Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name
Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday.
Speaker 1: Time for an episode from the Vault. This one was
Speaker 1: Invention of the Chainsaw, Part one, so seasonally appropriate for October.
Speaker 1: It originally published last year on October twenty six. That so,
Speaker 1: let's let's pull that rip chord and get a reven up.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and
Speaker 1: today we're going to be looking at an invention. This
Speaker 1: will be one of our invention episodes. And Rob, I
Speaker 1: think this is an idea we've been kicking around at
Speaker 1: least for a couple of years now, and it's finally happening.
Speaker 1: That's right. We've been talking talking about doing the Invention
Speaker 1: of the chainsaw for Halloween ever since we were doing
Speaker 1: actual invention podcast episodes in a separate podcast feed. Um.
Speaker 1: Because the chainsaw, for all its merits as a useful tool,
Speaker 1: is also heavily associated with horror. I noticed something about
Speaker 1: the chainsaw, which is that it has a even just
Speaker 1: the evocation of the concept feels kind of obscene, Like
Speaker 1: when I make reference to the idea of the Texas
Speaker 1: Chainsaw Massacre, even apart from any knowledge of the contents
Speaker 1: of the movie, just the fact that it involves a
Speaker 1: chainsaw feels like I'm talking about something that maybe shouldn't
Speaker 1: be mentioned. Does that make any sense? Yeah? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean we'll get more into like what the chainsaw is
Speaker 1: and what it comes to symbolize, particularly in American culture.
Speaker 1: I found a great source on that. I'm not not
Speaker 1: sure where where where we'll get into that in the discussion.
Speaker 1: But if you just tackle the the invention from you know,
Speaker 1: just look at the name of of the tool chain saw.
Speaker 1: You know, you're a combination of two already kind of
Speaker 1: repellent or potentially repellent uh classifications of thing. One is
Speaker 1: used sometimes to restrain or to uh you know, to
Speaker 1: to bind, to weigh down, and the other is used
Speaker 1: to to sever and to cut, and now they're they've
Speaker 1: come together into one item. Uh So, just on a
Speaker 1: you know, almost like a you know, a very basement
Speaker 1: level of our linguistic processing, it's already a kind of
Speaker 1: repellent concept as and also the fact that it is.
Speaker 1: We talk about the blade of the chainsaw, it is
Speaker 1: it is a blade that that cuts, even if your
Speaker 1: intent to cut is not you know, like it you
Speaker 1: technically don't have to really bear down too hard to
Speaker 1: do damage with the chainsaw. So it feels almost like
Speaker 1: it is uh embodying some of these ideas of like
Speaker 1: the sword that wants to cut, the sword that wants
Speaker 1: to drink and consume. Yeah, it has an inherent danger,
Speaker 1: like it suggests that not much force need be applied
Speaker 1: by the person wielding it, that it has a cutting
Speaker 1: mind of its own. In fact, I think, though it
Speaker 1: doesn't really conjure the same grizzliness, you could accomplish the
Speaker 1: same kind of threat by calling it something like the
Speaker 1: Texas lightsaber massacre. Well yeah, uh yeah, yeah, yeah. I
Speaker 1: mean when we're talking to just about like, yeah, the
Speaker 1: there is a certain amount of similarity there the lightsaber, yeah,
Speaker 1: not necessarily requiring a lot of force to to do damage,
Speaker 1: to do a body um and then at the same
Speaker 1: time being being fairly dangerous to wield to the person
Speaker 1: wielding it because that it literally cuts both ways. There. Now,
Speaker 1: one of the big reasons of course that we associate
Speaker 1: The Chainsaw with Horror is the N four film by
Speaker 1: Toby Hooper, which centered around a family of Texas cannibals,
Speaker 1: including their face, who runs them up with a chainsaw.
Speaker 1: Though it will be clear, and this is something that
Speaker 1: I think is sometimes lost on folks who maybe haven't
Speaker 1: seen the original film or haven't seen it in a while,
Speaker 1: um or if only absorbed Texas Chainsaw Masker through like
Speaker 1: the public consciousness, because it's become one of those films
Speaker 1: where you don't really have to to have seen it
Speaker 1: to have some idea of what it is. But Leatherface
Speaker 1: only murders one person with a chainsaw. You wouldn't know
Speaker 1: that if you only knew Texas Chainsaw Masker from playing
Speaker 1: the Atari game. Oh yeah, I have not, do you?
Speaker 1: Does does leather Face uh kill a lot of people
Speaker 1: with the chainsaw on that No, it's just a sort
Speaker 1: of clump of relatively large pixels that move around on
Speaker 1: a screen with sort of a barn background. From what
Speaker 1: I recall, it's been a long time, So that's the
Speaker 1: only media from the TC and franchise that you have
Speaker 1: engaged with. You're gonna have a very limited understanding. I
Speaker 1: think you may get some sort of beeps and boops
Speaker 1: computer sounds, uh, simulating the chainsaw noise. But again I'm
Speaker 1: a little fuzzy on that. Yeah. So, and then the
Speaker 1: original leather Face only uses it as a murder weapon once. Uh.
Speaker 1: He uses it in another case to dismember what is
Speaker 1: either a corpse or a common hose individual. I can't
Speaker 1: remember which. Um. I think he may be dead at
Speaker 1: that point when he cuts him up, because most of
Speaker 1: the other killing that occurs in the film is there
Speaker 1: are other implements that are used, especially the hammer. That's
Speaker 1: the one they talk about. The hammer is is best.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and I think certainly for the most shocking
Speaker 1: attack in the movie, when like he suddenly pops out
Speaker 1: from behind that sliding metal door, which is just oh god,
Speaker 1: just thinking about that gives me a shiver now. Um.
Speaker 1: But one of the other weird things about the chainsaw is,
Speaker 1: as we'll discuss in this episode about the history of
Speaker 1: this piece of technology in nineteen seventy four, at the
Speaker 1: time this movie was made, the widespread use of gas
Speaker 1: powered chainsaws was actually fairly recent. I mean, this was
Speaker 1: a technology again that had been around in some sort
Speaker 1: of prototype form for a long time. But the widespread
Speaker 1: use was within living memory. It had only been the
Speaker 1: norm m in logging for maybe a couple of decades. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's I think that's that's that's key to keep
Speaker 1: in mind. Um. And then, like I said, I have
Speaker 1: I have a wonderful sore son on some of this later,
Speaker 1: Like the cultural idea of the chainsaw is very much
Speaker 1: this this twentieth century adaptation. But um, as far as
Speaker 1: just chainsaws and horror movies go, I was looking into
Speaker 1: this little bit because I knew some of the precursors here,
Speaker 1: but I wasn't familiar with all of them. But believe
Speaker 1: it or not, Texas Chainsaw Massacre seventy four was not
Speaker 1: the first genre film to feature a bloody chainsaw. Uh.
Speaker 1: Film historians often point to a pair of different key
Speaker 1: for runners nineteen sixty eight, Dark of the Sun in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, the Wizard of Gore. Now, were you familiar
Speaker 1: with Dark of the Sounja? No, I did not know
Speaker 1: this one, though I do know about Wizard of Gore. Okay,
Speaker 1: Well we'll start with Dark of the Sun, just very briefly.
Speaker 1: Dark of the Sun, which I have not seen, was
Speaker 1: an adventure film about mercenary areas during the Congo Crisis
Speaker 1: of sixty through Nive, which by the way, is also
Speaker 1: the setting of Warren Zevon's supernatural ballad rolling the headless
Speaker 1: Thompson Gunner. In this film, though Peter Cartson plays a
Speaker 1: German mercenary, is like, I think he's the villain of
Speaker 1: the piece. And at one point he's in this fight
Speaker 1: with our hero played by Rod Taylor both mercenaries, and
Speaker 1: the German mercenary grabs a chainsaw, so we have a
Speaker 1: fight featuring a chainsaw, and the chainsaw was heavily featured
Speaker 1: in the both the trailer and the poster for this film. Now,
Speaker 1: I wonder if it's significant that he's a German mercenary
Speaker 1: grabbing a chainsaw because some of the big early manufacturers
Speaker 1: of chainsaws were German firms, like like Steel. It's possible.
Speaker 1: The other film, The Wizard of Gore, this is a
Speaker 1: far more notorious film that I think a lot of
Speaker 1: horror buffs might at least have some um knowledge of.
Speaker 1: Seventy splatter film by Schlock Legend Herschel Gordon Lewis about
Speaker 1: Montag the Magnificent, who in one scene cuts a woman
Speaker 1: in half with a chainsaw. It's like a magic act,
Speaker 1: except um, he's supposed to actually be cutting somebody in half.
Speaker 1: This is a well known gonzo b horror movie. I
Speaker 1: saw it many years ago, and it might be surprising
Speaker 1: since I love, you know, a good weird be horror movie.
Speaker 1: But I remember not particularly enjoying this film. I think
Speaker 1: it's just mostly about like a magician who who like
Speaker 1: his magic tricks, are that he like kills people. Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's mostly notable I think for being schlocked. Um. Now
Speaker 1: this next point is interesting as well, when it comes
Speaker 1: to sort of you know that the hard directors of
Speaker 1: this era. We we generally give Toby Hooper all the
Speaker 1: credit for for Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but it's worth noting
Speaker 1: did Wes Craven's notorious nine film The Last House on
Speaker 1: the Left also beat Texas Chainsaw Massacre to the punch
Speaker 1: with the chainsaw as horror weapon trope. There's at least
Speaker 1: there's one kill in the film, at least that involves
Speaker 1: a chainsaw. Now that's That's also not a film that
Speaker 1: I've seen, nor one I'm I'm planning to see, but
Speaker 1: I checked in on it and read the synopsis and
Speaker 1: it's like, yep, okay, chainsaw kill, it happened. Now. Texas
Speaker 1: chainsaw Masaker, of course, really just blew the doors off
Speaker 1: for chainsall horror. So in the wake of the first
Speaker 1: Texas chainsaw massacre, we just saw this reinforced time and
Speaker 1: time again. Uh. Certainly by additional Texas chainsaw massacre films,
Speaker 1: but also by films and franchises such as The Evil Dead.
Speaker 1: Uh phantasm, especially Phantasm to um. The Doom video games
Speaker 1: are often brought up because you can use a chainsaw
Speaker 1: in those. And we should also give special mention to
Speaker 1: the nineteen eight film Pieces. Uh. This is a Spanish
Speaker 1: chainsaw film from the director of Slugs and the Pod People.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, one Piker Simone. Uh. And I think I've
Speaker 1: seen this one. It's been a long time, but I
Speaker 1: seemed I think I actually saw this one. Uh. And
Speaker 1: I don't think it made a lot of sense at
Speaker 1: the time, but it does feature a chainsaw and a
Speaker 1: chainsaw related plot. Now by mentioning the Evil Dead at least,
Speaker 1: I don't recall the first movie, but I assume this
Speaker 1: is the case. It's definitely the case in the second
Speaker 1: movie that sort of flips the script because In these cases,
Speaker 1: it is not the evil killer, the villain of the movie,
Speaker 1: wielding a chainsaw, but it is the hero of the
Speaker 1: movie facing a bunch of sort of fluid filled demonic
Speaker 1: entities that that must wield the chainsaw and self defense. Right, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess you could make a case. I
Speaker 1: think the last House on the left it's a revenge
Speaker 1: murder that involves the use of a chainsaw, but still
Speaker 1: not quite the same as Ash taking up the chainsaw,
Speaker 1: as like the you know, the Holy weapon against the
Speaker 1: dead eyes, right, this is what will unleash the green
Speaker 1: goop from the from the demons. Now, I know what
Speaker 1: a lot of you are probably wondering at this point.
Speaker 1: You're saying, thinking, well, this is all fiction, but how
Speaker 1: how often is the chainsaw actually used as a lethal instrument?
Speaker 1: And how frequently? Oh good lord, is that what we're wondering? Well,
Speaker 1: I was wondering it. Okay, no, no, it's a fair
Speaker 1: thing to wonder. Well, I think I there was. I
Speaker 1: remember when I was first sort of getting more well,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I was first getting into it. I
Speaker 1: was getting into horror a bit more in the mid nineties,
Speaker 1: and there was a chainsaw murder uh in the state
Speaker 1: of Tennessee. I remember making the headlines. Yeah, so that
Speaker 1: might have you know. I think that was even at
Speaker 1: the time, I was like, oh, wow, this really happens.
Speaker 1: There are actual chainsaw maskers, I guess from time to time. Um,
Speaker 1: So I was looking into into this a little bit.
Speaker 1: And so for starters, there are a few obvious things
Speaker 1: about the chainsaw. Chainsaws are dangerous tools, and you should
Speaker 1: all and they should always be used with care and caution.
Speaker 1: Those chainsaws that haunted attractions, they are chainless, or they
Speaker 1: certainly should be chainless. Um And I've often wondered, though,
Speaker 1: could you just get rid of the chainless chainsaw entirely
Speaker 1: and have the the guys that the haunted attractions just
Speaker 1: chase people around with leafblowers instead. I guess that that
Speaker 1: raises the question is it important to see it or
Speaker 1: is it important just to hear it. I have been here,
Speaker 1: it's hearing it. I barely see the chainsaw. If it's
Speaker 1: leather face at the haunted attraction chasing you around with
Speaker 1: a leaf blower or just a motor of some sort,
Speaker 1: wouldn't that work? I have been chased by a chainsaw
Speaker 1: multiple times through I think a haunted corn field and
Speaker 1: some haunted woods. Uh, I don't know. It's it's fun
Speaker 1: to run from a chainsaw as long as you know
Speaker 1: that it's not actually gonna hurt you. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: guess it's a pretty simple thing, though. I wonder I've
Speaker 1: thought about this before. So you take the chain off
Speaker 1: to render it harmless. It's just, you know, it's just
Speaker 1: the bar there doesn't actually have a cutting edge, and
Speaker 1: the motor is running without the chain. I wonder from
Speaker 1: a maintenance point of view, is that bad for the saw?
Speaker 1: Is that going to burn out the motor if there's
Speaker 1: no chain on there? I wish I thought I could
Speaker 1: have checked in with our contacts that Another world in
Speaker 1: Atlanta and asked them, well, because I went this year
Speaker 1: and they had three chainsaws running outside of one house.
Speaker 1: You know, you expect one, you you you demand one,
Speaker 1: you expect might be a second, but you don't expect three.
Speaker 1: So that that caught me off guard. So one compromise
Speaker 1: position is they could have one chainless chainsaw that you
Speaker 1: can see, and that's enough to scare you, but then
Speaker 1: you hear plenty of leaf blowers after that. That's this
Speaker 1: sounds good. Just leaf blowers in the vicinity. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: I was looking at a couple of sources on this,
Speaker 1: as reported by Cohler at All in Death by Chainsaw
Speaker 1: Fatal kickback Injuries to the Neck in the Journal of
Speaker 1: Forensic Science back in two thousand four. At the time,
Speaker 1: they're reporting the two million new chainsaws were sold each
Speaker 1: year in the United States and this of course would
Speaker 1: augment the exit the number of existing chainsaws already in use,
Speaker 1: and this helped bring about twenty eight thousand chainsaw related
Speaker 1: injuries annually. Again, chainsaws are are dangerous tools. You have
Speaker 1: to use them properly, and even so mishaps can occur.
Speaker 1: But even in the case of tools that require extreme
Speaker 1: caution like this, most of these injuries were not fatal.
Speaker 1: Correct um Accidental chainsaw deaths the road were extremely rare.
Speaker 1: Only ten of the cases they were looking at involved
Speaker 1: the head or the neck area, and the rest were
Speaker 1: lower extremities or hands. That's where you tend to see
Speaker 1: these injuries. But as the article points out via two
Speaker 1: different case studies of fatal um injuries with chainsaws, kick
Speaker 1: back is the most common cause of injury and one
Speaker 1: of the greatest potential threats that can result than an
Speaker 1: accidental death. Kick Back is when the rotating chain of
Speaker 1: the chainsaw is stopped by contact with a more solid
Speaker 1: area or solid substance or something, you know, and which
Speaker 1: rapidly throws the saw back toward the operator. Right, So
Speaker 1: I'd imagine safety training that you'd go through if you're
Speaker 1: gonna be operating a chainsaw would involve being able to
Speaker 1: sort of predict and guard against this kick back. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: I've seen some different numbers as well. Um thing in
Speaker 1: a source that side of the U. S. Bureau of
Speaker 1: Labor report from twelve saying that resulted int in chainsaw
Speaker 1: injuries with one thousand, four hundred resulting in quote hospitalization
Speaker 1: or death and that's about four point six percent, and
Speaker 1: we don't know exactly what the fatality percentage of that
Speaker 1: would be. Um Plus, these are all just chainsaw related,
Speaker 1: so I'm assuming they can involve other things as well.
Speaker 1: Like you're using a chainsaw on a ladder and then
Speaker 1: there's kick back, and then you know, someone falls off
Speaker 1: a ladder. Uh, you know that alone could be lethal
Speaker 1: without the chainsaw ever actually touching your body. And there
Speaker 1: may there may be some better numbers out there are
Speaker 1: some more recent numbers, but I think these do illustrate
Speaker 1: a point. Chainsaws can be extremely dangerous or even deadly,
Speaker 1: but fatalities are rare, and when it comes to the
Speaker 1: use in crimes, we're probably best to think back to
Speaker 1: the original Texas chainsaw. Mascre leather Face uses the saw
Speaker 1: to dismember a dead body, but also in one murder.
Speaker 1: So in general, while the chainsaw is menacing and scary,
Speaker 1: it's generally not the most effective weapon available to an individual, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, if they're going to go out and commit murder.
Speaker 1: There is a book that I'm going to reference in
Speaker 1: this episode that that I used as as one of
Speaker 1: my major sources. It's called Chainsaws, a History by David Lee,
Speaker 1: with some input by a chainsaw collector and historian named
Speaker 1: Mike Acres. It's kind of a coffee table book for
Speaker 1: chainsaw obsessives, with lavish photographs of those big, beautiful saws,
Speaker 1: and so this book has a lot of fun in it.
Speaker 1: But one of the things the authors point out in
Speaker 1: the introduction is the chainsaw is actually not an ideal
Speaker 1: weapon for massacres. First of all, because somebody would always
Speaker 1: hear you coming. That's right, um, And sometimes it's hilarious
Speaker 1: in movies where you need a jump scare and they
Speaker 1: orchestrated jump scare with a chainsaw, It's like, how do
Speaker 1: you started that quickly? Yeah? Yeah, wouldn't they need to?
Speaker 1: You'd hear them like pulling the starter chain and stuff.
Speaker 1: There was a video game years and years back called
Speaker 1: Manhunt that uh, the rock Star Games put out, and
Speaker 1: there's an individual that you end up encountering with the chainsaw,
Speaker 1: and I seem to recall that was the case there
Speaker 1: where he would suddenly jump out from behind something at
Speaker 1: you the chainsaw just going full throttle without ever having
Speaker 1: to actually start it. I think more accurate chainsaw enemy
Speaker 1: might be encountered in Resident Evil, for it's a guy
Speaker 1: with a bag on his head who's got a big chainsaw.
Speaker 1: He comes at you, but you get to see him
Speaker 1: like starting it up first, he's pulling the chain and
Speaker 1: all that, not the chain, the cord, the starter and
Speaker 1: and some movies that's that plays really well because there's this, yeah,
Speaker 1: the revenue. One of the things that's scary about just
Speaker 1: the sounds of the chainsaw is that idea that it's
Speaker 1: like it's gaining in intensity and ferocity you know, and
Speaker 1: so first it's starting under and then and then it
Speaker 1: gets you know, just reach just this peak of insanity
Speaker 1: than than Thank so, in the spirit of the season.
Speaker 1: Since we're starting off this discussion of talking about horror movies,
Speaker 1: I had to look up what is the actual model
Speaker 1: of consumer chainsaw used in the Texas chainsaw massacre. I
Speaker 1: found an answer to this according to the Pennsylvania Lumber
Speaker 1: Museum's website. If I'm ever in town, I'll try to
Speaker 1: make it to that museum. Uh. They claim that the
Speaker 1: filmmakers put a black piece of tape over the brand
Speaker 1: name to hide what it was. But apparently, if you
Speaker 1: know your chainsaws, it is clearly visible as a Pooh
Speaker 1: lawn three oh six A and so I pulled up
Speaker 1: a screenshot from Texas Chainsaw masker alongside a shot for
Speaker 1: you to look at Rob and I think, yeah, that
Speaker 1: is definitely the same saw. Um. The one thing I
Speaker 1: would not have been able to tell you was was
Speaker 1: the answer to the question what color is the chainsaw
Speaker 1: in the original TCM. Uh. My my mind would have
Speaker 1: been like, I don't know, beige. I mean, I guess
Speaker 1: like that's the dominant color scheme of the film is
Speaker 1: beige and sometimes orange. Yes, exactly. So the original the
Speaker 1: film that they used in the Texas Chainsaw Masker looks
Speaker 1: like you can only really reproduce two colors. One is
Speaker 1: the color of sort of orange blood and the other
Speaker 1: is the color of like a rotting bale of hay.
Speaker 1: And so that's what I would have said. But no,
Speaker 1: actually it is green. Uh. Strange kind of unusual color
Speaker 1: to to appear in the movie like this, And I
Speaker 1: guess for some reason that just fell out the back
Speaker 1: of my mind. But it is a notably green body
Speaker 1: around the engine and then a long straight bar and chain. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so the Pennsylvania Lumber Museum website rights quote. The
Speaker 1: pool On three oh six A was introduced in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy in produced until nineteen eighty. The poula On Company
Speaker 1: was founded by lumberjack Claude Poulan in nineteen forty six.
Speaker 1: The company was located in Shreveport, Louisiana, making the three
Speaker 1: oh six A a nice local option for a Texas
Speaker 1: chainsaw massacre. So this would have been a local saw, okay,
Speaker 1: Because I was wondering when you said Poulan, I was
Speaker 1: thinking this a French chainsaw that seems very unlike the
Speaker 1: sawyer clan to to to use an import but I
Speaker 1: didn't think about the possible Cajun connection. They're using Cajun technology,
Speaker 1: which certainly makes it a more local option. As for
Speaker 1: actual chainsall murders, I'll just leave everyone else to research
Speaker 1: that that on your own time. There's there are plenty
Speaker 1: of like true crime articles and lists out there that
Speaker 1: have more information on all this, and you know, it's
Speaker 1: all depressing stuff. But I did find it interesting that, uh,
Speaker 1: that sometimes there's kind of a fetishizing of the chainsaw
Speaker 1: even in this kind of in these kind of articles,
Speaker 1: in this kind of coverage, I found one that you
Speaker 1: talked about chainsaws as as as allowing um killing or
Speaker 1: murder to take place quote on an industrial scale, which
Speaker 1: is a description that that is. But I feel is
Speaker 1: both right and wrong because on one level, I agree
Speaker 1: with that, you know, like we're talking about the lightsaber principle,
Speaker 1: you know that the machine is doing some of the
Speaker 1: work for you that you know it's an industrialization of
Speaker 1: doing what a blade would do. But on the other hand,
Speaker 1: I feel like if you're talking about murder on an
Speaker 1: industrial scale, really, if you're if you're folk sing on
Speaker 1: the chainsaw and ignoring firearms and explosives in that discussion,
Speaker 1: and you're completely off, like like, I think firearms are
Speaker 1: the are the true uh innovation that allows murder on
Speaker 1: an industrial scale. Yeah, And the words scale there would
Speaker 1: imply like actual numbers of cases, which, as you were saying,
Speaker 1: is not particularly the case, though I can see, of
Speaker 1: course the idea. I mean, it's what is again scary
Speaker 1: about the concept of the Texas chainsaw mask or it
Speaker 1: is the mechanization of violence, the sort of adding adding
Speaker 1: the uh, the internal combustion engine or the electric motor
Speaker 1: to the to the to the murderer's agenda. Yeah. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, it kind of coming back to
Speaker 1: the impracticality of the chainsaw as a weapon, Like maybe
Speaker 1: that's one of the comforting things about this and other slashers.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, they use impractical weapons. They these killers
Speaker 1: love to kill. But we'll probably hear them come in
Speaker 1: or have a good we'll have a better chance at
Speaker 1: outrunning them or somehow how smarting them if they insist
Speaker 1: on using their these ludicrous killing techniques. I suspect that
Speaker 1: leather Face has not read his Poulan three oh six
Speaker 1: a safety manual and is not following proper safety procedure.
Speaker 1: I don't think you're supposed to run with the chainsaw revving. Hey,
Speaker 1: he pays for it, doesn't he consequences for that kind
Speaker 1: of recklessness? Yeah? Okay, Well, I guess we should turn
Speaker 1: to discuss the invention of the chainsaw itself. And one
Speaker 1: thing we always like to do when we talk about
Speaker 1: an invention is to talk about what came before, what
Speaker 1: was the state of affairs that this invention had to
Speaker 1: come into to introduce new capabilities. And though chainsaws can have,
Speaker 1: of course many uses, there primarily today associated with logging.
Speaker 1: So I thought it would be good to start with
Speaker 1: a look at logging before the chainsaw. So a few
Speaker 1: notes on logging terminology. I had to get this stuff
Speaker 1: straightened out so I would understand what say this this
Speaker 1: book by David Lee and Mike Acres was talking about
Speaker 1: in other sources I was looking at on the internet. So, um,
Speaker 1: so logging involves more just the process of cutting down
Speaker 1: an upright tree. The term for cutting down an upright
Speaker 1: tree at the base I've seen referred to as felling
Speaker 1: or falling a tree. But it doesn't stop there. You've
Speaker 1: also got the process of limbing, which is very important.
Speaker 1: That's removing limbs from either a felled tree trunk or
Speaker 1: a or a tree trunk while it's still standing. And
Speaker 1: then this is a big part of the business. There's
Speaker 1: what's known as bucking. This is cutting a felled tree
Speaker 1: into logs of a specified length. And one reason it's
Speaker 1: important to call it the difference early on between felling
Speaker 1: and bucking is that when you imagine performing these two tasks,
Speaker 1: the saw has to be oriented in a different direction
Speaker 1: for each one. So when you're felling a tree, the
Speaker 1: saw has to go horizontally through the tree when it's upright.
Speaker 1: When you're bucking a tree to cut it into logs
Speaker 1: of a specified length, you need to go up and down.
Speaker 1: It's a vertical cutting. This is, uh you know, pretty
Speaker 1: easy to do with a modern chainsaw, which is handheld
Speaker 1: and very maneuverable. But if you were to imagine, say
Speaker 1: an earlier age, where people were trying to use um bulkier,
Speaker 1: more complex machinery that that had more moving parts and
Speaker 1: was harder to move around, maybe something you couldn't hold
Speaker 1: with just one person's arm strength, then the difference between
Speaker 1: felling and bucking becomes very significant. Now. Of course, even
Speaker 1: after that, after you've got a bucked piece of raw timber, Uh,
Speaker 1: there's more work to do with the sawing. Of course,
Speaker 1: you can maybe split that log into lengthwise wedges, say
Speaker 1: for firewood, or you can do hewing, which is taking
Speaker 1: a bucked log and cutting it to have flat surfaces
Speaker 1: for use in building. Though hewing is a sort of
Speaker 1: archaic term that I think refers to a process in
Speaker 1: which you might use like an axe. And then of
Speaker 1: course they're sawing a bucked log into pieces of flat
Speaker 1: lumber that might be shipped or or immediately used in
Speaker 1: some way. Uh. There's another wonderful term that I came
Speaker 1: across that I never knew before, and that term is
Speaker 1: curf k e r f uh Rob. Maybe you knew
Speaker 1: this word, but I did not. It's a word, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I I always you needed a word for this, and
Speaker 1: I didn't know what it was. A curve is the
Speaker 1: cut that is made while you're sawing something. So it's
Speaker 1: that it's that unfinished cut through the wood. And and sometimes, uh, say,
Speaker 1: cutting down a tree will involve things that you have
Speaker 1: to do to the curve, for example, hammering a wedge
Speaker 1: into the curve to help make sure that the tree
Speaker 1: is bending in the right way and that it's not
Speaker 1: closing in on your saw and binding it. And one
Speaker 1: of the things that's been most interesting to me about
Speaker 1: about researching this is the surprising fact that well into
Speaker 1: the twentieth century, the most common tools for sawing and
Speaker 1: bucking wood were manually powered tools. So even you know,
Speaker 1: within the memory of people who are alive today, the
Speaker 1: most common tools you would find used in logging would
Speaker 1: be the axe, the wedge, the springboard, and the springboard
Speaker 1: by the way, that this is an interesting device. This
Speaker 1: is a thing where you would sort of like cut
Speaker 1: a little uh notch into a tree, and you would
Speaker 1: put a board up on the tree so you could
Speaker 1: stand on it in order to better cut the trunk.
Speaker 1: So it's like not having to chop at the area
Speaker 1: that's wider around the roots. Right. Yeah, so you could
Speaker 1: sort of position your body for for cutting or sawing
Speaker 1: higher up. But oh, but I didn't get to the
Speaker 1: to the last thing, which was by far, I think
Speaker 1: the most important of all these tools. It was the
Speaker 1: hand powered saw, and for large trees this was often
Speaker 1: the famous two man saw, known colloquially as the misery whip,
Speaker 1: which in the felling of larger trees, could be more
Speaker 1: than ten ft long with a handle at each end.
Speaker 1: So this would be worked by two sawyers, each pulling
Speaker 1: from their side, just taking turns going back and forth
Speaker 1: to take down a redwood or you know whatever, giant tree.
Speaker 1: A lot of this logging was especially taking place up
Speaker 1: in the Pacific Northwest ESTs. A lot of the sawing
Speaker 1: innovations happened in places like Oregon, but you can imagine
Speaker 1: the giant trees there and two guys with a with
Speaker 1: a tin foot long cross cut saw, one handle at
Speaker 1: each end, and they're just working themselves to death on
Speaker 1: this trunk. I feel like my my, my earliest and
Speaker 1: still clearest, like mental images of this particular type of
Speaker 1: saw comes from watching cartoons. I can't remember. It was
Speaker 1: like it was like Loony Tunes or Disney, you know,
Speaker 1: it was Chipmunks or whatever, But I remember like cartoon depictions.
Speaker 1: It might even been like Woody Woodpeck or something. I
Speaker 1: don't know, but there were cartoon depictions of people using
Speaker 1: these saws and things getting out of control and the
Speaker 1: saw like bunching up or pulling someone through the um
Speaker 1: what through the curve if you will. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: some of the photographs you see of logging sites at
Speaker 1: this time, with people, you know, posing with their misery
Speaker 1: whips and their axes and everything, they look like something
Speaker 1: straight out of a car tune. I've attached a couple
Speaker 1: of pictures for you to look at here. Rob One
Speaker 1: is a photo from circa nineteen o six, which is
Speaker 1: a couple of guys or three guys in the middle
Speaker 1: of cutting down a gigantic tree looks like it could
Speaker 1: be a redwood. I think this was a photo taken
Speaker 1: somewhere in the state of Washington. And uh and one
Speaker 1: guy is so they've they've cut It's not just a
Speaker 1: flat curve. They've cut a wedge out of the tree,
Speaker 1: I think, to help it fall in the right direction
Speaker 1: when they when they finally get all the way through it,
Speaker 1: and one of the loggers is just lying down inside
Speaker 1: the wedge on this giant tree incredibly dangerously. I mean,
Speaker 1: one assumes they knew what they were doing and that
Speaker 1: this was a safe time to climb into the you know,
Speaker 1: the death zone for a photo. But I also found
Speaker 1: an awesome picture of a misery whip in use from
Speaker 1: a photo on the website of a local history museum
Speaker 1: in Hood River County, Oregon. Uh So, Rob, if you,
Speaker 1: if you just take a look at this beast for
Speaker 1: a moment, it looks like a still from an upcoming
Speaker 1: Robert Egger's movie, you know, would be the follow up
Speaker 1: to The Lighthouse. It's about some kind of romantic shenanigans
Speaker 1: between a logger and a beast of the forest. And
Speaker 1: uh this picture though, one of the things that were
Speaker 1: saying on the website is it might well be kind
Speaker 1: of posed for maximum effect. But it has two guys too,
Speaker 1: very uh surly looking fellas on each side of a
Speaker 1: misery whip. And then in the foreground there's a shotgun
Speaker 1: and then a bottle of clear liquid and then multiple
Speaker 1: axes one act just like sunk into the tree, sticking
Speaker 1: out of it. It's pretty awesome. Yeah, And the guy
Speaker 1: on the left, he looks a little bit like the
Speaker 1: p coach from the TV show ap Bio. Oh I
Speaker 1: haven't seen that. Yeah, that's good. Well, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: speaking of physical education, I think these guys would be
Speaker 1: candidates for the President's Physical Fitness award, because wow, I
Speaker 1: mean imagining the physical exertion that goes in to sawing
Speaker 1: down just tree after tree all day long with these
Speaker 1: hand powered crosscut saws, It's it's kind of hard to fathom. Yeah, indeed,
Speaker 1: and in grueling work, and then all the the the
Speaker 1: hazards that would be present in the job just but
Speaker 1: you know, by virtue of using these tools, but also
Speaker 1: by felling trees which are inherently dangerous themselves. And one
Speaker 1: of the things that is pointed out in in Chainsaws,
Speaker 1: a History that this book by Lee Um is that
Speaker 1: again well into the twentieth century, most log working out
Speaker 1: in the woods at least was done by these human
Speaker 1: powered tools the acts the hand saw, the crosscut saw,
Speaker 1: or the misery whip, and these tools could basically get
Speaker 1: every job done. It wasn't like there were uber trees
Speaker 1: that could not be cut down by conventional hand powered technology,
Speaker 1: and you know, you couldn't cut them down and cut
Speaker 1: them up until you had a chainsaw. But but the
Speaker 1: issue is that it's this absolutely grueling physical labor that
Speaker 1: took time and was hard on the bodies of workers.
Speaker 1: So obviously, once the industrial revolution comes around, there would
Speaker 1: be people turning their minds to the question of is
Speaker 1: there any way to make the job of felling and
Speaker 1: bucking trees faster or easier? And it turns out that
Speaker 1: even though there were no modern chainsaws and exactly the
Speaker 1: form we think of for felling in bucking wood until
Speaker 1: the twentieth century, there were some very weird and interesting
Speaker 1: inventions in the eighteen hundreds trending in that direction. So,
Speaker 1: for example, one design that Lee brings up is this
Speaker 1: kind of giant cog wheel. It looks in the in
Speaker 1: the illustrations like a big metal collar that fits around
Speaker 1: the trunk of a tree. And then inside this metal
Speaker 1: collar there is a cutting blade that is dragged around
Speaker 1: the outside of the tree in a circular motion, powered
Speaker 1: by a hand crank. Um. I couldn't find any pictures online,
Speaker 1: but there is a picture in the book I was
Speaker 1: looking at, and uh, it's very Clive Barker. It's like
Speaker 1: a torture device for wood. What also brings to mind
Speaker 1: the film Robot Jocks that we talked about on Weird
Speaker 1: How Cinema. There's a saw very much like this, excepted
Speaker 1: like a sci fi variation of it that one of
Speaker 1: the Giant Max used against the other. Oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: forgot about that. Lee also mentions that there is a U. S.
Speaker 1: Patent for something called a saw chain in the year
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty eight, but without any method for powering the
Speaker 1: rapid movement of the chain, so it didn't really offer
Speaker 1: any advantage at the time. But then it gets to
Speaker 1: something really interesting. So Lee's examples of these these pre
Speaker 1: chainsaw powered saw ideas included, much to my interest, reference
Speaker 1: to a passage in the War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells.
Speaker 1: And this would have been published in eighteen seven, so
Speaker 1: this again long predates the modern chainsaw. And so I
Speaker 1: looked up the context so I could I could read
Speaker 1: this whole passage from the War of the World's describing
Speaker 1: an industrially powered saw. It goes like this, the narrators
Speaker 1: describing fleeing from the Martian invasion and uh and he says,
Speaker 1: we went down the lane by the body of the
Speaker 1: man in black sodden now from overnight hail, and broke
Speaker 1: into the woods at the foot of the hill. We
Speaker 1: pushed through these towards the railway without meeting a soul.
Speaker 1: The woods across the line were but the scarred and
Speaker 1: blackened ruins of woods. For the most part the trees
Speaker 1: had fallen, but a certain proportion still stood, dismal gray
Speaker 1: stems with dark brown foliage instead of green. On our side,
Speaker 1: the fire had done no much more than scorched the
Speaker 1: nearer trees. It had failed to secure its footing. In
Speaker 1: one place, the woodman had been at work on Saturday.
Speaker 1: Trees felled and freshly trimmed lay in a clearing with
Speaker 1: heaps of sawdust by the sawing machine and its engine.
Speaker 1: Hard By was a temporary hut deserted. There was not
Speaker 1: a breath of wind this morning, and everything was strangely still.
Speaker 1: Even the birds were hushed. And as we hurried along,
Speaker 1: Eye and the artilleryman talked in whispers and looked now
Speaker 1: and again over our shoulders. Once or twice we stopped
Speaker 1: to listen. So uh, this again makes reference to a
Speaker 1: sawing machine that would have been used by the woodman
Speaker 1: who are cutting down the trees. And it's interesting that
Speaker 1: I think Wells is sort of drawing a contrast of
Speaker 1: the two types of technology. Here on one side of
Speaker 1: the road the forest is just absolutely annihilated by the fires,
Speaker 1: I believe caused by by something from the Martian invasion.
Speaker 1: I would assume it was the heat ray or some
Speaker 1: other kind of damage they've done. But then on the
Speaker 1: other side there is this this partial clearing made by
Speaker 1: the human woodman and their sawing machine, which I guess
Speaker 1: Wells may have seen as one, you know, sort of
Speaker 1: peak pinnacle technology of humankind at the time, but it
Speaker 1: can't compete with the destruction caused by the Martians. And
Speaker 1: so the question is what is this sawing machine that
Speaker 1: he makes reference to? Well According to Lee, this is
Speaker 1: not a sci fi invention of Wells imagination, but very
Speaker 1: likely a reference to a nineteenth century steam powered saw
Speaker 1: known as a Ransom r A N s O m E.
Speaker 1: And it's named after its creator, an English inventor named
Speaker 1: a Ransom Uh and it abuted in the year eighteen sixty.
Speaker 1: And so it's it goes something like this. You would
Speaker 1: have a central wood fired steam boiler, and then from
Speaker 1: the steam boiler you would have pressure hoses leading out
Speaker 1: to the saws. So you know, the steam powers the
Speaker 1: pressure in the hose, and then each saw would have
Speaker 1: a single cylinder motor, and the piston in this cylinder
Speaker 1: would power a reciprocating saw blade and so that's important
Speaker 1: to note that this is not like a chainsaw with
Speaker 1: a chain continuously going around in one direction. It's a
Speaker 1: reciprocating saw blade like you would use with like a
Speaker 1: hand saws. It's moving back and forth with a solid
Speaker 1: blade surface. Better than hand sawing, I'm sure, or at
Speaker 1: least easier. But the ransom was used for logging in
Speaker 1: Europe and in Africa around around the turn of the
Speaker 1: twentieth century. But Lee notes that even if you take
Speaker 1: away the central boiler which is necessary for it to work,
Speaker 1: and all the hoses and all the possible accessories, just
Speaker 1: the saw, just each saw, all on its own, connected
Speaker 1: to the central boiler, would weigh six hundred pounds or
Speaker 1: two hundred seventy and the the central boiler supplying the
Speaker 1: steam power was also gigantic. It had to be transported
Speaker 1: on a horse drawn platform, and of course the boiler
Speaker 1: required water and fuel, which you probably needed to source
Speaker 1: on site. So you can imagine how much more difficult
Speaker 1: this is than the the you know, light portable handheld
Speaker 1: chainsaws of today. This, this is this is a whole apparatus,
Speaker 1: but I do love the vision of it. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is like something out of a steampunk nightmare. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, in a way, this reminds me of some
Speaker 1: of the design challenges and some of the reasons that
Speaker 1: we ended up getting the armored tank, you know, because
Speaker 1: it's one thing to have the gun. Uh, it's one
Speaker 1: thing to have the saw, But then how are you
Speaker 1: going to get it where you need to use it?
Speaker 1: How you know, how are you going to transport it
Speaker 1: across difficult terrain? And so I mean in in the
Speaker 1: case of the gun, well, if you're talking about a
Speaker 1: large piece of artillery, you do generally have no other
Speaker 1: choice but to figure out how to how to build
Speaker 1: up the machinery around it, how to to make it mobile,
Speaker 1: figure out what sort of wheels or tracks are necessary.
Speaker 1: But with the chainsaw, if I mean with the powered
Speaker 1: saw anyway, Um, if you could make it smaller and
Speaker 1: you know, and and still work, if you could, you could,
Speaker 1: you could you could somehow m reduce the need for
Speaker 1: for some sort of animal power or or some sort
Speaker 1: of extravagant machine power being necessary to move it. Uh,
Speaker 1: then that would solve so many of your problems. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's exactly right. And I think this is a problem
Speaker 1: that's much bigger than just the chainsaw. The chainsaw is
Speaker 1: one example of the many different kinds of technology that
Speaker 1: would be revolutionized by power sources and motors and engines
Speaker 1: becoming smaller and more portable, especially in the early twentieth
Speaker 1: century as as we had better like electric motors, and
Speaker 1: then later in the twentieth century as the as the
Speaker 1: size and format of internal combustion engines got got smaller
Speaker 1: and more manageable, especially like into the nineteen forties and
Speaker 1: so thank But there's another thing that's important here, which
Speaker 1: is that Lee mentions that these powered saw inventions of
Speaker 1: the time are pretty much all still rooted in thinking
Speaker 1: about sawing in the reciprocating format, that is sawing with
Speaker 1: back and forth motion, which again, if you think about
Speaker 1: it for a second, modern chainsaws don't do that. They
Speaker 1: diverge from the back and forth reciprocating motion. Chainsaws apply
Speaker 1: the removal surface drag in one continuous direction rather than
Speaker 1: going back and forth. And there are some advantages to
Speaker 1: that that I'll get into in just a minute. But
Speaker 1: given the the importance of the misery whip, and it
Speaker 1: makes sense right to imagine, well, if if we could
Speaker 1: mechanize this, what would we do yes, could we take
Speaker 1: the misery whip and create a machine? They uses it
Speaker 1: for us. Yeah, And this is something that seems to
Speaker 1: be the case throughout a lot of the early years
Speaker 1: of development of power saws. Is they're just taking the
Speaker 1: idea of a hand powered saw and then saying can
Speaker 1: we make this electrically powered or say gasoline powered or
Speaker 1: something in and but without changing anything about the blade
Speaker 1: or how it works, just changing how the power or
Speaker 1: force is applied. And actually it will be changes in
Speaker 1: on on both sides that give us the ultimate modern chainsaw.
Speaker 1: So really, when you think about it, the modern chainsaw
Speaker 1: involves two important technological components that would make it different
Speaker 1: than what came before. One of them is the small scale,
Speaker 1: portable power source and motor, and the other one is
Speaker 1: the one directional cutting chain. Um. So what are some
Speaker 1: of the early examples trending in these two directions? Well,
Speaker 1: le lists a few more things that I thought were interesting, um,
Speaker 1: including one thing that sounds like a total terror. But so,
Speaker 1: first of all, he mentions that in eight there was
Speaker 1: an inventor in Oregon who got patent for something called
Speaker 1: a quote sawing chain and frame, but there's no evidence
Speaker 1: it was ever produced, so this could be one of
Speaker 1: those sort of uh, non viable prototypes of something that
Speaker 1: would later work. And then in nineteen o five there's
Speaker 1: a business called the Ashland Iron Works, also in Oregon
Speaker 1: that manufactured an early pneumatic chainsaw, but apparently this saw
Speaker 1: very little pick up in the market. Uh. The same year,
Speaker 1: in nineteen o five, a gasoline powered chainsaw was demonstrated
Speaker 1: in Eureka, California, and Lee describes it as follows, quote
Speaker 1: driven by a two cylinder water cooled engine, the machine
Speaker 1: drew its fuel and water supply from tanks that were
Speaker 1: nailed to the tree trunk above it and quote removed
Speaker 1: when the tree was about to go over. Oh my god.
Speaker 1: That's yeah, that's without even having all the details about
Speaker 1: humans interacted with it. With this thing that sounds devastatingly dangerous.
Speaker 1: You could that be the basis of a horror movie.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Your killer would be very immobile, just like,
Speaker 1: come over, come over to this tree. But there's another
Speaker 1: thing that's interesting about this one that makes it very
Speaker 1: different than the chainsaws of today. In this model, the
Speaker 1: chain did not rotate around a fixed bar or blade.
Speaker 1: So when you picture a modern chainsaw. You know, there's
Speaker 1: the chain and then there's that flat metal thing that
Speaker 1: the chain goes around. Generally that's referred to as the bar,
Speaker 1: so that you know, the bar doesn't move, but the
Speaker 1: chain circles around the outside of the bar. This this
Speaker 1: chainsaw did not have a bar. It just had a chain,
Speaker 1: and the motor would power a chain that rotated freely
Speaker 1: around the trunk of the tree. So this would be
Speaker 1: kind of like a gas powered garrotte wire for a
Speaker 1: tree with with part of the machine itself nailed to
Speaker 1: the tree above where you were cutting. Now, that is
Speaker 1: very in keeping with the the device we see in
Speaker 1: robot jocks. Yes, but allegedly this thing could cut through
Speaker 1: a trunk of about ten feet in diameter in in
Speaker 1: four and a half minutes. Now. The book also mentions
Speaker 1: an issue of Scientific American that had a cover photo
Speaker 1: boasting a giant chainsaw bucking a huge fallen redwood, and
Speaker 1: I found it from the issue from January twenty second,
Speaker 1: nineteen ten. The caption is cutting a redwood tree with
Speaker 1: a saw driven by an engine. So in a way,
Speaker 1: this is a lot like a chainsaw because this model
Speaker 1: does actually have a central bar with a cutting chain
Speaker 1: that rotates around it, and the chain is powered by
Speaker 1: a motor. But it is not like modern chainsaws in
Speaker 1: that it is not a handheld tool. This is a
Speaker 1: massive appliance that's operated by an engine mounted on some
Speaker 1: kind of platform that looks like it's on tracks. And
Speaker 1: yet in this, uh, this image, you can still see
Speaker 1: why this would be a great invention to have, Like
Speaker 1: this is an enormous tree trunk, and I can I
Speaker 1: can easily imagine how this would have saved them time.
Speaker 1: And so, you know, they're cutting a redwood, which of
Speaker 1: course again is a gigantic trunk, and they're using it
Speaker 1: for bucking on a on a red wood that has
Speaker 1: already been knocked down, so it's lying flat on the
Speaker 1: ground and this machine is going alongside it bucking out
Speaker 1: the logs of of whatever length they're going to end
Speaker 1: up using. Apparently was developed by a California based inventor
Speaker 1: named R. L. Muir, and it was called the Endless
Speaker 1: cross cut saw. Wow, this sounds very poetic. The endless saw. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it saws forever, the infinite saw that it kind of
Speaker 1: sums up perhaps the you know, the national view of
Speaker 1: our forest at that time, this was, you know, an
Speaker 1: endless saw for an endless supply of of wood. So
Speaker 1: there's also a segment in Lee's book that I thought
Speaker 1: was very good because it addresses the question of why
Speaker 1: a chain, you know, like why even bother with a
Speaker 1: chainsaw as opposed to the more classic reciprocating saw, because
Speaker 1: there were all these models where you could take an
Speaker 1: engine and apply some kind of mechanical power or to
Speaker 1: a classic style back and forth reciprocating saw blade. Um,
Speaker 1: what what actually makes a chain that much better? Well,
Speaker 1: apparently unidirectional motion of the cutting surface is better for
Speaker 1: multiple reasons. First of all, stopping saw motion to reverse direction,
Speaker 1: which you have to do every single pass with a
Speaker 1: reciprocating saw. That makes it harder to build up speed
Speaker 1: on the motion of the saw. And it's also a
Speaker 1: huge waste of energy, so every time you accelerate the
Speaker 1: cutting edge, you then immediately have to waste energy slowing
Speaker 1: it down again and stopping it before you reverse. But
Speaker 1: Lee points out something else that I wouldn't have thought about,
Speaker 1: which is the reciprocating motion also creates vibration, which makes
Speaker 1: it more difficult to guide cuts accurately. Um. And so
Speaker 1: when I was reading this, I immediately started wondering about
Speaker 1: something about Okay, wait a minute, though, you could have
Speaker 1: continuous one directional sawing motion without having a reciprocating saw
Speaker 1: by using a circular saw, right, you know, like somebody
Speaker 1: would have in their wood shop. That's one directional cutting
Speaker 1: that would solve some of these problems. Right, And of
Speaker 1: course we we've seen plenty of images of this and
Speaker 1: like industrialized you know, um lumber processing facilities where they'll
Speaker 1: be that one big vertical saw that they're sending logs down.
Speaker 1: And of course, if you're watching some sort of a
Speaker 1: horror suspense show, inevitably a human being is going to
Speaker 1: be sent down there to be cut in half as well. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the joker is going to tie up Batman and put
Speaker 1: him on the road down to the big circular saw.
Speaker 1: But of course, while a circular saw is great in
Speaker 1: a in a sort of workshop or saw mill environment
Speaker 1: where like you have fixed sawing infrastructure and you know
Speaker 1: the size of the things you're going to have to cut,
Speaker 1: you can imagine that you might start to encounter problems
Speaker 1: using a giant circular saw to say, cut trees down
Speaker 1: in the field, because when you think about a circular saw,
Speaker 1: the maximum depth of a cut made by a circular
Speaker 1: saw is going to be the radius of the saw blade,
Speaker 1: or about the radius of the saw blade, right, because
Speaker 1: it has to be mounted from the middle. So if
Speaker 1: you want to cut through a tree trunk that's ten
Speaker 1: ft wide, you need a saw that can cut in
Speaker 1: at least about five feet. Uh So you need like
Speaker 1: a tin foot wide circular saw blade, which it sounds
Speaker 1: very cool but not practical. Uh Though despite that impracticality,
Speaker 1: circular saws for logging actually did exist in the early
Speaker 1: days of power sawing. Uh So there's an image of
Speaker 1: one of these again in Lee's book called the Holt
Speaker 1: Stump Saw. It's one of those images you you it's amazing,
Speaker 1: but you kind of wish you could unsee it. Uh
Speaker 1: It looks like an absolute slaughter wagon. So there's like
Speaker 1: a tractor basically with tracks, and then mounted on the
Speaker 1: tractor is this giant metal arm with a steering wheel
Speaker 1: at one end and a guy wearing a fedora holding
Speaker 1: the steering wheel. And then at the other end of
Speaker 1: this poll leading out from the wheel is a humongous
Speaker 1: circular saw that's just open to the air. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is uh, this is this is very terrifying looking. It
Speaker 1: also reminds me of the various uh sawm mechanisms and
Speaker 1: vehicles that are in the Lorax, uh, the Illustrated book. Because,
Speaker 1: of course, the well you eventually get with the Lorax
Speaker 1: is that the one sler in his corporation are just
Speaker 1: cutting down all the truffle of trees they can, and
Speaker 1: they have these machines to aid them, and they look
Speaker 1: like you know, basically fever dreams based on this concept,
Speaker 1: big circular blades attached to weird arms and whatnot. Oh
Speaker 1: I wonder if the idea comes from seeing one of
Speaker 1: these actual machines, like the whole stump saw. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: could be. Well allegedly, I mean, so these things did exist,
Speaker 1: even though they have their problems. Apparently, giant circular saws
Speaker 1: for logging were made in Russia and in France, but
Speaker 1: again they were huge, unwieldy, they had problems, and so
Speaker 1: chain saws, of course, they offered the best of both worlds.
Speaker 1: So the rotating chain allows you to have the speed
Speaker 1: and energy efficiency and accurate cut guiding of a circular saw,
Speaker 1: but with the convenient long shape of the reciprocating saw. Alright, Well,
Speaker 1: on that note, we we're reaching the end of this episode,
Speaker 1: so we're gonna go ahead and uh, we're gonna go
Speaker 1: and cut it off right here. Uh, but we're gonna
Speaker 1: get back, yeah, clean cut. We have we have so
Speaker 1: much to cover in the next episode. We're going to
Speaker 1: talk about the the invention of the chainsaw, really the
Speaker 1: most important chainsaws and chainsaw history. We're gonna talk about
Speaker 1: medical chainsaws. Uh. And we're gonna talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about what the chainsaw symbolizes in um in American culture.
Speaker 1: Uh so, and I'm sure we'll we'll also continue to
Speaker 1: to discuss a few horror movies along the way. I
Speaker 1: can't wait. In the meantime, if you would like to
Speaker 1: check out other episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
Speaker 1: you can find them in the Stuff to Blow your
Speaker 1: Mind podcast feed. You can get that wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcast. Uh. Normally we have of a core episode
Speaker 1: on Tuesday and Thursday, Artifact on Wednesday, Listener Mail on Monday,
Speaker 1: Weird House Cinema on Friday. That's, of course, are our
Speaker 1: weird movie episode that kind of bucks the tradition of
Speaker 1: science and culture that we uh we we stick to
Speaker 1: for the rest of the episodes. However, the week that
Speaker 1: you're listening to this show, we may be altering that
Speaker 1: a little bit just to get out content before Halloween.
Speaker 1: It wouldn't be Halloween if we didn't throw a few
Speaker 1: surprises your way. Um so so, as always huge thanks
Speaker 1: to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you
Speaker 1: would like to get in touch with us with feedback
Speaker 1: on this episode or any other, to suggest topic for
Speaker 1: the future, or just to say hello, you can email
Speaker 1: us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows. Then it doesn't Matt four four four f