on Thanksgiving and Christmas? But, it's a whole nother matter when you must depend on wood to heat your home. Pleasure soon turns to #@&%#<?&#$ and its no fun anymore. But most early settlers to the northwest had little choice and it was cut your wood or freeze. And neither did the logging industry. For loggers, burning 6,000 or more calories a day swinging an ax and sawing monster logs by hand gets old after awhile. Wouldn't it be nice to have some mechanical means to cut wood?
Well, it didn't happen overnight. The precursor to the modern day chain saw dates all the back to 1830 or so and was developed by a German orthopedic surgeon. Apparently cutting bones by hand wasn't much fun either. The device was called an osteotome. The links of the chain carried small cutting teeth with edges set at an angle. The chain was moved around a guiding blade by turning the handle of a sprocket. The "principle" for how to make a chainsaw was there but it took a long time to for chainsaws capable of cutting big wood to develop. The 1920's is often cited as the time when chainsaws became more practical - brought over here from Germany. Andreas Stihl, a familiar name even today, is typically credited with the first chainsaw patent in 1926.
The logging industry began experimenting with "chainsaws" some years earlier, not to fall timber so much as to buck logs into usable/transportable lengths once they were down. Cedar logs were a prime target for experimentation both because of their huge diameters but also given the short lengths needed for shingle bolts. Following is one of the early chainsaws being used to buck cedar logs on the Olympic Peninsula by the Goodyear Logging Company in 1919.
Photo courtesy Library of Congress, circa 1919
As you can see, the saw was a bit of a monster itself. It probably took two men to operate it given it's weight. I was surprised to learn than it was also gasoline powered - gas engines like this were not known for their reliability at the time. But, you can see that they were perfect for bucking big logs into short lengths, suitable for splitting into shingle bolts. Stihl a lot work (pun intended).
Comments