Rebuilding Grandpa's Chainsaw - Part 1

In the summer of 2008 I was lucky enough to be able to take a solid two week vacation with my family. We drove down to California and back to visit our relatives. My son was just barely old enough to fish, and I really wanted my son to be able to fish with his great grandfather, his namesake. Much of who I am, particularly the qualities I'm proud of, came from the love, example, support, and guidance of my grandfather. Here is a picture of my Grandfather:



Here is my son fishing on this trip:



I think the joy of catching a fish is universal:



My grandfather was a chemical engineer and a woodworker. He made his money as a chemical salesman, but in his spare time he built furniture for everybody in the family and designed various things to help him with his life. When he visited us when I was a child, he would often help fix and build things around the house.

He built a solar powered swimming pool himself. He designed it and built it with his son way before much of the world was thinking about solar power. He had rows of copper pipe along the back fence that captured the heat from the sun and routed it back to the pool. He later built his own house to retire it. When I was in highschool he showed me various passive solar designs. Here is another thing he built. It is a winch that loads his boat into his truck, so he can go fishing by himself:



He joked about this fishing trip that I only came down so we could "go fishing together before he kicked the bucket." This was true. It wasn't the only reason, but it was a big reason. He gave me his chainsaw during this trip. It is a Homelite XL 12. He was happy that I wanted it and that he could pass it on. Typical of the things that my grandpa owned, he build a chainsaw case that had slots for tools (which were included), and a slot where the chainsaw poked out of the box:



The saw has a hand-made wooden sheath to protect the blade. There is a chain and clip that hod the sheath on. The chain is spring loaded to hold it secure:

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