This right here is some good stuff. A couple of weeks ago we posted the first part of the restoration of this 120 year old gas powered drag saw that was used by loggers to hack up trees into chunks. These things, while scary, heavy, and seemingly bad in today’s world were incredibly welcome into the logging camps back in the day because they saved huge amounts of back breaking labor. They were faster than a man with an ax or a two men with a saw and they were cheaper after they had been working a while.
In this video we see the second half of the job of restoring the saw. Seeing it come apart was one thing but seeing it go together is totally another and it is fascinating, especially at the end when he tries to make it run and eventually even get some log sawing done with it.
When you see a machine like this which is (like all machines) a big collection of basic systems, you really get an appreciation for the people who designed it and their understanding of the limitations they had to work with. Sure, it seems insane that they would use wood for some of the most integral parts of the saw but they knew that adding more iron or steel was just going to make the works that much heavier and they also knew that if those wooden pieces broke they’d be easily replaced by virtually anyone on a job site. You didn’t need a blacksmith, you needed a saw and a drill.
This is a really fun video and what a neat hunk of engine powered recklessness this saw is!
