The company, now operating as Festool, produces portable power tools. After he allowed his rights to lapse in 1930, his invention was further developed by what became the German company Festo in 1933. The first portable chainsaw was developed and patented in 1918 by Canadian millwright James Shand. Bens of San Francisco on January 17, 1905, his intent being to fell giant redwoods. The earliest patent for a practical 'endless chain saw' (a saw comprising a chain of links carrying saw teeth and running in a guide frame) was granted to Samuel J. For cutting wood Ī cordless 4 inch chainsaw commonly known as a 'Ripper' As the name implies, this was used to cut bone. This instrument, the osteotome, had links of a chain carrying small cutting teeth with the edges set at an angle the chain was moved around a guiding blade by turning the handle of a sprocket wheel.

For much of the 19th century, however, the chain saw was a useful surgical instrument.Ī precursor of the chain saw familiar today in the timber industry was another medical instrument developed around 1830 by German orthopaedist Bernhard Heine. Mechanized versions of the chain saw were developed but in the later 19th century, it was superseded in surgery by the Gigli twisted-wire saw. Symphysiotomy had too many complications for most obstetricians, but Jeffray's ideas became accepted, especially after the development of anesthetics. Jeffray explained that the chain saw would allow a smaller wound and protect the adjacent neurovascular bundle. Park and Moreau described successful excision of diseased joints, particularly the knee and elbow. Moreau, with Observations by James Jeffray, M.D.' In this communication, he translated Moreau's paper of 1803.

In 1806, Jeffray published 'Cases of the Excision of Carious Joints by H. Jeffray claimed to have conceived the idea of the chain saw independently about that time, but he was not able to have it produced until 1790. It was illustrated in the second edition of Aitken's Principles of Midwifery, or Puerperal Medicine (1785) in the context of a pelviotomy. 1783–1785) by two Scottish doctors, John Aitken and James Jeffray, for symphysiotomy and excision of diseased bone, respectively. A 'flexible saw', consisting of a fine serrated link chain held between two wooden handles, was pioneered in the late 18th century (c. The origin of chain saws in surgery is debated. Historical osteotome, a medical bone chainsaw

Electric saw