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Voices of Spencer Creek
A Homey Homage to the Homelite: The Stone Age of Powersawing
Karen told me that she used to cut wood with this saw. If this is true, she's a better man than I am.
By Norm Maxwell
Posted on Jul 6, 2004 |
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Katherine was cleaning out her storage shed in Lorane when she discovered her sister, Karen's, chainsaw that she had borrowed 12 years before that had somehow submerged under a pile of junk in a corner. Karen asked me to see if I could start the thing and I agreed out of morbid curiosity. I stopped by and looked in her garage and saw an old red Homelite 360 with a 20 inch bar. I took it home and filled the dry gas tank with fresh saw gas mixed 50 to 1 with Husqvarna 2 cycle mix. I yanked repeatedly on the pull rope for 15 minutes until my arm was sore and I broke a sweat and then I put the old saw in the shop and went in the house.
Homelite originally made sewing machines and branched into the chainsaw business after World War II. Homelite saws enjoyed a decade or two of success simply because nobody built anything better. The local saw shop in Eugene has close to fifty ancient boat anchor saws, many of them Homelites, displayed on shelves near the ceiling that were built in the 40s and 50s. They are all very heavy and some required two men to operate, one holding a "stinger" on the end of the bar. The next morning I went out to the shop and picked up the Homey 360 and gave it several vigorous yanks. It sputtered briefly. I yanked again and the saw exploded into life with a cloud of blue smoke. I revved it a bit and the smoke dissipated and unburned 2-stroke oil oozed out of the exhaust port.
I assume the fresh saw fuel dissolved overnight the varnish left by the last gas in the carburetor years ago. I was impressed to note that the Homey continued to run when I removed my finger from the trigger throttle after a few minutes. I flicked the kill switch and put the thing on my work bench and sharpened it and filled the oil tank that lubes the bar and chain.
With the saw ready to go, I hiked through the gate on the old railroad right of way to the path for powerlines that the power company had cleared a couple years ago over by the beaver pond on the neighbor's place. The human cutters and the beavers had left a jumble of maple and ash logs strewn about so it was a perfect place to test the old saw. The 360 was Homelite's dying gasp to compete with the German Stihl and the Swedish Husqvarna in the professional powersaw market. When I was first introduced to pre-commercial tree thinning on the Bureau of Land Management's Medford District in the mid to late 70s, I was turned loose with a Homelite XL (Xtra Lite--har har).
The XL had been built virtually unchanged for at least 20 years with no anti-vibration damping whatsover. Like the Model T, Homelite saws failed to evolve. When Stihl and Husky introduced lighter saws with more power and better balance in the 70s, Homelite discovered that their customers deserted in droves. People who cut timber and firewood were willing to pay more for less physical abuse. The 360 was the first, last and only Homelite I am aware of with any attempt at anti-vibration rubber mounts. It also came with automatic chain oiling instead of the old thumb lever. It was too little too late and the European saws with their 60 mile an hour chain speeds and proven AV mounting sealed the fate of the plodding Homelite.
I think "360" stands for 3.6 cubic inches but I'm not sure. It is of the size that could be used for thinning if it weren't so awkward and balky. After inserting earplugs, I cranked up the Homey out of its long hibernation and began hacking away on all the hardwood. The Homey lacks the screaming chainspeed of real chainsaws so it labors through wood no matter how sharp its chain. My neighbor Linda heard the racket and came to watch the fun. Where my 61 cc Husqvarna would have sliced through the seasoned wood almost effortlessly, the old Homey hammered its way through 16 inch ash logs. The chips were coming out like shoe strings so I knew it was plenty sharp. I started sweating and my arms were straining to absorb the chattering and bucking of the poorly balanced saw.
Karen told me that she used to cut wood with this saw. If this is true, she's a better man than I am. I am considered physically strong and it takes an effort on my part to start the damned thing. When you shut it off and set it down, it vapor locks because the gas tank is mounted in front of the motor and the fuel is transferred to the carb through a plastic gas line that passes by the hot cylinder head.
This works OK as long as the saw is running, but when you shut if off, especially in hot weather, the heat of the motor turns the liquid fuel to vapor in the line and the expansion pushes the fuel back into the tank. To crank up again requires a flurry of vigorous pulling whereas a Husky usually resumes operation with a single tug on the rope. The old red saw cut better and better as the fresh fuel flushed the dried gum from its system but it is still a distant second to a Stihl or Husky. Examining a cut round of ash, you can see the wide apart marks from each cutting tooth. New, high r.p.m. saws leave marks very close together due to the greater speed and the operator is not buffeted by feedback nearly to the same extent.
Three loads of fuel were enough for me and I had cut up all the downed hardwood ready to hand. Linda will have to figure out how to get her truck back in there to haul it off. I cut the rounds just as long as would fit in her stove to minimize the number of cuts I needed to make. Drenched in sweat, I sat on a log and regarded the obsolete saw. I could hear little burping noises as the engine heat vaporlocked the fuel in the gas line. Homelite deserved its extinction. While it was fun revisiting the stone age of powersawing, I think I will stick with my Husky in future wood cutting operations.
In the late 50s and early 60s, cartoon character Li'l Abner served as Homelite's official "spokesman" touting their powersaws in cartoon adverts drawn up by Al Capp for magazine pages . I guess if you have Abner's physique, you can shrug off the punishment a Homey dishes out. While people continue to buy Harley Davidsons for the nostalgia and not for cutting edge technology, the same did not apply to chainsaws.
Homelite maintained a niche selling "consumer" saws to Sears Roebuck & Co to be distributed under the Craftsman name for a while, but eventually the company faded from the Sears scene. My father has a Homelite boat motor and it is the only one I have ever heard of. The former sewing machine manufacturer closed its doors in the early 1980s and every once in a while one of their products surfaces like a coelacanth to be marveled at briefly by the modern world before being put back in a dark corner of the garage for another generation to discover.
Norm
Writer's Postscript:
I was trying to kick up that old cartoon advert for Homelite chainsaws with Li'l Abner as spokesman on the 'net. I was unable to find it but I was amazed to discover that Homelite is still in business making chainsaws and other power equipment.I haven't seen a new Homey in decades. Mr Chainsaw in Eugene doesn't cary them. Horner's saw shop in Cottage Grove didn't have them the last time I was in there. I am sure they are just as wretched a saw as they ever were but I swear I haven't seen a new one since about 1980. Go figure. Homelite is still in business!
N
Copyright © 2004 by Norm Maxwell
Visit Norm Maxwell's pieces about land use, firefighting and life in the country and more at West By Northwest.org:
Take Two: Jackson Road
Norm's Notebook: Battling Broom
Norm's Notebook: A Last Look from the Big Rabbit
Norm's Notebook: From Forest to McMansion, How It Could Happen Here
Norm's Notebook: A Few Acres, a Few Chickens–Who Is Living on the Land Now
Remembering the 30 Mile Fire
Old Men and Fire
The Fire of South Canyon: Remembering Storm King
Wee-wee for BB
Norm's Notebook: The Story of the Spruce Tree, and Mosby Creek, a New Land Use Lot Adjustment>
Norm's Notebook: Dead Cars and the Six Million Dollar Manx
(Editor's note–Norm's "Dead Cars" story inspired a feature story in the Register Guard, "Heaps of trouble in the woods.")
Mentoring Military Style
Three Dollar Hammer
Song of the Open Road
Remember Fire Road
Home, Home on Fire Road and more.
© Copyright 2000-2004 by West By Northwest.org
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