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About Oregon

Oregon  

A Better Way of Woodcutting

Logger / Inventor Joseph Buford Cox was chopping firewood one autumn day in 1946 when he paused to examine curious activity in a tree stump. A timber-beetle larva, the size of a mans forefinger was easily chewing its way through sound timber, going both across and with the wood grain at will. Joe was an experienced operator of the gas-powered saws used in those days, but the cutting chain was a problem. It required a lot of filing and maintenance time. "I spent several months looking for nature's answer to the problem." Joe recalled. 'I found it in the larva of the timber-beetle."

  •  1947 The Oregon Saw Chain Manufacturing Corporation was founded with four employees and one product..
  • 1948 The company moved from Joe's basement into a bigger facility and Joe hired John D. Gray. John was 28 and a recent graduate of the Harvard University Graduate School of Business. Eventually, John would see the business grow from $300,00 to $300 million.
  • 1951 Sales exceeded $1 million.
  • 1953 Joe sold the company to John Gray and vigorous growth continued. 
  • 1955 The company moved into its first bona fide plant, a 65,000 square foot facility in Portland, Oregon.
  • 1959 The company moved into international markets and made its first application for a patent on guard links for saw chain. Today guard links are usually associated with safety and kickback reduction. But in 1959, these original guard links were only expected to reduce the frequent hooking and grabbing of small brush. After some use, pulpwood producers observed an unexpected benefit - fewer chainsaw accidents. A number of these companies mandated the use of the new chain.
  • 1963 A remarkable new saw and new chain initiated the modern era of lightweight, high-speed, direct drive chainsaws. The saw was the Homelite XL12 and the chain was Oregon 72D. Both products were immensely successful, and derivative chains based on the original 72D design are still widely used today.
  • 1985 Omark Industries, the parent company of Oregon saw chain was purchase by Blount,Inc.
  • 2000 Chainsaw & Outdoor Power Ltd sub distributes the Oregon brand.
  • 2006 Chainsaw & Outdoor Power Ltd becomes the official NZ distributor for the Oregon brand.

Blount Inc now has production plants in Portland Oregon, Guelph Canada, Curitiba Brazil and Fuzhou China.

Blount Inc also aquired the Speeco brand of Log splitters in 2010

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Chainsaw & Outdoor
Power Limited

Call today:
0800 333 005

physical address:

41a Greenmount Dr
East Tamaki
Auckland
New Zealand

P: 0800 333 005
F: 0800 333 007

E: sales@cop.co.nz

Postal Address:

Chainsaw and Outdoor Power
P.O. Box 58-181 Botany
Auckland 2163
New Zealand

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