Does anyone know how to use an undercutter/chainsaw axe?

T

Twindog

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Does anyone know how to use an undercutter/chainsaw axe?


I’m getting ready to hang this old Warren undercover axe. It’s a 4.9 pound head. In the photo, it’s next to a Keen Kutter 3.5 pound head for comparison.


thumb_DSC_0124_1024_zpsw2tkey0l.jpg





My understanding is that Walters invented the undercutter head to help loggers free stuck chainsaws, a fairly common occurrence in the early days of chainsaws. Walters didn’t patent the head, and so others, such as Sager Chemical and Warren, added it to their lineups.


Apparently, the chainsaw problem was quickly solved — although I still get my chainsaw stuck from time to time — and the design faded out.


But I don’t know how to use it and haven’t been able to find any useful information about the technique required.
 
Lieblad said:
It appears would be simply used as a prybar placed into the kerf above the saw.
Seen one of those before, But thought it was just a Pulaski with a narrow blade.
Learn something new....
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Thanks, Liblad. I was focused on how I'd use the Pulaski blade to chop the chainsaw free, but your explanation sounds right, as long as there is room in the kerf. Cool to learn new stuff about things so old.
 
Freeing a chainsaw blade from pinching halfway sawing through a standing tree became obvious 1/2 century ago. There are various types of metal and nylon wedges around to help with this nowadays. If in fact Morley Walters (City of Hull, Prov of Quebec) pioneered a specific tool (axe head technology-related, obviously) to address this problem already in the 1950s then all power to him. Too bad (a typically Canadian scenario) that he never got to cash in on this.
Thank you for submitting this 'tech tidbit'; the entire industry was under siege beginning in the mid 50s (from gas powered chain-driven engines) and some background on what/where/when and how tools such as 'undercutters' evolved is of immense interest to some of us.
 
rjdankert said:
Warren offered this in a 1937 catalog.
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Bob
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I just saw this the other day, and thought it was a pulaski. The fact that they call the hoe a grub hoe, makes me believe this is true.

As for the undercutter pattern.. I thought it was for popping loose face cuts.
Ian
 
I will show my ignorance here! My assumption would be that you would put the digger side under a log lying on the ground, either to lift it up so the cut wouldn't bind or to lift the log and open up a cut that was binding. I can't see how the tool would be good at all in place of a felling wedge on a standing tree. It could also be used to dig out troublesome roots and brush. Just thinking...
 
olybears57 said:
. . .
As for the undercutter pattern. . .
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In the OP he referred to it as a "undercutter/chainsaw axe". I was suggesting that probably is not the case. I don't know if pulaski, grub hoe, and mattock are all equivalent, but it is certainly one of those. However, I could see it used to cut out brush under a tree prior to felling. "Boy, go fetch the undercutter and clear the brush under that tree so I can get to choppin after I put an edge on this axe ".

Bob
 
BG_Farmer said:
Boy, was I wrong. There is an article in this newsletter (p. 7):
http://www.fhabc.org/newsletter-archive/1994/40.pdf
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Klenman has the answer. That article is an excerpt from 'Axe Makers of North America'.

The thing is that the carburetors in the earliest chainsaws only allowed the saw to run in the horizontal position. You couldn't make a diagonal cut. So instead you made a series of horizontal cuts above the first cut, each one a little shorter and then chipped out the material between the cuts with the undercutter to open the mouth.

Historical-photo-first-chainsaw-in-valley-2.jpg


After about a dozen years chainsaws were improved and the undercutter fell by the wayside. The short run of these makes them uncommon and more collectable. Plus they were only made for professional logging operations (no homeowner could afford a chainsaw back then) so they were made from high quality steel.
 
So you make the horizontal cuts with the chainsaw, as Square Peg says, and then swing the grub-axe-like blade up into the cut with an underswing? I was testing this out -- kind of air axing -- and it feels good with an underswing. And if the chainsaw gets jammed, the undercutter axe could quickly chip out the underlying wood and free the saw.
 
Thanks for this, especially Square_Peg. Few or none of us are old enough to have tangled with direct drive horizontal cut gasoline saws. You'd have thought a resourceful Yank right from the get go retrofitted carbs (or at least the float bowls) on these engines on to some sort of rotating flange. Imagine being able to saw trees down with relative ease and then having to resort back to handsaws in order to buck them into logs.

This thread certainly has helped take the mystery out of undercutter axes. How it is that existing Pulaskis (they'd been around for 20-25 years already) weren't adapted for this purpose surprises me.
 
Twindog said:
So you make the horizontal cuts with the chainsaw, as Square Peg says, and then swing the grub-axe-like blade up into the cut with an underswing? I was testing this out -- kind of air axing -- and it feels good with an underswing. And if the chainsaw gets jammed, the undercutter axe could quickly chip out the underlying wood and free the saw.
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Seems to me the whole idea is to use the claw end as a sort of horizontally swung chisel, and then as a pry bar, to break out the material between the saw cuts. Presumably the axe blade was used to clean up the chiseled out notch after most of the wood had been chipped out.
 
BG_Farmer said:
Cool stuff, definitely a very specific tool! OP needs one of those early chainsaws :)...
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35 years ago within an emergency response team to a major tree blow down within a B.C. Provincial park I got to use (was issued) a direct drive Pioneer (made by Outboard Marine Corp of Ontario) logging saw from the 1950s. It had obviously seen very little use and had been warehoused/stored properly by gov't of BC but it was a SOB to physically get started (24 inch bar and the chain spun when you pulled on the rope), to manoeuvre and to hang on to (no vibration damping). God forbid the chain ever bound or grabbed on to something when it was running full out. And that particular saw looked familiar (ie somewhat modern) when compared to Square_Peg's picture of an even older (1930s?) 2 man chain-saw.
 
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