AMBOY, Clark County — Wayne Sutton's passion for chain saws started innocently enough with an old yellow Mercury-Disston that was more parts than saw.
Standing in "Wayne's Chainsaw Museum," Sutton unwraps the story of how his first saw led to his second as if his words were leading to a precious diamond. Bright-colored saws sit on shelves in this carpeted warehouse on the family farm near Mount St. Helens. This bunch makes up about a third of his 1,000 saws, perhaps the biggest personal chain-saw collection in the country.
" 'Looks like you're missing some parts in your Merc,' " Sutton begins in an old-timer's accent, describing the gift of saw No. 2. By all appearances, Sutton, 46, is the most contented man on the face of the Earth.
No wonder all those busted-up old loggers came into Wayne's Saw Shop in downtown, not-so-booming Amboy for two decades to give him their old workhorse saws. As Sutton himself says about this passion: Who else would care?
Sutton was young when he scored saw No. 2 from the old logger. His father and most of his male family members made their living from timber, as did nearly half of workers in Washington state just over two generations ago. Sutton worked in the Amboy saw shop while studying business at Clark College and fell instantly in love.
Within 18 months, he owned the place at age 24.
So many old loggers came in and jawed about their old Mercs that a curious Sutton jumped at the chance when a shopkeeper down the coast in Oregon told him he had most of a Mercury-Disston that Sutton could have. By nightfall, that first old saw was in Sutton's truck. By the next day, it was in his shop, proudly displayed in a heap.
" 'Well, I got a whole one up in the barn if you want it,' " said a lumberjack unimpressed by so many missing parts.
Thus Sutton had saw No. 2 that same day.
"Pretty soon they were coming in wads at a time."
The saws weren't valuable. People who owned them were tripping over them. But somebody loved them.
In fact, it's apparent Sutton treasures everything to do with saws. He has a 1940 Precision, swinging on a chain from the ceiling. A 1945 Reed-Prentice. And there's that heart-thumping 1951 Mercury-Disston. He has ashtrays, playing cards, water jugs, wine, coffee mugs and clocks featuring the brand names of McCulloch, Hornet, Pioneer, Homelite and his ever-loving Stihl (pronounced "Steel"). In one glass case is a whole roll of unused Cox chain, an early model of the ubiquitous Oregon Saw Chain still very much in use today.
"Brand new, which I think is awesome."
You want to talk awesome? What about the framed original first patent from Charles Wolf, a Northwest pioneer, a giant in development of early chain saws. A friend who knew of Sutton's love rescued it from a Dumpster outside the house of Wolf's late son.
Those in the know can't believe it. "The Holy Grail!" a visiting lawyer for Oregon Saw Chain once shouted. Under the patent sits a 1921 Wolf Saw, Serial No. 7. It is an air-powered or pneumatic saw, but otherwise it's the same as the electric saw in the patent.
Chain saws 101
Think of loggers working human-powered two-man "misery" saws. The work was so hard that inventors — from about 1858 on — tried to come up with some sort of automatic saw. Sutton points to one early attempt:
"Pump the handle and make the saw go," he says. "And then somebody motorized it."
Wolf, manufacturing out of Portland, gained ground with his first design for a stationary electric saw in 1910. The first gasoline-powered "portable" saws, Wolf's among them, didn't show up until about 1927.
Those first portable saws were still two-man, sporting a "head-end" or "helper handle" (if you were Canadian) or a "stinger" (if you were American) on the end of the saw blade for the second guy to manhandle "the big old brutes around," says Sutton. (Not so nicely, they were also called the "dumb end.")
The early power saws were first used in construction and or shipyards, not entirely welcome or practical in the woods. Loggers didn't like the noise.
"They enjoyed the pristine quiet of the woods," Sutton reports. At first, they had no need to accept the saws because guys cutting by hand could outperform them.
"But then it turned into a pretty efficient machine," Sutton says as he pours iced tea from behind a well-stocked wet bar, an apparent must for a good chain-saw museum. "Today they're amazingly efficient, and there's not near enough wood to be cut. Isn't that ironic?"
Wolf succeeded because he was one of the first to apply engineering to his designs, and he knew how to take out a patent. The next chain-saw genius was Andreas Stihl, who moved the engine nearer to the cutting bar for better balance, added a centrifugal clutch, the ever-important oiler and German know-how to small gasoline engines.
German imports stopped in 1939 because of World War II. Their designs became fair game.
Mill and Mine Supply in Seattle created the Type B Titan based on the Stihl B2Z, Sutton says. The Burnett was based on the Stihl BD, but used the Villiers motorcycle engine.
Sutton has tried to arrange his shelves to show this evolution, clumping brand types by color. But companies would merge and then merge again, and some saws are identical except each has a different brand name.
"It was nearly impossible to make a real clean-looking (family) tree of how chain saws progressed," Sutton says.
These days, Sutton does a lot of his shopping on eBay, bidding against a handful of other chain-saw enthusiasts, sometimes running the price up to $600.
Thanks to that and friends on the lookout, he has a saw with the crest from the royal estate in Wales. He has a 1950 Stihl Model BD that was high on his wish list, sent to him after a year's search in Germany by Andreas Stihl's son, Peter.
He's paid way too much for saws from the wives of dying old loggers. And paid nothing but a promise for a good trade down the road for top saws — even his 1921 Wolf saw — from other collectors, who apparently live by some sort of share-all code.
"Most of this stuff was produced in big numbers, so there's one for all of us," Sutton says. "They're just old chain saws. But if it's real obscure, I get emotional."
Fine wine and a chain saw
Three years ago — the same year he set up the museum — Sutton was lured out of "Wayne's Saw Shop" by the Stihl company to be the territory manager in the Pacific Northwest. Whether he's in the museum or fishing with dealers in Alaska, he gets to talk about what he loves.
"There's something about woodcutting that is so satisfying," he begins as he talks about his full woodshed and how he has four wood-burning appliances in his house. He lives with his understanding wife, Suzie, and two of his three sons, all Eagle Scouts or almost there.
A cold night, a glass of nice wine, a toasty fire with wood you've cut yourself. How much is it again for that top-of-the-line Stihl?
Last year, Stihl held a dealers' meeting at Skamania Lodge near Sutton's house. His museum was added to the list of get-to-dos. One man, whose emotions had always been flatter than a chain-saw bar, took three steps inside the museum and let out a "Holy" followed by colorful term best not repeated here.
He was a second-generation timber man who'd been selling chain saws all his adult life. It was the pinnacle for Sutton.
"When he did that I thought, 'I've impressed Clyde,' he says. "That's cool!"
Sherry Stripling: sstripling@seattletimes.com.
If you go
For directions to Wayne Sutton's chain-saw museum, e-mail wasaw@tds.net or call 360-263-4170 (ignore the message for how to reach the saw shop.)
