IEL-BEAVER; the world’s first one-man chainsaw

The IEL-BEAVER chainsaw was manufactured in the Canadian Industrial Engineering Limited Factory in Vancouver in 1946. As the first largescale industrial production one-handed chainsaw with a petrol engine, it was a revolutionary novelty on a global scale. Until then, the chainsaws used in forestry were two-handed chainsaws for two cutters. The Beaver prototype had 8 hp and weighed 53 kg. The significantly lighter, improved version weighed “only” 15 kg – it was advertised as “the greatest little woodcutter in the world” and “the machine that can replace 5 manual workers”.
A significant shortcoming of this chainsaw was its classical carburettor with a float, whence the chainsaw always had to be held in a horizontal position lest it would turn off. Having said that, this was also the case with other, two-handed chainsaws with internal combustion. They all required a special construction element that enabled tipping the tank and the carburettor at a 90-degree angle in order for the chainsaw to make both horizontal and vertical cuts. Compared to a two-handed one, a one-handed chainsaw meant an important technological leap in the organising of work in the forest; its effectiveness soon cut through the initial resistance of the fallers and took over in forests all over the world.

Inventory number: 800:LJU;0003675
Object: IEL-BEAVER chainsaw
Time of use: 1946–1970
Origin, origin: Canada
Dimensions of the object: A = 102 cm, B = 28 cm, B = 31 cm