The Knights Of Sumeria Forums

I exchanged a few emails with one of the propmakers/chainsaw makers on AvsED for S2/3 about a year ago. This is the info he gave me on how exactly the working saws worked, in case someone here wants to put some work & research into this method;

The most high tech ones we developed were made of carbon fiber and used the guts of a makita circular saw to run the blade. With some tooling, the motor became the internal handle, and there was room for a low-profile power tool battery inside so it was cordless. We did a lot of R&D to figure out the best, longest-lasting rubber to cast the spinning chains, which were 3-4 times as thick as an actual chainsaw chain. And we used timing belts and aluminum tooled sprockets and other parts to make it all run.

Doing some quick research myself, I figured it was most likely they used the HS301 10.8v Circular Saw, as it's the smallest. I'd be interested to see anyone else's results with this?

I would add that my working saws used a far less powerful motor, just enough to turn the real chainsaw chain, but the motor would stall if it met much resistance, such as touching the spinning chain to you clothing. With a proper motor like this, you'd be on your way to the power of a real chainsaw, which might well injure the wearer if it made contact with their leg.

I guess when you have a large budget, you can afford to spend $140 on one of these, mess around with the idea, and move onto the next idea if it doesn't work. For hobby prop makers, this is less of an option! Here is the motor inside;

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Makta-629885-1-Motor-10-8-V-to-CC301-HS301-CC300D-HS300D-HS301D/223627053546?hash=item34113609ea%3Ag%3ArNAAAOSw6fVdVujv

Huh.... I wonder what rubber they ended up going with for the chain.

Well he covered that as well. Here is the parts of the 2018 email thread concerning the chainsaws;

---

My First Message - ...Now that the show is finished, I thought I'd get in touch to see what happened, and how you got on. I know from emails at the time, that the chainsaws I sent had a number of issues, including the internal space not being big enough, and the motor not being powerful enough for what you needed among other things, so as I recall, you (I'll say you for the moment) dismantled them, modified and re-moulded parts and kinda had to start from scratch. Always felt a bit guilty about that. I wasn't able to modify what I was making much, since I couldn't get any feedback on what I was making and I already had all my moulds & processes in place, I just had to make the chainsaws I normally make and hope they were okay and it took all of the seven weeks I was given to make them. Not the way I would have done it if I'd been working from scratch, but I didn't have the time. My chainsaws were mainly meant as display pieces to be looked at closely by collectors. Knowing what I know even now only a few years later there are a fair few changes I would make.

I guess it worked out as remaking them yourself means you can churn out spare parts from your own moulds as they're needed and make something fit your requirements perfectly. I was also told that basically you remade everything, so nothing of my original chainsaws exist on the screen used versions. I'm not asking as a vanity thing, I was just interested to know what happened, and if I totally screwed you over.

One further thing, I guess if you dismantled my chainsaws, you know I mounted the motor through the centre handle with an external battery pack, with a real chainsaw sprocket and chain. From the photos in the eBay auctions, it looks as though you've used a pancake motor more or less fixed externally where the sprocket would be, with a modified cast rubber chain, which would leave the inside pretty much empty? Also, looks like you've cast the smoke unit as a hollow plastic box, rather than hollowing out a block of wood as I have, which would also give you more space for the smoke unit.

---

His First Reply - ...By the end of it, we had 20+ chainsaws that all served different purposes. Ones with real blades, rubber and foam ones, super lightweight ones, ones with motors, ones that shoot blood/smoke and so on.

We never stopped developing them. The most high tech ones we developed were made of carbon fiber and used the guts of a makita circular saw to run the blade. With some tooling, the motor became the internal handle, and there was room for a low-profile power tool battery inside so it was cordless. We did a lot of R&D to figure out the best, longest-lasting rubber to cast the spinning chains, which were 3-4 times as thick as an actual chainsaw chain. And we used timing belts and aluminum tooled sprockets and other parts to make it all run. Bruce was always wanting them lighter and lighter and more convenient and after 3 seasons we had made some pretty awesome chainsaws. When the executive producer is the main actor, and is quite a diva about it, there was no limit on the time and effort we were made to put into the saws! Which actually pushed us to make some really cool props.

As per your other inquiries, I remember the other propmakers telling me they had ordered some from the UK, and yeah, they ended up using some of them in the first season I think, but I'm not sure. They had started doing the retooling then and by the second season, we had pretty much developed out own methods to suit the needs of Bruce, and what works for shooting a show vs what might be good enough for cosplay.

I was the only person that was a true fan of the series, so I ended up bringing in some details and nuance that the other prop makers were not aware of. For example, the loose pull start--they thought that was a mistake! I informed them that it was always that way and needed to remain. I'm pretty sure the continuity on that through the series is not good! I made one of these chainsaws over a decade ago before I was working as a professional, so I was already quite intimate with it--going through the movies a frame at a time to nail the details! I've since made several of them using the actual homelite chainsaw bodies, it was just cheaper than investing in molds. Besides a bunch of the ones for the show, I made 4-5 additional ones for Starz to use at Comic Con or other promotions, like when Bruce was on the Conan O'Brien show, that was my saw. I made all those ones from scratch for Starz--some had different features upon request like metal vs rubber blades/chains.

---

My Follow-up - ...I saw some fairly different design chainsaw ideas since when the production started they knew they didn't (yet) have the rights to Army Of Darkness, so the chainsaw had to be different enough not to give them rights issues. The chainsaw seen on screen is basically the AOD chainsaw.

The working ones I made used a motor through the centre handle, the motor was powerful enough to spin the real chain fast, but not much more torque than that, so if you touched it to your trouser leg the chain would bite and motor stall. Exactly what you want for cosplay. It might injure someone's face, but then again just the guide bar and sharp chain static are a few kilos and that could do damage to someone alone if you whacked someone in the face with it. Fitting a Makita circular saw motor and you basically have a real electric chainsaw, with enough torque I would think, to cut through the wearers leg with a real blade?

Just thinking on the chain you made, so the guide bar must have been custom made & wider than a real one since it looks from the eBay photos that the timing belt would have to go in the channel and that's probably getting on for 10mm thick? So you used a timing belt, then glued cast rubber teeth onto that (?) then used a custom made aluminium sprocket to turn the timing belt via a Makita circular saw blade mounted inside, similarly to the way I made mine?. Did you take any process photos yourself you can show me?

---

His Follow-up - ...You're basically spot on with your description of the rubber chain/bar mechanism. We only used it with a rubber chain, so no danger. We made a bar with a channel out of thin layers of carbon fiber sheeting and a milled lightweight 'girder' like structure in the middle to make it strong, but light. Any shots of a real chainsaw cutting was an actual chainsaw, so on-set safety precautions were always taken!

Before the show shot, I made a chainsaw for a commercial that was different because, you are correct, they didn't have the rights to it yet. Basically it had some modified details and the silver top. For some reason they used that one I made for Bruce's Conan O'Brien appearance 2 years ago at Comic Con. I like to think of it as his formal chainsaw, haha!