Will Malloff – an open source inventor

by Ed Johnson, citizen journalist

“I used an old Windsor grinder on a chainsaw chain. The side of the tooth is the critical part on a cross-cutting chain, and should be ground no more than a five degree hook, I was told.

“So, of course I put in ten, and, whoa, didn’t have to push the saw through the wood very much at all. Then I put in fifteen, well this really pulled the wood, but still pretty rough, so I put in twenty and broke the chain.

“So I thought, what the hell, I will go for the maximum this grinder will do, 40 degrees.  Then my god, this puppy was feeding herself. This was an effective tool. So then I wrote the book.”

So says Will Malloff, the inventor of the Alaska Chain Sawmill in the 1960s, and author of Chainsaw
Lumbermaking. First printed in 1982 and reprinted in 2014, selling over 250,000 copies, it has been
acclaimed by many as the best book on chainsaws and milling, according to comments on Amazon.

His earlier experience with patenting and assigning rights to a manufacturer for the Alaska Sawmill was not a happy experience. “Too soon I learned that a patent is not really protection but a licence for litigation.”

But Will did not stop there.  He developed a series of ultra light micro sawmills that are capable of harvesting  trees of any diameter at the stump with minimal ecological impact. His general approach is to make things affordable and available to indigenous peoples with no income.

But not all people were appreciative of his efforts.

“After I successfully completed inventing, building and test-proving the micro sawmill, I made them public for all to share only to learn that it was illegal to mill lumber in almost every country. I was advised that the chain sawmills were illegal in five Central and South American countries.”

He found that even though surplus logs were often left to rot in the field, large companies and complicit governments called it poaching if they were removed.  Even Macmillan-Bloedel in Canada refused to use his technology fearing wide-spread use of his portable mills by people taking unusable logs from the timber licences and actually making use of it.

In Western Somoa, Will was struck by the extreme poverty of the local inhabitants and vowed to do something about it.

Enter his latest invention, the human-powered sawmill.  “That’s right, no motor, easily obtainable spare parts, and it will cut up to a 12-inch slab, producing precision lumber.”  Using a wear-resistant complex carbide stellite alloy for the two blades that cut both sides of the slab at once, the reciprocal cutting action is handled by two persons similar to a railroad handcar for maximum efficiency.
“It is actually quite complex.  The logs are lifted into place by a chain action and then dogged between two channels.” So far Will’s invention only exists on paper, but with his track record he hopes to see proper drawings lead to funding for a prototype in short order.

He has created many unique examples of fine furniture which can be seen on his website. “I was able to efficiently mill wide thick slabs for my dream that was to be able to build fine single slab art furniture.

Since then I have overcome most of the problems such as warping and checking in using wide slabs. These are some of the reasons for using veneer, small boards and laminates in most furniture seen today.”

His long time friend, Central Saanich Councillor Zeb King, says, “I’ve known Will for most of my life… As a kid he was always impressive as the genius inventor who lived just a few houses away in Alert Bay. When I was a kid Will brought my brother and me our first dog, Pebbles, and he got us making wood gifts for mom on mother’s day. Good friends such as Will are like family and his unpretentious and practical approach to helping societies has always inspired me. Oh and if you ever get a chance to hear him play some good old bluegrass music then you’re in for a treat!”

“Will Malloff is one of Canada’s unique great men,” adds Mike Hicks, Regional Director for the Juan de Fuca Electoral Area. “A tremendous inventor, wood butcher, philosopher and mentor. He taught me to always over build and never say it can’t be done.”

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