The Mall Chainsaw Project

While cleaning out and dismantling one of the sheds on The Ranch last spring, I came across an old two-person chainsaw, buried beneath a mound of pine cone husks. When Grandpa Darrel was up this summer, I showed it to him and his eyes lit up--it's funny how objects can spark memories--and he went on to tell the story...

Grandpa Boyd bought the saw, brand-new, after getting a contract to cut 50 cord of wood for the Ferry County Customs at Midway. He and Grandma Lena and Grandpa Darrel (who would have been fifteen years of age at the time) spent the summer in O'Connor Canyon felling, marking and bucking 2 & 4 foot lengths of Doug fir and larch. Grandpa Boyd ran the saw and grandpa Darrel held the "stinger" end to fall the trees. Once on the ground, Grandma Lena and Grandpa Boyd bucked them into lengths and Grandpa Darrel split them with a maul. Together, they brought the wood out on Grandpa Boyd's one-and-a-half ton Chevy flatbed.

Grandpa told another story about the saw...about the time he and Grandpa Boyd fell a 42 inch yellow pine, just below the old homestead. It sounded like quite an undertaking. Apparently the limbs on that old tree were so tough that it was a chore just to limb it. While Grandpa Boyd smoked a cigarette, he told Grandpa Darrel to get busy. Three times he swung the double-bit axe at the base of one particular limb, and three times it just bounced off. So Grandpa Boyd got irritated, climbed up on the trunk of the pine and took the axe. With all his might, he dropped the head of that axe on the base of the limb, with the same result. The axe bounced back over Grandpa Boyd's head pulling backwards, off his feet and into a heap between some other limbs. Grandpa Darrel said that he knew better than to laugh until Grandpa Boyd's cussing turned into laughing.

Well, last week, our neighbor, Gary Johnson and I arranged to work on seeing if that old saw would run. Gary loves old engines and gets a kick out of rehabilitating them. (At his place, he's got an old flatbed truck he bought from a neighbor up the creek, that he got running after over 40 years of sitting idle.) So on Saturday he showed up and we got to work. While he took a wire brush to it, I began cleaning out the gas tank. Afterward, I did a little on-line research while he gauged whether the saw still had compression. I ended up finding out that the saw is a 1945 Mall, built in Chicago, Illinois. Gary discovered that there was plenty of compression and spark. About three hours later, after getting the fuel mixture right and dismantling the fuel filter (and putting it back together again) the time had come to give the cord a pull. Gary let me do the honors. I wrapped the cord tightly around the wheel and gave it a mighty pull (nearly tearing my rotator cuff in the process). Within a few pulls, by god, we got it running. It wasn't nearly as loud as I'd imagined--there are two mufflers on this one cylinder engine--but there were sparks. We walked it over to a pile of lumber and knocked off the end of a two-by-four in nothing flat. We choked it off and celebrated with a handshake.

Getting to hear that old saw run was like being there with Grandpa Darrel, Great Grandma Lena and Great Grandpa Boyd in O'Connor Canyon. I called Grandpa Darrel afterward and told him the news. He wasn't surprised that it ran however, because, "Dad took real good care of his things." I told him that I thought that saw belonged to the ranch and it should hold a place of honor here. I think that pleased him real well to hear.