Anybody recognize this chainsaw bar?

[Bird]

I came late to this thread also, but I still remember the one and only time I ever saw a bar like that, and that was when I bought half a cord of red oak firewood in the Fall of 1972. Of course the guy who had it was in the firewood business about 100 miles east of Dallas. One reason I never forgot that was because I had gone to that area deer hunting, was driving a 3/4 ton pickup with overload springs, saw the woodlot, and decided to stop and ask what they charged for the firewood, and I paid $10 for half a cord, and they loaded it on my truck. [img]/forums/images/icons/shocked.gif[/img] I never got that good of a deal again on firewood. [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img]

[fcolley]

It's a bow bar and you have it on correctly. They are used in the logging industry in the southeast. They are almost impossible to find today. It is much easier to cut a tree into sections with this type bar.

[CDFFirefighter]

It's called a bow bar.
When I was fighting fires in California with the CDF and CCC's we used them for clearing brush, felling small trees and bucking up wood.

They work great on the California scrub brush and chapperal.
You are able to clear a wider swath with less problems than with a regular straight bar.

If you stick the bow bar into brush the chain grabs the brush and forces it to the spike, then it cuts it with little work.

The bow bars I used did not have the safety guards.

The biggest problem with using the bow bar to fell trees or buck up wood is that they jam and bind a lot faster and easier then a regular straight bar does.

And when a bruch bar throws a chain there's a lot more chain. [img]/forums/images/icons/shocked.gif[/img]

[bobkrack]

Yep, they are called "bow bar". There should be a "stop" attached at the point you need to stop the brush or other wood from coming back to the engine area.

I watched a firewood worker neatly remove his left kneecap during a kickback with this type of saw bar (30 years ago). Not for me.

Bob

[pappy19]

There are 2 types of bars like this one. The one in your picture is a pulpwood bow bar. It is good for cutting trees up to about 14" diameter. They are still used today mostly in the south. Once the tree is on the ground, the logger measures off the 8' stick and uses the bar straight down with the "stinger" keeping the chain cutting wood. The hollow bar allows the logger to push through when the log begins to pinch. The other similar bar is called a "plunge bow" and is more narrow and is only good for trees and brush up to 6-8" in diameter. It isn't so popular now but in the 60's &70's, they were used alot for small thinning operations.

[wmpierce2]

someone said they were outlawed and are not made anymore, but I beg to differ.http://www.cheapchainsawparts.com/cmp_PO-4214_part.html

[wmpierce2]

they're only dangerous to dumb asses who don't pay attention to what they're doing. They make very light work of bucking logs. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone not experienced with them,but it's a very good bar.

[Pat]

They are more dangerous than a standard bar irrespective of the intelligence of your a$$. It is unlikely that the average Joe will profit enough through the potential increase in productivity in a few situations to make the greatly added risk a paying proposition.

It is the sort of thing you hear someone shout about as in, "hey y'all watch this", you know just before the 911 call!

Pat