Pack Saw - Folding Hardwood Bucksaw |
Top: Saw ready to cut. Bottom: Packed for travel.
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21" or 24" $39
The Pole and Paddle Pack Saw is a collapsible hardwood framed bucksaw. The blade is stored inside the wood frame when the saw is collapsed. The replacement blades are available at any hardware store at a reasonable price. The saw comes in two lengths: 21" and 24". Try one. If you don't like it, return it and we'll give you your money back.
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- Blade folds safely inside for travel
- Made of durable hardwood
- Available in 2 sizes: 21" & 24"
- Uses hardware store blades so they're easy and inexpensive to replace
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I remember as a kid moving to the farm. It was my first experience with wood stoves and the ingredient that makes them work; firewood. My father would order four cords of pine slabs toward the end of summer. He would spend the next month or two cutting them into stove lengths with his metal frame bucksaw. By today's standards that's a lot of work, but back then he didn't even think twice about it.
Rigged with a string turnbuckle
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Sometime in the late sixties or early seventies he went off to Sears and came home with a chain saw. The old bucksaw never came off the wall again. I started using that chain saw when I was fifteen. When I was twenty-two I was cutting pulp part time to help make a living and by years end I owned three of them. These days I cut fourteen cord of stove wood every year, and I still own three chain saws. They are fast and effective and I wouldn't be without one. On the flip side, they're stinky, noisy, bulky, need gas and oil, take up a lot of room, and are extremely dangerous. Chain saws have a place but they don't belong everywhere.
When I started canoe tripping I realized it was no place for a chain saw. Remembering my father and his metal framed bucksaw, I went right out and bought one. I didn't get a full size saw like his. Instead I bought the small, teardrop shaped saw that would fit in my canoe box, the forerunner of a wannigan. That saw was aggravating and frustrating. Because of the teardrop design, you couldn't get a full stroke on a piece of wood over three inches in diameter. You also had to carry a blade guard, and remember not to misplace it. One trip and that saw was history.
I replaced that saw with a Schimdt Pack Saw. This was a nice little rig. It was made of wood, collapsible, and the blade was stored inside the body, protecting you and the blade. I used this saw on several trips, and a metal version on several others. But they all had the same problem; they were too short to use the full stroke of your arm. The metal saws had one other hitch, taking only special blades provided by the manufacturer. These replacement blades were outrageously expensive. I ended up carrying the Schimdt on trips when I didn't expect to cut much wood. On longer trips or trips when I knew I would be cutting a lot of wood I put up with the bulk and carried a full size 30" metal frame bucksaw. I could use the full stroke of my arm, and it was surprisingly effective.
A guide who is one of my regular customers came in a while ago and asked me to make up six 21" collapsible wood bucksaws. It seems Schmidt is out of business and he couldn't find a similar saw anywhere. He had a pattern, so I made them for him. I thought they should be at least 24" like the Schmidt and started comparing the two. I liked the shape of his saw, but it had a few characteristics that I didn't like. I took what I felt were the best aspects of both saws and combined them, threw in a couple of my own ideas, and produced the Pole & Paddle Pack Saw.
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