Homelite

cool hand · Jul 21, 2018

What ever happened to Homelite chain saws? Have worn out a couple of them before, have had only good experience with them, but now seem to have disappeared. What happened?

JMOR · Jul 21, 2018

(quoted from post at 11:40:24 07/21/18) What ever happened to Homelite chain saws? Have worn out a couple of them before, have had only good experience with them, but now seem to have disappeared. What happened?

hat I found:
Textron acquired Homelite in early 50's.
1978 - Homelite's parent company, Textron, acquires Jacobsen
1981 - April 1st Homelite and Jacobsen Consumer Lawn Products merger under Textron
1994 - John Deere acquires the Homelite Jacobsen products but the Jacobsen commercial products remain with Textron and remain today as a Textron company.
2001 - John Deere unloads the Homelite brand to TTI, a Chinese conglomerate.

Janicholson · Jul 21, 2018

They (opinion) have traded a solid home owner based product for badge engineering of their equipment made by others. Some chainsaws are still available, (18 inch 44cc) Jim

Crazy Horse · Jul 21, 2018

I bought a small-sized Pioneer chain say in '72 and I must admit it hasn't had a ton of use, however I still have it and it works well for what little use I have for it any more. My son used it a lot when he moved into a new acreage 20 years ago but he bought a bigger one and I got this one back.

I think Pioneer was made by OMC (Outboard Marine Company) who I think made 2-stroke premix outboard boat motors (maybe Evenrude ?) and also Lawn Boy lawn mowers (2 stroke pre-mix) ..... those noisy, smokey things that everyone in the neighborhood hated. Those mowers never quit, I had one of those too for many years and it always worked when my neighbor's B&S powered 4-strokes were in getting tuned up or repaired.

Oliver 500 Wa · Jul 21, 2018

(quoted from post at 09:08:43 07/21/18)

(quoted from post at 11:40:24 07/21/18) What ever happened to Homelite chain saws? Have worn out a couple of them before, have had only good experience with them, but now seem to have disappeared. What happened?

Click to expand...

hat I found:
Textron acquired Homelite in early 50's.
1978 - Homelite's parent company, Textron, acquires Jacobsen
1981 - April 1st Homelite and Jacobsen Consumer Lawn Products merger under Textron
1994 - John Deere acquires the Homelite Jacobsen products but the Jacobsen commercial products remain with Textron and remain today as a Textron company.
2001 - John Deere unloads the Homelite brand to TTI, a Chinese conglomerate.

I have a Homelite Super XL Auto that I'm going to try to sell for my wife's cousin. I think it is from the 60s. I'm not sure what the competition was like back then, but compared to more modern saws the thing is a mess. Balance is bad with it being very bar heavy. Maybe that was their idea of kickback prevention. Handles are too close together. Makes holding the unbalanced saw tiring. Maybe all saws of that era had similarly poor ergonomics. It does seem solidly built and was probably a tough old workhorse.

Gambles · Jul 21, 2018

http://www.homelite.com/catalog/chainsaws/

Bob Bancroft · Jul 21, 2018

I worked on Homelite products in the 70's, full time for a while. They had some good models, and some not so good ones. Parts supply and company support was good. I had long since moved on from that job, when it seemed like John Deere bought them only to shut it down.

Junksorter · Jul 21, 2018

My dad won a Homelite 360 Pro in a raffle back in the late 70's and used it up into the mid 90's. He was hard on stuff and I remember it locking up once because he got his gas cans mixed up. Straight gas was put in it instead of two stroke oil and gas. After it sat for awhile, we got it broke free and with the correct gas, it went back to running. Another time it fell off of the wood cart (back half of a '34 Dodge pickup) and was run over. The top handle was broken but we spliced it back together with some push mower handle bar tubing. I acquired it and got it running again in '97. I sold it after my wife bought me a new Stihl in '99. Needless to say it was the toughest chainsaw I have ever seen. Between my dad and I it cut a lot of wood. Too bad you can't buy good stuff like that anymore.

fixerupper · Jul 21, 2018

My dad bought a new blue XL12 with no muffler, just that little short spark arrester thing and it had manual bar oiling. It was heavy but it always started and ran. In 1991 I was sawing tough ash and it seized up. It was my fault, the cooling fins were full of wood chips and it overheated. I was going to overhaul it but instead I pitched it and bought a McCulloch. After using the McCulloch a while I wished I wouldn't have pitched the old XL12.

Traditional Farmer · Jul 22, 2018

I have about 20 Homelite XL Super XL and XL 12 chainsaws use some of them,like the Blue ones the best.

Bret4207 · Jul 22, 2018

At one time Homelite was as good as it got in the chainsaw line. Times change. I have a couple and like them. The handling is different than modern saws, but it's the same with all the older saws. Good quality, old tech, American made saws for the most part...as long as you're talking pre- 1990 or earlier.

Homelite

cool hand

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JMOR

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Janicholson

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Crazy Horse

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Oliver 500 Wa

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Gambles

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Bob Bancroft

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Junksorter

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fixerupper

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Traditional Farmer

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Bret4207

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