While on vacation this week I found this rainy day one hour government film for by West coast friends. Though made several years before I was born, this film reminded me of my early childhood in Florida when my mother's biggest concern was that one of us boys would get hit by a pulpwood truck while crossing the road to get the mail. My father did most of his logging about 11 years after this film was made. To my knowledge, he cut timber exclusively. Like in the film, the poorer folks cut pulpwood. The only things that seem to have changed in the ten years of so for the pulpwood cutter was the wheeled saw was replaced with gear-driven bow saws and most trucks were equipped with a pto driven hoist made from an old rear axle. This allowed two racks on the trucks. My grandfather had a saw like those shown in the film. I asked once why they didn't use it any longer and was told that they were super dangerous to those working around them and to never touch it. It disappeared before I got big enough to fool with it - probably a good thing. IIRC the saw had a two word nickname that I won't repeat other than to say the last word was "killer". Seems many men were killed or maimed by the saw when they were standing too close as it was being moved while the blade was in the falling position - the blade could catch on about anything and wrestle control from the operator with anyone and anything at the side in peril as the machine whirled sideways. It seems ironic that the replacement saw pretty much substituted the operator for the co-worker as the person in the greatest danger. I am told that many met their fate from a kickback with a bow to the neck. Having sent my grandfather's old gear-drive McCulloch over my head even after slowing its trajectory by busting all my knuckles on the shield, I can certainly see how many less fortunate men lost their heads to bow saws.
My father used an early 50s Dodge with a single 2 speed axle. The truck usually wore a cattle bed made from surplus landing mats. He replaced the cattle bed with a then conventional log bed with wood cross members supported by two long wood beams - pretty much similar to the beams on the pulpwood trucks in this film. The standards were wood and in metal brackets attached to the cross members. I don't remember if they were hinged or not. He had two saws - a Wright reciprocating saw and a new McCulloch gear-drive bow saw (equipped with 9/16ths chain I believe). Other than steel splitting wedges, the only wedge he had was a short aluminum wedge (4" long or so). I don't know what he knew about falling or how he did it. Neither do I know how he loaded the truck. I was only 7 and not permitted around the logging operation. I believe he used our small tractor with a rope block and tackle to hoist the logs over the standards. I did get to go to the mill with him sometimes to unload. There was no offloading equipment. The standards were either unpinned or removed on one side before the chain binders were let loose. Besides being ordered to stay in the cab at all times, I remember only two instructions for my continued future: 1) Never walk beside a loaded log truck and 2) always stand to the side when running a saw. Little did either of us realize that the later instruction would likely save my life some twenty years later.
The woods shown in the film is similar to what we call scrub land in Florida; a haven for rattlesnakes. The house shown is pretty much the same as that lived in by many African-Americans of my childhood. The yard fence and gate are pretty much the same as the one that contained my brothers and me.
Granddaddy's chainsaw (top saw; in my possession and never fired since my accident).
My dad's saws:
McCulloch 640 (whereabouts unknown, but my search continues). Wright saw (dismantled by a handsome young lad; never reassembled and later trashed). Images courtesy of Chainsaw Collector's Corner.
Model of a typical configuration of a Florida pulpwood truck in the sixties.
http://thetimbershop.proboards.com/thread/1203/pulpwood-hauler
Ron