Chainsaw Repair

The 1100 series was definitely copied from the Homelite XL-12. Minor modifications were made so that it did not look like a direct copy. Virtually every chainsaw manufacturer of the time had to copy the XL-12 design if they wanted to stay in business. The diecast XL-12 was a revolutionary chainsaw design for it time and was a giant step forward for chain saws - it almost immediately obsoleted heavy sandcast saws and was a major factor in eventually eliminating gear-drive saws. The diecast magnesium components were much cheaper to manufacturer versus the sandcast magnesium components that required a lot of extra machining - diecast is a much cheaper process than sandcast, plus it eliminates a lot of expensive machining. Secondly, diecast components are much lighter than sandcast because component walls can be made thinner and more detailed.