Homelite and Mcculloh die off

[Jacob J.]

Interesting comments here........

Just a thought, did the market share of either or any die because of the product or the service? I mean, were the consumer brands plugged in every store that would take them and the true "dealerships" still up and running, were forced to close down? Or was it the saw design that they offered was not in step with what the consumers were after, and too much market share was lost to recover?
What effect did the economic down turn in the 70's and 80's have on the North American saw MFG's. I can't imagine the imported European saws being that much cheaper.

What I remember most about McCulloch and Homelite in the '70's was saw shop owners talking about how increasingly hard it was to get parts and technical information
out of the two companies. What ended up happening as sales of European and Asian saws were on an upward trend, Homelite and McCulloch started downsizing their sales and technical staff. The relied more and more on the dealers to be the eyes and ears of the companies and the dealers didn't take to that, as their plates were full already just keeping the doors to their shops open.

Agreed with you Mark. It won't get any applause here on an enthusiast site, but Poulan has been, and continues to be, a commercial success.

Yep. Although a lot of their recent designs are borne from engineers that were formerly with Partner and then absorbed into Electrolux AB.

 

[Joe46]

I know I've commented on this in others threads. When I started falling on the Olympic Peninsula in the mid 70's most guys had already switched to Stihl and Husky, mostly 2100's and 075's. Now the cedar rats would use the big Macs and Homelites mostly as disposable saws(shame). If they could find an 090 or 090G they were happier than a pig in poop. Only knew one guy that ran a Jonsereds. A loader operator I worked with on a couple of jobs had a little Sachs-Dolmar that he really liked, but it was stolen.

 

[Modifiedmark]

What I remember most about McCulloch and Homelite in the '70's was saw shop owners talking about how increasingly hard it was to get parts and technical information
out of the two companies. What ended up happening as sales of European and Asian saws were on an upward trend, Homelite and McCulloch started downsizing their sales and technical staff. The relied more and more on the dealers to be the eyes and ears of the companies and the dealers didn't take to that, as their plates were full already just keeping the doors to their shops open.



Yep. Although a lot of their recent designs are borne from engineers that were formerly with Partner and then absorbed into Electrolux AB.

I have heard mention of the Partner connection before but never documented it. What recent designs are you talking about? Like I said before, Partner who had some great saws ended up like the Poulan of europe anyway so maybe there was some work together between them.

I have some clippings here that state B-P/Weedeater was the largest US manufacture of chainsaws in 1984. Seems my thoughts on the big PNW saws not haveing a great effect on the US companys sales has some merit.

 

[mhrischuk]

Back in the 60's my Dad ran a Sears David Bradley. That sucker had major compression and was loud.
It looked something like this..

 

[cb_13]

My granpa ran a shop where he worked on all forms of machinery(cars, semi's, tractors, forklifts, lawnmowers, saws) and sold homelite products. He quit selling them when the company wanted him to do warranty work on the products sold at the bigger stores(Western Auto, I believe). I remember him saying the bigger stores were selling the stuff for not much more than he could buy it for and he was wasting too much time repairing them for next to no money for warranty.

 

[sawfun]

I remember in the late 70's and early 80's that Stihl was the desirable brand, but I didn't know which models. Mac was ok if you knew which were to good models. I now assume the mini Mac's and pro Mac 610 - 650' s were the less than desirable saws. I met a logger in 1985 who definitely prefered Huskys. Likely a 181 or 2100.

 

[watsonr]

My old man ran Homelite to the point parts were harder to come by. The one shop he used sold and serviced Homelite exclusively until about 85 and sometime around 90, they went to all Stihl. Last good Homelite saw was the 955 IV and they had sold a bunch trying to break into the AV market. The vertical cylinders, better AV and a compact design sealed the coffin. They never really tried to recover, that and honestly, the timber was slowing.

1972 was the last year the log drive was held on the North folk of the Clearwater river, that was the last log drive this country would see. I remember seeing the guys on the river, my father worked there for Potlatch. The logs were getting smaller, loads of pecker poles we called them. A load could be done in 6 logs or even less, eventually became 15-20 to make the same load. Logs got smaller, so did the saws. They ran 044s and 064s from what I remember, some still hauled the Mac's and Homelite ' s around to early 90 when they were won over by the weight reduction in modern saws, that and the speed. Probably because there were no good saw by Homelite or Mac at that point and I remember them talking about all the plastic saws at the time also.

 

[Bret4207]

I know it doesn't apply everywhere, but in the early 80's in the central Adirondacks we were still wrenching on Homlites, Macs, Pioneers and the occasional Remington. It was real common to see a P51 or 61 or even an older 1200 Pioneer, C5 and Homies of that era too. The Mac 7-10A was probably the most common Mac followed by the 10-10's for limbing. You'd see the older stuff clear back to the early 60's too as we had some real good Mac dealers in my area. We were selling Husky 266/181/2100's day and night and it was clear loggers preferred them if they could afford them. We saw a lot of 041's and some of the bigger Stihls too, but for some reason they were sort of referred to as "landing saws" by some of the guys. I don't know why. We'd see the weird stuff, weird to us at least, the Ropers, Daytons, David Bradleys, Lombards, Malls, Poulans, Oleo-macs, Partners, Sears, Wards and a lot of odd balls that required writing to a company and trying to find a dealer that would work with us. It was bad trying to fix up some poor old guy that had a 20 year old saw that just needed some small part if we didn't have any parts saws.

I miss the old days when you'd see red and yellow and green in the woods. It's all orange and orange/white now. Kind of like i miss when hunting coats were either green plaid or red plaid and not blaze orange or some brand of super camo that cost more than a new saw in '81.

 

[a. palmer jr.]

I'm trusting Mike Acres site for most of the dates as I don't have all of the documentation myself.

The last of the large professional direct drive saws were built in 1977 ending with the SP125C.

The last of the large gear drive saws were built in 1976 ending with the mysterious 895C.

McCulloch still produced professional quality 10 Series saws all the way up through 1990 with the Double Eagle 80 and through 1995 with the Super Pro Mac 850.

The Pro Mac 800 ended in 1985.

As with all things McCulloch the time lines and lineage are confused as the PM800 was the last in the series (850 and 805 coming earlier) but some how ended with the Super 850. In between (early '90's) were the PM4300 (700) and PM8200(800).

Clear as mud???

Mark

The nice thing is they made these saws so well that they're still around. I'm down to three right now, a PM700, 10-10S and a PM610, all great saws!

 

[Real1shepherd]

I know I've commented on this in others threads. When I started falling on the Olympic Peninsula in the mid 70's most guys had already switched to Stihl and Husky, mostly 2100's and 075's. Now the cedar rats would use the big Macs and Homelites mostly as disposable saws(shame). If they could find an 090 or 090G they were happier than a pig in poop. Only knew one guy that ran a Jonsereds. A loader operator I worked with on a couple of jobs had a little Sachs-Dolmar that he really liked, but it was stolen.

Sorry I didn't see this thread much earlier. This was almost exactly my experiences as well in WA & OR in the mid to late 70's. Most shows were using Stihl when I started, then converted pretty rapidly to orange. I was using a 075 until this old faller(ha, my age now!) slapped a Husky 2100 in my hand. After a day with the 2100, I went down the mountain into town and ordered my first 2100 from Bailey's. Never was a saw more suited for a man. Eventually plugged the gov, modified the muffler, slapped a General 6ft bar on 'er and away I went. But the scale soon started to get smaller and I shrunk down to a 42" Cannon. Got real tired of the nepotism in OR & WA and so moved to the wilds of CO(western slope). Logging there was another world....I guess you could call it 'cowboy logging'....and that would be flattery at best. Decent timber a lot of it, but they had no idea what high production meant.

And exactly so on the shake rats...they were a breed all unto their own in the PNW. About the only reason I quit loggin' was the reduction in scale. Making a living filling a log truck with 25-27 pecker poles was just not cuttin' it for me....for the danger and work invested in essentially tree thinning, the Forset Service could kiss my arse.

Kevin

 

[a. palmer jr.]

Since we're restarting this thread I must admit that I sold all the saws I stated that I had, the 10-10S, PM610, and PM700 but I acquired a 924 Homelite, a PM605, a Super XLAO and a few small Poulan 25s, all which run.

 

[svk]

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