Sawing with a crosscut: a lost art?

[clayman]

Just thinking back this evening. I cut up a red oak today into 18" blocks. It hardly required any time at all with the 346XP. Made me think back to the late 1940's to the time my dad and I cut up a pile of old telephone poles with a crosscut saw. We cut them into 6'-0" lengths, and split them into fence posts. I must have been about 12.

Dad taught me how to use that crosscut saw, and I still fondly remember it.
I remember how proud I was that I had mastered it. What I remember most is it was a thing we had to do together: father and son. Nothing else I remember required that kind of close team work. I don't think I would want to do it again, but I wouldn't have missed that one time for the world.

If we had owned a chain saw it would have been much easier, but I wonder how I would think of it now?

 

[toddstreeservic]

crosscut

Buy yourself a new one and leter rip! With the price of gas I have been seriously considering it!

 

[Mountainman]

Any of y'awl PNW guys hear of a highball logging outfit from the days of steam called Shafer Brothers, out of Elma, Wash? My dad bought a brand new 6-foot crosscut saw from them when they went out of business in 1956, the year I was born. When I moved him and the Missus into a rest home a while back, he gave me that saw, with a nice set of handles. Of all the things that I own, that is my favorite. And yes, my dad and I used that saw now and then when I was a kid.

Some of the PNW old timers here may recall seeing some of the old loggers out that way who pulled a misery whip for a living. They had so much muscle in their upper body, some of 'em were almost hunch-backed. Logging was sure no picnic back then.

Anybody know what a steampot was?

 

[ehgauss]

I just returned from an elk hunting trip into the Bob Marshall Wilderness in western Montana. No machinery of any sort is allowed anywhere in that one-million plus acre preserve. I watched the outfitter and the guides and wranglers using a 6' crosscut clearing downed logs from the trails, etc. in the several days before the hunting season opened. (I didn't volunteer to help, but I have one that I inherited in my barn - never used by me.)

 

[Farmall Guy]

I use one from time to time, just for the fun of it but it dose make one real happy to pick up a chain saw. I just may have to put one of the 1 man saws on my cristmas list, the teath on mine are getting real low, kinda takes the fun out of it

 

[slowp]

Finding someone who can sharpen a misery whip is what is hard to do.

 

[Mountainman]

Finding someone who can sharpen a misery whip is what is hard to do.

Yep. I doubt that there are many of the REAL saw filers still around.

I reacll one photo, I believe in the book 'This Was Logging!', by Ralph Andrews, of an early, early chain saw prototype. It was either air powered, or electric, but it was an awkward looking contraption.

A gyppo logger, many moons ago, gave my dad a two-man McCulloch saw that was in great shape, and had been sitting in his barn for years. Nobody wanted it. Now, it's worth its weight in gold.

 

[Gologit]

I have an eight footer that belonged to my grandfather. He used it to fall redwood with when he was a young man, back in the early 1900's. It's real limber and the only time it's comfortable to use is when it's buried in big wood.

As an object lesson I had my son help me fall a passed over old growth cedar with it. We chopped the undercut by hand and did the rest with the saw...including all the bucking.We did the whole historical thing...wooden wedges, oil bottle, the whole bit. The cedar was about six feet dbh with very little taper but not too tall. We got two forties and a couple of sixteens and it took us all day. I don't think my son has griped about the Stihls being too heavy or too much work since that day.

Slowp is right about it being hard to find somebody to sharpen a cross-cut...at least somebody that can sharpen it right. But if there's a lumber mill near you and the guys in the saw filer's shop have a couple of gray hairs and wrinkles they'll probably know how. The guy that does mine is a retired mill filer and he does it for free...says it makes him feel good.

 

[toddstreeservic]

A gyppo logger, many moons ago, gave my dad a two-man McCulloch saw that was in great shape, and had been sitting in his barn for years. Nobody wanted it. Now, it's worth its weight in gold.

That is alot of gold!!!!!!

 

[slowp]

I actually competed in the 2 person crosscut many years ago. We practiced with a dull saw, there was trouble finding someone to sharpen the "good" saw. We found somebody, and picked up the sharp saw on the way to the games. What a difference! We didn't win, but didn't come in last either. The main reason for going was that the competition was in Canada, and their drinking age was 18. I haven't touched one since.

 

[toddstreeservic]

those canucks sure can toss the pulp though eh?

 

[Rookie1]

Wife and I bought her Grandparents house short saw in garage all rusted and nasty. I see alot of them in the garbage. They are all rusty and handles broke.

 

[stipes]

Still have mine....

My Dad and I used to cut alot of wood together,,and all he heated with....Alot of the bad dead oaks with alot of dead limbs in em he would cut half way tru with his Mac. and then we grabbed the crosscut to saw the rest of the way to listen ....Prob. no wonder I'm a nervous wreck anymore...LOL!!
I havent used that in 20 years,,but it's hangin in my garage ready to go if I find a willing partner....

 

[AOD]

Buy yourself a new one and leter rip! With the price of gas I have been seriously considering it!

What a cool site! They have all kinds of cool stuff, its cool you can buy a buzz saw rig from them, I wonder how they get around safety and liability stuff with those, they are not a very safe machine!

 

[redprospector]

I've got a few of the old saw's. None were my Dad's though, he was a cowboy. When I started logging he started trying to figure out where he went wrong. My great grand dad was a logger/rancher though.

I've also got a new style racing saw. The two different types of saws are way different, the old timers probably wouldn't want anything to do with one of the new ones.

Andy

 

[Jonny Quest]

Now THAT is a misery whip.

JQ

 

[Bill G]

Now THAT is a misery whip.

JQ

Yep that is a saw ran by strong men.,

Bill

 

[clayman]

Just think, by the end of the 1920's, except for a very few isolated places, all of the old growth forests in the eastern United States were gone, and the two man crosscut saw was the tool that did them in.

Just a few years ago a near neighbor sold the pine forest that stood on about 25 acres that bordered my land. I never heard the sound of a saw. It was all done by machines. I never saw a man who wasn't driving, or operating a machine. Times have changed, and are still changing.

 

[slowp]

They had different styled saws. A narrower one for the falling and a wider one, what we mostly see around now, for bucking. Must've been interesting to hear the sounds of the tree. Maybe too scary though.

 

[Gologit]

They had different styled saws. A narrower one for the falling and a wider one, what we mostly see around now, for bucking. Must've been interesting to hear the sounds of the tree. Maybe too scary though.

Good point. When we dropped that cedar, and when we bucked it, it was talking to us the whole time. All the little noises you don't hear when you're running a power saw sure make an impression on you when you're hand falling. Really keeps you on your toes. When we were wedging the back cut you could hear that thing pop and creak.
I probably won't ever do another one that size by hand but I'm glad I did that one.