Some history, please

[GrantC]

I grew up in a small Oregon logging town back in the late '60s/early '70s. As I recall, at the time we had 2 saw shops in town (and 3 mills within the city limits!)

The one my father shopped at carried Homelite and (I think) Jonsered. The "other" shop in town carried McCulloch and (again, I'm not entirely sure) Partner (or was it Pioneer? I'm pretty sure it started with a "P".)

I remember that most of the fallers my Dad knew used Homelites, which is what we used on the farm. In fact, Homelite was pretty much all I saw, though I knew McCullochs existed. I don't recall ever seeing anything else, and it wasn't until I got out of college that I even heard of Stihl.

Anyone else have similar recollections?

(The only way I can remember who carried what is to recall what their shops looked like - they had metal advertising signs for their preferred brands on the outside. By any chance does anyone collect, or have pictures of, those old signs?)


-=[ Grant ]=-

 

[Ray Bennett]

I was born in the 70's but my dad had me cutting by the end of the 70's and all I remember was Homelites and McCullach's as well. Somewhere in the 80's my uncle who was a logger introduced me to a big stihl and my life has never been the same. That stihl wooped the crap out of my dads super XL

 

[HUSKYMAN]

Homelite's last new saw design came out in the 70's. After that they were bought and sold and bought again and the new owners never did any R&D. As a result Husqvarna and Stihl passed them by and Homlite died.

Same thing happened to McCulloch and Poulan. Partner and Pioneer were bought out and stopped being sold in the US

 

[spike60]

Homelite's last new saw design came out in the 70's. After that they were bought and sold and bought again and the new owners never did any R&D. As a result Husqvarna and Stihl passed them by and Homlite died.

Same thing happened to McCulloch and Poulan. Partner and Pioneer were bought out and stopped being sold in the US

That is an accurate picture of what happened, and it's sort of depressing isn't it? It didn't really have to play out that way, but company management sold their souls for short term gains vs the long term health of the company. Arrrrrrgh! Don't get me started!

 

[chuckiehow]

Chuck

Born in '48' and remember the first saw my dad owned (bought used I think) was a toooo heavy model of something or other. Might have been a McCulloch. Can't say I actually learned on it but I think I managed to cut a tree down with it at about age 13. An old friend used to bring his Wright saw to help with firewood. I thought that was the real deal.

When we started extensive logging in 1990, I'd already gone through about 3 each of Homelite, Poulan and Echo saws. Throw in one used McCulloch that lasted a week which I replaced with a new McCulloch that lasted another week and finally settled on Stihl. Used up my first 026 and then switched to 025s. We've burned up 3 or 4 of the 025 models but still use the 025s (lightweight for women, kids and us old men) and love the heck out of em. With the respected advice of those of you on this board, I've managed to keep them running and even got deeper than the air breather a few times.

 

[Festus Haggen]

Dad had Homelites, I learned on the XL-12 that I still have. Neighbor had a Poulan, used to make fun of it. Dad's friend owned a saw shop, sold Macs and Echo. Still have the Echo weedeater Dad bought from him.

I remember having some people over to cut wood on a Saturday, friend of the family showed up with a weirdo saw that I'd never heard of, and to hear how fast that thing went, was like an Indy car in a pack of tractors. It was a Husky, not sure of the model. But I was hooked for sure, didn't want them slow old Homies and Macs no more. Found Stihl after I returned home, had them in the fire department.

Remember going to the saw shop, fascinating manly place when you're a kid. Sad that they're almost all gone now. The only Stihl dealer nearby is a tool (and I don't mean the fixin kind), and the local Husky dealer sells more snowblowers and weedeater line than chainsaws.

 

[kevin j]

That is an accurate picture of what happened, and it's sort of depressing isn't it? It didn't really have to play out that way, but company management sold their souls for short term gains vs the long term health of the company. Arrrrrrgh! Don't get me started



you think we are hearing this song again, in almost every single facet of our economy? Because we the consumers want low price above all else.
I won't even mention wally world, and I'd best shut up now....

k

 

[Stihl #1]

I grew up in a family owned rental business in Fort Worth. I remember sharpening chains on Homleit Super Wiz bow saws that were rented out!!! when I was 10.
The wife and I opened up a lawnmower shop in Weatherford OK in the early eighties, we were 24 years old, and gave it all we had. So I figured I needed a saw line, and I am thinking about Homelite and Mac and the Mac salesman comes by so I sign up and take 10 saws. Next month a Coast to Coast hardware store opens and is selling Macs below my cost. First major lesson learned in economics. Second lesson is that all the Macs I have bought are junk except for the one 10-10S I took. So much for a name.
Then the STIHL guy comes by and assures me they don't do business that way, and I remember the STIHL CutQuick saws from the rental days, so I give them a try, and that really works well.
So now here I am at 53 thinking about all those junk saws I used to work on when I had the shop in the eighties in OK, then worked as a manager in FL at a big STIHL dealer and lawn and garden center, again having to work on junk to stay busy and pay bills.
So why did all the big US names turn to mass merchants and badge engineering, and quit making products that had any value? We can argue that till the Lord comes back, but the fact is that only a few saws are really worth having any more, if you want to use them.
I have been on a nostalgia kick lately thinking about all that junk I used to work on and thanks to this site contracted chainsaw addiction. So I started collecting examples of some of those old saws I remembered working on, and the last time I counted I am over 75 saws...

 

[RaisedByWolves]

Homelite's last new saw design came out in the 80's. After that they were bought and sold and bought again and the new owners never did any R&D. As a result Husqvarna and Stihl passed them by and Homlite died.

Same thing happened to McCulloch and Poulan. Partner and Pioneer were bought out and stopped being sold in the US

I had to fix this, but your deadon otherwise.



JD dealt the biggest blow.


.

 

[GrantC]

Dad had Homelites, I learned on the XL-12 that I still have. Neighbor had a Poulan, used to make fun of it. Dad's friend owned a saw shop, sold Macs and Echo. Still have the Echo weedeater Dad bought from him.

That's the one I forgot - Echo! The Homelite dealer also carried Echo.

To this day I have a fondness for Echo, as one of my Dad's friends (who had a small log-trucking company) carried one on his truck all the time. It took an awful lot of abuse and kept coming back for more.

Dad gave him a lot of good-natured ribbing for not buying a Homelite.

-=[ Grant ]=-

 

[mattinky]

Isn't it amazing how many of those old Macs and Homies that are still around? I know you can argue that they're slow and noisy and vibrate, but you put gas in 'em and go cut wood.

I posted pics of an old XL-113 I picked up recently, I took it out and used it for the first time last Sunday. It's got mongo compression, starts easily, will sit and idle all day long and cuts great with the 16" bar. And, to top it off I'll bet the engine has never been apart. They just don't make 'em like that anymore..........

 

[pioneerguy600]

I grew up in a small Oregon logging town back in the late '60s/early '70s. As I recall, at the time we had 2 saw shops in town (and 3 mills within the city limits!)

The one my father shopped at carried Homelite and (I think) Jonsered. The "other" shop in town carried McCulloch and (again, I'm not entirely sure) Partner (or was it Pioneer? I'm pretty sure it started with a "P".)

I remember that most of the fallers my Dad knew used Homelites, which is what we used on the farm. In fact, Homelite was pretty much all I saw, though I knew McCullochs existed. I don't recall ever seeing anything else, and it wasn't until I got out of college that I even heard of Stihl.

Anyone else have similar recollections?

(The only way I can remember who carried what is to recall what their shops looked like - they had metal advertising signs for their preferred brands on the outside. By any chance does anyone collect, or have pictures of, those old signs?)


-=[ Grant ]=-

I grew up in the woods of the Maritimes during the 1950`s and both sides of my family worked the woods for a living. My dad and his brothers worked for local mills and cut pulp on stumpage and contract. My grand father on Mum`s side owned large tracts of forest and with his son cut firewood,logs and pulp yearly. I seen a lot of saws over the years and was cutting myself by 13 years old. We lived in the camps for a few years before I started school and the most common saws were McCulloh, Homelite and IEL -Pioneer. These were big all metal saws from around the early 1950`s that were sold locally but I remember clearly that there was always a problem finding anyone to work on repairing them, even the sellers did not have good mechanics so I grew up with discarded chainsaws to play with and developed a lifetime addiction to repairing them and all other engines big or small. Chainsaws have always been my favorites and my Dad`s first new saw was a 1958 Pioneer 600 that became mine at age 13. My uncles had Mc Culloh`s and Homelites and it always made for some lively discussions around the Dinner table over the better saws, just like the old (CHEV verses Ford ) thing.
It was around 1960 that I seen my first Stihl and it was owned by the mill just up the road from home where I hung out a lot after school, it was a Stihl Contra Lightning. All the woodsmen drooled over that saw but agreed that they were too expensive for them and continued to use their Macs, Homies and Pioneers for many years. I got to run the Stihl when I was 15 and have been a Stihl using man ever since,
I recently pulled out some of the old saws I had squirreled away and began restoring them and there is nothing made today that interests me as the old saws from 1945 to 1965. They may be crude instruments by today`s standards but they were an art form all their own when they were sand cast and later die cast metal , heavy and lumbering slow but boy oh boy let one of them 100 cc + saws light up and it gets the attention of every one in a crowd . I use modern saws to cut the majority of time but I am grateful to have some of the old saws still around.
It`s a shame on our Country`s , both the USA and Canada that good modern saws are no longer built here but that is capitalism at its finest and with open borders and free trade the old home grown manufactures with their short sited policies to make a quick buck are gone. Pioneerguy600

 

[Big Neb]

I was born in '74 down in Kanab, UT(Southern Utah).

My father tells stories of the huge trees being taken out of the Kiabab National Forest(Arizona). On all the trucks running in and out were red saws strapped to the sides with long bars. All our neighbors were loggers and my dad gained an appretiation for Homelite. As such, in my home, Homelite was King!

I'm just now trying to introduce myfather to the finer points of Stihl and Dolmar. Sorry, I had an uncle with a terrible Husky...

 

[XJWoody]

Blast from the past...

I'm sort of a youngster (born in '66) but remember dad used a Pro Mac (610 if the pictures on here and my memory are tracking) He was the groundskeeper on a smallish NE estate from '69 through '80 or so, and did most all the outdoor work. The 'big house' had a giant wood-burning FHA furnace, and they harvested all their firewood from the property. Someone swapped dad a giant old Craftsman? saw, (way bigger than the 610 IIRC) but he never used it much or at all, and traded it off for ???

Other cool yard junk I recall was a big Homie clearing saw, a Root brush mower with an evil Wisconsin wind-the-rope starter, a Parker vacuum, a little 20"? Eclipse reel mower for the 'terrace', a big old-school TroyBilt tiller, Ariens snowblower with cab, etc... the folks who owned the estate didn't buy cheap stuff as a rule, and it was "fun" to help dad with the chores.

They had an account with a local biz - Waverly Tool Rental, and I mainly remember the head mechanic had a Can-Am 370 enduro bike in the back that I used to sit & drool on while dad was doing business. I just did a quick web search and see they are still around... a Stihl dealer too!

Thanks for the fond memories Maybe I need to find and restore an old Mac 610 just for grins.

 

[Gologit]

That is an accurate picture of what happened, and it's sort of depressing isn't it? It didn't really have to play out that way, but company management sold their souls for short term gains vs the long term health of the company. Arrrrrrgh! Don't get me started!

Well said. Stihl and Husky are the logging saws now and the new technology is great.
But nothing, and I mean nothing, will ever equal the full throated, I'm here to do business, balls to the wall sound of those big Macs and Homelites eating their way through big wood. That's a logging sound.

 

[HUSKYMAN]

I had to fix this, but your deadon otherwise.



JD dealt the biggest blow.


.

I said the 70's because to my memory all the newer Homelites before JD purchased them just seemed like nothing but plastic versions of their 70's models. They never really made any high speed saws like Stihl and Husqvarna were making, just trying to lighten and cheapen older designs.

JD's decision to put the Homelite name on Home Depot 40cc's specials was indeed the nail in the coffin

 

[lesorubcheek]

I said the 70's because to my memory all the newer Homelites before JD purchased them just seemed like nothing but plastic versions of their 70's models. They never really made any high speed saws like Stihl and Husqvarna were making, just trying to lighten and cheapen older designs.

Not sure how much design of the 540/8800 was Homelite and how much was Solo, but this is one exception (agreeably though about the only exception). You may think about the 410 as well. For myself, the x50's pro series was the pinnacle of Homelite development.

Dan

 

[Big Neb]

Speaking of the x50 pro series...

I really need to get this Homey 450 on Ebay to make more room for my Stihls.:greenchainsaw:

 

[lesorubcheek]

Speaking of the x50 pro series...

I really need to get this Homey 450 on Ebay to make more room for my Stihls.:greenchainsaw:

Garbage can full?

Dan

 

[J.Walker]

Some History, Please!

Hi Grant

I collect signs, have only 8 or so chainsaw signs.
The oldest sign is a Stihl sign from the early 60's. Most of the others are 70's & 80's.
The early McCulloch signs had a flying goose.
Follow e-bay and you'll see a few, and please don't bid against me.