Re: Evil Dead Chainsaw(s) Build... Groovy Part 2!
I noticed those in among your dropbox photos! How come they never used them on screen?
I supplied four non working and two working medieval style chainsaws, all assembled but without any painting or ageing, plus a rough stunt saw as well, which took two months to make. There were a few reasons they weren't used. Firstly, the outer look of the chainsaws needed to be changed after I'd already made them (rights issues), the saws weren't big enough for the stuntman to get his hand in, and the motor wasn't powerful enough for what they wanted to do.
Now the first one would have just been cosmetic and not insurmountable by modification. The second and third would have been far more difficult to achieve by modifying my chainsaws. As anyone who's made a saw themselves knows, they are a snug fit no matter how you orient the internals, and the internal space you have in there is completely governed by the size of an original Homelite XL chainsaw body. As you can see from the three lower right hand photos, my chainsaws weren't exactly packed with stuff, it was mostly empty space in there, so making even more space would mean extending bits out to create a custom fit for the actor's hands. Once you have to do that with six original saws, you might as well modify one set of my original parts, remould them, and turn the six you need out, plus spares from scratch.
The motor issue was a tricky one. Back when I used to make working chainsaws, plus the ones I made for AvsED, it was intended that the motor should have enough torque to turn the chain (which is a fair bit on it's own) and maybe cut though a loaf of bread, but not enough to cut through a pair of jeans (if you tried, the motor would stall), that way the person wearing it was fairly unlikely to seriously hurt themselves. AvsED found they wanted something much beefier, capable of cutting through fake and prosthetic this-&-that. That would have presented safety issues which would have required a close eye, and I'm glad that wasn't my call. You can see from the below photos how I used to make working saws on the left photo; with a sprocket & chain to an offset motor at the front of the body, alongside how I made the AvsED working saws, with the motor located in the centre of the holding-handle. While that was a more elegant solution than the offset motor, it did make modification beyond those tight confines just about impossible, without really hacking away at it. Again once you're in that territory, you might as well modify & remould parts. I'm not 100% sure how they oriented the internals on their screen-used saws, but I'd guess they'd have to have gone to a bigger offset motor with a chain drive to the sprocket.
I don't think it's ever been shown, but the far right photo above, you can see the brass tube with the motor on/off momentary button is held to the centre handle with duct tape. This is so the tape could be simply removed, and the button assembly would come free and out of the saw body a few inches, allowing the button to be pressed without someone's hand inside the saw. Just about all the electrics had to be pretty highly rated as just the turning of the chain required a few amps. Can't remember how many, but I know I needed to use a 6A rated resistor on the circuit!
Anyway, all this meant they basically had to completely dis-assemble my chainsaws changing & re-orientating the interior to give more space, adding a bigger motor and changing the outer look. I know they used modified parts from my original chainsaws to make their first prototype chainsaw, but once they got this all sorted, they basically re-moulded everything and made their own chainsaws from then on.
I stopped making saws directly after that order as I'd made eleven chainsaws that up to that August alone (not including individual parts orders) compared to six in the whole of the previous year (plus I have a full time job). I wanted to take a break, so I put EvilDeadChainsaws on hiatus. At the time it was only temporarily, but I've been really busy with other projects ever since. As they re-moulded everything, they could maintain their own saws and make spare parts themselves, so it sort of worked out in the end.
, but it's invaluable to actually have the screen grabs!
