Art Martin: Will the Real Logger Please Stand Up

[Gypo Logger]

Hi Art, please be our guest and give us what you can on the good ole days and your experience with square filing. I wont be around till Tues, but look forward to following up when I come back.
Regards,
John Lambert

 

[Art Martin]

One of the main features of any logging town, in the ‘30’s was the “Company Store.” This large department store sold ever kind of merchandise imaginable, except liquor. It was owned and operated exclusively by the lumber company (thus one could literally say, “I owe my soul to company store.”). The mill and woods workers were able to charge on their accounts to sustain their basic needs (food, clothing, gasoline, animal feed, etc.). In my hometown, the “Company Store” was still operating in the late 1950’s. I remember that my dad never received a paycheck as such for his labor as a chopper. All he received was a statement with an itemized list of what had been charged the previous month. There was never anything leftover to buy even small things that weren’t carried at the “Company Store”. The existing debt usually ran about $200 with a limit of $500. The credit would be cut off if it ever ran above the limit. My dad only earned $1.00 per day, $26.00 a month. It was almost impossible to get out of debt, when the wages were so low. One could not shop, for necessities, in other stores where the goods were cheaper.
We still had to pay rent, utilities and other necessities that we could not charge at the “Company Store”. For instance, our rent was $10 a month. Since my father never got a check, my mother had to sell milk at $0.10 a quart delivered to neighbors. We always had a cow, chickens and rabbits and we had a huge garden also. Because we lived by the ocean, we always had fish too. Thus, even though we didn’t have much money, we ate well.
There was no money left over for movies or other entertainment. If I wanted to go to a movie, which was $0.10, I would kill a rabbit, (we had at least 50 at all times) skin it out and then sell it to the local Italian market for $0.25. That way my brother and I could go to the movie and have $0.05 left over for a chocolate bar that split in two. Of course, my brother, being older, got the biggest part since he did the splitting. Sometimes I didn’t have a nickel and I would file down a washer to the exact size of a nickel and put it in the machine—it worked—and I got my chocolate bar. That’s probably how I got my ability to file accurately.
It wasn’t until World War II started that the workers were paid by the hour which was $0.98. After that they really started living “high” with such a large salary. After a few years of these “high” wages, my folks were finally out of debt to the company store and began shopping in stores with more reasonable prices.
In my next post, I will discuss the old chain saws that I started with and continued using until I left the woods in 1963.
Art Martin

 

[dbabcock]

Art,
Can you teach us how to file washers to make slugs as well? Can't wait for your chainsaw and filing entries. Great work as usual!

 

[don]

Well dbabcock you can make a penny

act like a dime by rubbing each side on the sidewalk and then rub a flat spot to make it fit into the parking meter.

If you are ever near the pier in Santa Monica and you see people doing this just remember this city is number one for parking tickets.

Never been able to cut a tree in that city but I'd probably get a ticket for parking a loader on the street.

Art, some of my family from Europe came over and were indentured servants in the meat packaging and coal mines in Illinois. Still trying to figuire out how they ended up with the other side of the family out in the woods making lumber and steam engines. (We think it might be a rock quarry)

 

[Art Martin]

Doug,
I could teach you to how file a washer to make it worth a nickel but if you really want to make big bucks just take a penny and drill a hole in it and it becomes a washer and is worth a dime. Things have changed.

Art

 

[dbabcock]

Ha ha, good one, Art! A penny's certainly worth more than a dime nowadays.

 

[Art Martin]

Due to the lack of dealers in our area, we were limited to the choice of saws available. I’m sure there were other good saws in other areas of the country and Canada but we weren’t able to try them. In the early 1950s, the major US chainsaw manufacturers were Atkins, Bolen, Clinton, David Bradley, Disston, Homelite, I.E.L., Lombard, Mall, Mono, Terril, Titan, Luther, Porter-Cable, Monarch, Woodboss, Fleetwood, Precision, to name a few. Also at that time, the major US chain manufacturers were, Titan, Jamieson, Lynx, Disston, Reed-Prentice, Poulan, Oregon, Atkins, Homelite, I.E.L., McCulluch and Beaver. Homelite finally came out with a great saw, the 2100, 7.2 cubic inch engine, which was the best saw that I ran in the stock class competition. I used it in competition since I was sponsored by Homelite. With it I won the state championship in that class beating out the Stihl 090s. Later the modified 090’s blew all other saws away in the production model class. Of course, Ken Dunn wasn’t around in those days with his expertise either. My Westbend 820, with a Horstman 2” stroker, which made it 10.2 cubic inches, was the fastest in the dual carburetor, piped alcohol class. The other “secret” on the Westbend was a special oil reservoir clutch that allowed the saw to maintain certain pre-determined rpm’s, throughout the cut without going out of the power band. I preferred the full compliment ½” pitch chain with a six tooth sprocket. The rakers were run at .060”. I also used the .404” chain on smaller models but never the 3/8” pitch in my competition years. It wasn’t until the recent years when I started making them for other contestants. I’ve learned a lot about the 3/8” pitch chain and believe they are really fast in smaller logs with smaller engines. With 8 cubic engines and over, I still prefer the ½” pitch chain.

Art Martin

 

[Ryan Willock]

Art, thanks for sharing your knowledge and experirance with us!!!:angel:

 

[Art Martin]

Although the chainsaws in the 50's were heavy and cumbersome, they did help in the process of falling and bucking timber. the saws usually weighed 75 to 125 pounds. A lot of added weight was because of the long bars and heavy chains and the stinger handles (helper handles). Sometimes I would wonder when climbing steep hillsides, with the blood vessels in my neck sticking out and your arms that had gained four to five inches in length, if going to college would have been a better choice. That didn't seem as good of a choice as it just wasn't as "macho" as a West Coast Faller. Oh well, egos and honky tonks just seemed more important.
The timber areas on the coastal range were steep and real steep. The terrain rarely was flat or even sloping. Sometimes I would think that we should have been born with one leg shorter than the other in order to walk more easily across steep terrain. As one faller once quiped, " it was so foggy one day that I could not see the upper portion of the tree that I was falling. As I was wedging the big tree up the hill, the tree seemed to stop tipping over. When the fog cleared up, I could see that the tree was already down", (that's how steep it was).
My first chainsaw was a Mall model 6, which had handlebars like a Texas Longhorn. Later I used a Mall model 7 chainsaw. The carburetor had a coated cork float which did not allow the saw to be operated in any other position but upright. The transmission revolved by pulling a lever and turning the bar so it could cut vertically or horizontally. It had no recoil srarter. It had to be started with a rope with a handle on one end and a knot on the other. The chain was a "scratcher" type, which took hours to file and the kick backs were atrocious. The hooded tooth type chains came later. The next saw that I used was the Kiekhaefer Mercury which was about 125 pounds. It was two cylinder, 12 h.p., with a lot of torque. It had a manual clutch lever on the handlebars. I used many different saws along the way, but the McCulloch Model 99 was probably my favorite during that era although it was temperamental in many ways with getting it started. I could handle it easily by myself because it had a hard-faced round nosed bar without a stinger handle. I fell a lot of timber with that saw. Then Homelite came out with a direct drive saw with a diaphragm carburetor. With that type of carburetor, the saw would run in any position. That was when timber falling became a whole lot easier and the saws starting getting better, lighter and faster. The Homelite 729 became my favorite. It had a belt drive and a rotary valve system. Except for the recoil starter, it was a good saw. Then the 900 series Homelites came out which were either gear drive and direct drive. I used gear drive mainly for falling and the direct drive for bucking because of the higher chain speed. I stayed away from McCulloch's, except for the Model 99, because I could often hear the other fallers across the canyon swearing, yelling and stomping because their Mac's wouldn't start. They would yell to me that they were going to town to get their f***ing saw fixed. They always carried a lot of spark plugs in their pack sacks which seemed to help in getting their saws started.

Art Martin

 

[StIhL MaGnUm]

Art,

Thanks for sharing another one of your great expierences with all of us once again.75-125lb saws must have been a real killer back then I can just imagine having to lug all that weight around all day,man am I glad saw's these days have lightened up quite a bit since then.Art you really should write a book on all your time's out in the bush.

Later Rob..

 

[eyolf]

Hello, I have stayed the heck off this thread, because I know next to nothing about west coast timber. I am, however, somewhat familiar with McC and hard to start saws...My dad had two old McC 3-25's. He needed two, as they wouldn't start when hot. The idea was to cut with one saw until it ran out of gas; refill, then use the other saw. Then, you skidded, loaded logs, maybe topped with an axe, for an hour or so until the saws were cold.

By the time I came along dad no longer worked in the woods, but still had those two saws, which he still used to cut firewood. The process was modified to suit the chainsaw: cut stems into 5-8' lengths, split these with maul and wedges, and buzz the splits and poles up in a buzz saw.
Dad was killed in an accident when I was a teenager, but he had finally traded those "yellow dogs", as he called them ,for a used Homie gear drive (model 17).

I had to get the wood by myself after dad was killed, and used that old Homie 17 one season. I also trapped, harvested wild rice and worked for a farmer, so I used some of my money to buy a Homie 923, after helping the farmer clean up after a storm with a Homie XL12 and bcoming sold on lightweight direct drive saws.. You couldn't have paid me enough to use a gear-drive saw after that. One man can only make about 1-1/2 cords a day with one of those old saws, cutting, splitting, buzz-sawing, and loading, and that's with the energy of a teenager!

Along the way I've used chainsaws to earn $$ at times, and eventually gained the desire to collect a few...I now have 3 of those old 3-25's, and a pile of the early style Homie gear drives like the 17 we had. I love to fire them up now and then, but I don't have any problem putting them up to grab a modern saw!

 

[don]

Hey do you like the 655?

Looked in past stringsand saw you have one. Are they a good saw? Is it still in production? Was told it is 98cc and set at 8500 RPM? Can you tell me anything about the saw?

 

[StIhL MaGnUm]

Art,

Since you are the man for square filing do you have any tips/how to on this subject that would help us who want to learn how to chisel bit

Later Rob..

 

[Art Martin]

I plan to cover chisel bit filing as soon as I get my main computer fixed. Right now I'm on this stinking laptop and I'm not used to it. I will also give my opinion on making racing chains for those of you that have an hour to spare.

Art Martin

 

[don]

Hey Art What is your comment on the 655?

Asked you a couple of postings ago.
You have one, at least I read you had one a couple of months ago.
Would you recommend this saw? Do the reeds hold up?

 

[Art Martin]

Don,
The 655 BP is a good saw. I had a problem with cylinder recently because the person that I bought the saw from had modified the boost port in the back of the cylinder. What he did was to widen the upper part of the port to the extent that the end of the ring caught a piece of the chrome and peeled it back enough to lose the compression. I'm looking for a new cylinder right now if I can find one. The reed system works good, I added a tillotson 360 large bore carburetor on it.

Art Martin

 

[StIhL MaGnUm]

Thanks Art hopefully you get your main computer fixed soon I don't really like to use those laptop's either can't wait to hear how to chisel bit I've been looking forward to getting some tips for quite sometime now..

Later Rob..

 

[StIhL MaGnUm]

So how have you been doing lately Art do you have anymore good stories to tell us about on this rainy Sunday???

Later Rob..

 

[Art Martin]

Rob,
I got my main computer fixed finally. I am working on a post about standard chisel bit filing today. The opinions expressed will be my own, which are the result of nearly fifty years of experience and any similarity to other opinions are purely coincidental.

Art martin

 

[StIhL MaGnUm]

Glad to hear you finally got your main computer fixed,I can't wait to hear about the chisel bit filing from you and I'm sure the others are looking forward to it as well...Hope to hear from you soon.I just bought a 100' roll of square ground Carlton chain thursday and looped it all into 28" and a few 32" one of the loops could use a good filing this afternoon to be ready for tomorrow maybe I can get some tips from the Pro.

Later Rob...