Partner Chainsaws...Anyone Know Their History?

Arborist Forum

Help Support Arborist Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Brit101

ArboristSite Member
Joined
Feb 16, 2003
Messages
56
Reaction score
5
Location
Prov. Quebec
What is the story of Partner saws? Used to hear their name, now you hear very little of them, anyone know what happened to them?

Thank you in advance for your replies.
 
I certainly am no expert, but I have picked up some info here and there.

Based on the info I have, I think the story is about like this;

Partner started making saws in about 1955, and as far as I know they were independent until 1979. They made mostly Pro saws in that period, but some Semi-Pro versions were made.

About the same was the case with Jonsereds, from 1954 until 1979, and Husqvarna from 1959, until 1978 (or a bit earlier).

E-lux first took over H, then J and P, and they also started taking over several less reputed chainsaw manufacturers like (but not restricted to) Pioneer (about 1980 ?), McCulloch Europe, and Poulan (1987) - and entering the "Homeowner" market. Soon products from the less reputed manufacturers started appearing in the model line-ups of the Swedish trio.
The Emab pruducts (mostly 34/35 cc homeovner saws) made at Huron Park, Canada and sold under a lot of different trademarks, among them Partner, Husky, Jred, Skil, Frontier, Poulan, Jo-Bu, Norlett, Campbell Housefield and were also a part of this, but that project started a bit earlier in the 1970s to my knowledge.

About Partner, the first major thing to happen was that they were merged with Pioneer in North America (but not in Europe). The Pioneer/Partner labelled saw were really either pure Pioneer or pure Partner designs anyway, and easy to distinguish from each other even though they had the same label.
In Europe, the Partner designed saws were still sold as Partner, no mention of Pioneer, and no models of Pioneer origin.
When E-lux took over Poulan, they created the Poulan Pro trademark on the remnants of Pioneer/Partner. The connection to Partner/Europe was still there, and many models were the same initially (remember, E-lux ruled). Regular Poulans also entered the Partner line, and a few even entered the H and J line-ups.

After Poulan Pro was established, I don't think many saws were sold in North America as Partner.
In Europe they carried on, but most of the Pro/Semi-Pro models disappeared during the late 1980s.
The P7700, 660 and 710 carried on a bit longer (the 710 until about 2000), and variants of those were also sold as Poulan Pro 415/425, 445, 475 and 505 - and the Jred 2077, 2083 and 2083 II. I suspect most of these saws were made at the Jonsered factory (the -s at the end disappeared in about 1985), but I am not 100% positive of this.:confused:

The Partner innovation which has the biggest impact today is the "Air Injection"/"Turbo", introduced on the P7700 in about 1984.:clap:

Today, all Partner saws are "homeowner" types of different quality. :mad:
The cheapest ones are made by Poulan, and the better ones by Poulan Pro and at the old Italian McCulloch factory. I think that the Italian made saws are still more or less related to the P500 from the 1980s.

Of course there are omissions in this story, and there may even be mistakes.
:hmm3grin2orange: :hmm3grin2orange: :greenchainsaw: (cool smilies)
 
Last edited:
SawTroll said:
I certainly am no expert, but I have picked up some info here and there.

Based on the info I have, I think the story is about like this;

Partner started making saws in about 1955, and as far as I know they were independent until 1979. They made mostly Pro saws in that period, but some Semi-Pro versions were made.

About the same was the case with Jonsereds, from 1954 until 1979, and Husqvarna from 1959, until 1978 (or a bit earlier).

E-lux first took over H, then J and P, and they also started taking over several less reputed chainsaw manufacturers like (but not restricted to) Pioneer (about 1980 ?), McCulloch Europe, and Poulan (1987) - and entering the "Homeowner" market. Soon products from the less reputed manufacturers started appearing in the model line-ups of the Swedish trio.
The Emab pruducts (mostly 34/35 cc homeovner saws) made at Huron Park, Canada and sold under a lot of different trademarks, among them Partner, Husky, Jred, Skil, Frontier, Poulan and Stiga were also a part of this, but that project started a bit earlier in the 1970s to my knowledge.

About Partner, the first major thing to happen was that they were merged with Pioneer in North America (but not in Europe). The Pioneer/Partner labelled saw were really either pure Pioneer or pure Partner designs anyway, and easy to distinguish from each other even though they had the same label.
In Europe, the Partner designed saws were still sold as Partner, no mention of Pioneer, and no models of Pioneer origin.
When E-lux took over Poulan, they created the Poulan Pro trademark on the remnants of Pioneer/Partner. The connection to Partner/Europe was still there, and many models were the same initially (remember, E-lux ruled). Regular Poulans also entered the Partner line, and a few even entered the H and J line-ups.

After Poulan Pro was established, I don't think many saws were sold in North America as Partner.
In Europe they carried on, but most of the Pro/Semi-Pro models disappeared during the late 1980s.
The P7700, 660 and 710 carried on a bit longer (the 710 until about 2000), and variants of those were also sold as Poulan Pro 415/425, 485 and 505 - and the Jred 2077, 2083 and 2083 II. I suspect most of these saws were made at the Jonsered factory (the -s at the end disappeared in about 1985), but I am not 100% positive of this.:confused:

The Partner innovation which has the biggest impact today is the "Air Injection"/"Turbo", introduced on the P7700 in about 1984.:clap:

Today, all Partner saws are "homeowner" types of different quality. :mad:
The cheapest ones are made by Poulan, and the better ones by Poulan Pro and at the old Italian McCulloch factory. I think that the Italian made saws are still more or less related to the P500 from the 1980s.

Of course there are omissions in this story, and there may even be mistakes.
:hmm3grin2orange: :hmm3grin2orange: :greenchainsaw: (cool smilies)
I have a Pioneer/Partner P39 made in Canada. While heavy and slow by todays standards it is as reliable and solid as anyone could ever ask of any machine.
 
I've been working on a Partner F 55, do you have an info on what it may be??? Its a pretty heavy saw and seems to be about the same power as a Sthil 260??? Tom
 
West Texas said:
I've been working on a Partner F 55, do you have an info on what it may be??? Its a pretty heavy saw and seems to be about the same power as a Sthil 260??? Tom
F 55 was an excellent saw,reliable,easy to work on.She was prone to vaporlock tho,but at less extent than the previous model R 16 lets say.
 
SawTroll said:
The Emab pruducts (mostly 34/35 cc homeovner saws) made at Huron Park, Canada and sold under a lot of different trademarks, among them Partner, Husky, Jred, Skil, Frontier, Poulan and Stiga were also a part of this, but that project started a bit earlier in the 1970s to my knowledge.
I used to know people that were working in that plant, I used to live about 10 miles away
FYI this plant was assembly only, at least when I knew about it. Huron Park is (was) an old training air base left over from WW2 training, along with Clinton, goderich, and others in the area. Now an industrial park beside the town of Centralia if anyone's interested. Probably used an old hanger, most businesses up there did.

Also was a pioneer/partner plant around peterborough for a while I think.
 
pioneer

pioneer was owned by omc (outboard marine corp.) also made evinrude and johnson outboards, lawnboy lawnmowers etc. in peterborough i believe. pioneer and mcculloch in the usa, were two of the best chainsaw you could by up until the 80's, i see a lot more pioneers of that age going strong today than any other brand including stihl.
 
West Texas said:
I've been working on a Partner F 55, do you have an info on what it may be??? Its a pretty heavy saw and seems to be about the same power as a Sthil 260??? Tom
Your obsevations are pretty close.

Here is some info on the F 55.

The F 55A is the same saw with AV handle system.

They were among the semi-pro variants I mentioned in my original response.
 
PWB said:
... FYI this plant was assembly only, at least when I knew about it. Huron Park is (was) an old training air base left over from WW2 training, .....

Thank you for the info.
By the way, I have one of the resulting saws - a Jred 365 made in 1984.
Light and handy, but total POS imo......

Bad E said:
I have a Pioneer/Partner P39 made in Canada. While heavy and slow by todays standards it is as reliable and solid as anyone could ever ask of any machine.
Here is the P 39.
It is a typical Pioneer - read valve, and very heavy for its engine size.

:angel: ...and just a suggestion that goes for others as well as you;
It is not necessary to quote every piece of the post that you are responding to - it takes up a lot of space, without doing any good....
 
Last edited:
SawTroll said:
.... Partner started making saws in about 1955, ....
I have later found out that it really started in 1949, with the Be-Bo saw.

The 1955 saw (C6) was the second model, and Partner didn't become the company name before in 1963....
 
What I heard-seen here the Partner was more widely spreaded here about 20-30 years ago than Husq. Stihls were droped out because they not survived with our gasoline and oil here at these times.
 
partner

my understanding is pioneer partner merged. then in the end the were discontinued as elux had so many brands. Personaly i would have canned :cheers: :bowdown: poulan!!
 
havvey said:
my understanding is pioneer partner merged. then in the end the were discontinued as elux had so many brands. Personaly i would have canned :cheers: :bowdown: poulan!!
See my initial post, it is explained there.....
 
Partner also made a ton of circular cut off saws as well. We have a number on the fire department I work for. Some of our trucks carry stihl brand but they're still called the partner saw. I have a P-85, it's a boxy looking thing but it has a ton of power and handles pretty nice.
 
I think there was a mistake partner was on the cutting edge i wonder where we would be it husky jred and partner where all still separate companies vying for the sale. we might have a different class of saw if the competition was fierce.

Buck
 
I certainly am no expert, but I have picked up some info here and there.

Based on the info I have, I think the story is about like this;

Partner started making saws in about 1955, and as far as I know they were independent until 1979. They made mostly Pro saws in that period, but some Semi-Pro versions were made.

About the same was the case with Jonsereds, from 1954 until 1979, and Husqvarna from 1959, until 1978 (or a bit earlier).

E-lux first took over H, then J and P, and they also started taking over several less reputed chainsaw manufacturers like (but not restricted to) Pioneer (about 1980 ?), McCulloch Europe, and Poulan (1987) - and entering the "Homeowner" market. Soon products from the less reputed manufacturers started appearing in the model line-ups of the Swedish trio.
The Emab pruducts (mostly 34/35 cc homeovner saws) made at Huron Park, Canada and sold under a lot of different trademarks, among them Partner, Husky, Jred, Skil, Frontier, Poulan, Jo-Bu, Norlett, Campbell Housefield and were also a part of this, but that project started a bit earlier in the 1970s to my knowledge.

About Partner, the first major thing to happen was that they were merged with Pioneer in North America (but not in Europe). The Pioneer/Partner labelled saw were really either pure Pioneer or pure Partner designs anyway, and easy to distinguish from each other even though they had the same label.
In Europe, the Partner designed saws were still sold as Partner, no mention of Pioneer, and no models of Pioneer origin.
When E-lux took over Poulan, they created the Poulan Pro trademark on the remnants of Pioneer/Partner. The connection to Partner/Europe was still there, and many models were the same initially (remember, E-lux ruled). Regular Poulans also entered the Partner line, and a few even entered the H and J line-ups.

After Poulan Pro was established, I don't think many saws were sold in North America as Partner.
In Europe they carried on, but most of the Pro/Semi-Pro models disappeared during the late 1980s.
The P7700, 660 and 710 carried on a bit longer (the 710 until about 2000), and variants of those were also sold as Poulan Pro 415/425, 445, 475 and 505 - and the Jred 2077, 2083 and 2083 II. I suspect most of these saws were made at the Jonsered factory (the -s at the end disappeared in about 1985), but I am not 100% positive of this.:confused:

The Partner innovation which has the biggest impact today is the "Air Injection"/"Turbo", introduced on the P7700 in about 1984.:clap:

Today, all Partner saws are "homeowner" types of different quality. :mad:
The cheapest ones are made by Poulan, and the better ones by Poulan Pro and at the old Italian McCulloch factory. I think that the Italian made saws are still more or less related to the P500 from the 1980s.

Of course there are omissions in this story, and there may even be mistakes.
:hmm3grin2orange: :hmm3grin2orange: :greenchainsaw: (cool smilies)
Good post Niko, was just researching some old ipls and trying to figure out the pioneer/partner and pioneer saws to put them in folders .
 
Good post Niko, was just researching some old ipls and trying to figure out the pioneer/partner and pioneer saws to put them in folders .


Thanks - but there are several mistakes there, some quite importrant ones (for those who care about chainsaw history) - I have learned a lot during the last decade, also about Partner and the story of the E-lux brands in general.

I remember that I was "encouraged" to do that write-up on the Partner story as I knew it by then - it wasn't something I did on my own initiative.

The most important mistakes are related to the P7700 family of saws, and the origin of the "Air Injection".

First, the P7700 didn't come in 1984, it came much closer to 1990 - and it didn't have the fully developed "Air Injection" before the 1992 "model year". Also, all saws in that "family" were made at the Husky factory, not the Jonsered or Partner one - despite there weren't any Husky versions (all Swedish made saws for all E-lux brands had been made at the Husky factory since some time in 1987). Actually, no chainsaws had been made at the Jonsereds factory since 1979, when saw production was moved to the Partner factory.

The P500/P5000 based models (Partner and Poulan Pro) also were made at that factory from 1987, not in Italy. Several Partner models have been made at that Italian factory, some that few of us ever heard of - but not those.

The origin of the "Air Injection" becomes less clear the more you know about it, and it is a myth that it was invented by Partner.

What is clear is that the first saw model that had the fully developed version (with the duct) was the Jonsered 2051 Turbo (the Jonsered name for the feature) in 1987, and the next was the 262xp in 1989. "Induction trough the fan" (without the "duct") allegedly first was used on Pioneer and Remington saws in the 1960s, and it allegedly had been used for other applications several decades before that. Needless to say, there were no patents involved when it was "rediscovered" and developed in the late 1980s/early 1990s. An interesting theory is that it may have entered the E-lux system via Pioneer/Partner - but that's just a somewhat far-fetched theory....
 

Latest posts

Back
Top