Jim Evans, (my dad) bought this Mac Pro 125 chainsaw brand new in 1976 in a little saw shop in Susanville while falling timber in the Pains Creek/Panther Creek area of California. He was logging with his friend Smokey Taylor for Joe Brundidge. Many decades and logging contracts later the saw was still going strong, but was needing a new carburetor.
My brother Jason, also of the 1976 vintage, decided that he wanted to restore this saw for our dad for Christmas 2011. This saw had literally always been in his life and we all have plenty of memories of dad using this saw through the years.
He started by first making sure that he could source all of the parts needed for his task of making dads saw new again. The part that proved the most difficult to find was the shroud that goes over the starter rope, probably because you can live without one. But in order to make it “new” he wanted to get the shroud, and finally was able to source one in Las Vegas, Nevada on Ebay. It took about five weeks to accumulate all of the necessary parts.
Next was the disassembly which took a couple of hours. And then, came the fun part of cleaning, soaking and bead blasting the parts. He was working during the day and only able to go work on it evenings and weekends, so this took about a week and a half. He didn’t want to spoil the surprise so he worked in his father-in-law, Paul Halcomb of P&R Sawfilings’ shop, (who by the way does a great job of sharpening circle saw blades and knives – so if you ever need a referral, let us know).
The next phase of the refurbish was the prep work. This included the sanding, and priming to get it just right to paint. Finally, he was ready to paint. The painting took about three days. Because of the cold temperatures in the shop in December, it was taking longer to dry than he would have liked. Once dry, he hand painted the emblem on the side.
He then commenced to rebuild that carburetor, and replaced the points, condenser, and fuel lines, and reworked the kill switch.
Then on to the final assembly, which took about 5 hours. Once assembled, he adjusted the carburetor to get it running perfectly before installing the decals and then finally the bar.
And then for the final moment, Jason presented his gift of, “35 years of memories, better than new”, to dad on Christmas morning.
Hopefully you enjoy these pictures as much as we enjoyed getting to watch Jason deliver his gift to dad.
Jason has a few other relics to restore in the future. His goal is to take several of grandpa and dads other saws and restore them. He is hoping to take a section of our shop and make it into a sort of logging museum.
You can click on any picture to enlare it.
Jennifer Alger.
