How does the old saw go? Just fine

LEWISTON — Ted Weaver is known for sawing logs. But the 75-year-old mechanic is far from drowsy.

He appeared recently at the Nez Perce County Fair with an antique stationary wood saw he restored.

Weaver says the saw is about 150 years old. This year is the first time it’s been shown in 20 years.

“It’s been all over the Northwest and up and down the Pacific Coast,” the longtime Lewiston resident says.

It came into his family near Kendrick in 1935, when his stepfather, Lester Weaver, bought it from a family in Bovill. He doesn’t recall how much it cost, but he guesses it wasn’t much.

“I was 6 years old when Dad got it, and it was an old piece of machinery then,” he says.

Weaver inherited the saw in 1973, when his stepfather passed away.

Old machinery proved so fascinating to Weaver that he founded a club for Lewiston’s antique machine buffs with Elden Fogelman and the late Henry M. Johnson 25 years ago.

The Lewiston club later dissolved and some of its members joined the regional Antique Power Club in the mid-1980s, according to its president, Eddie Tout of Moscow.

“They brought some valuable information to us,” Tout says of the Lewiston members. “Our club’s been very strong.”

The group meets quarterly and has more than 100 members, according to Tout. New club members can sign up at the fair display. The fee is $15 and new memberships will begin Jan. 1.

Weaver has seen club members with antique tractors, grain grinders, corn shellers, washing machines, vacuums, the forerunner to the cream separator and other wood saws.

“I think I was the first one in the group that had an engine that actually did anything,” he says of his saw engine.

This year he was busy from January to June restoring a 1976 Dodge 100 that had been under a maple tree for 12 years. Now it’s a pearl-green flatbed that he uses to haul logs and his saw to shows.

“It was like trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. It was a pretty sad-looking relic.”

The inside was reupholstered by his wife, Lou Weaver. She’s run Weaver’s Upholstery Shop behind their house for about 40 years, her husband says.

She celebrated her 72nd birthday this month on water skis and an ultralight glider.

“Mom water-skied for about a mile and a half for the first time in years,” Weaver says with a smile.

Are they people who aim for the impossible?

“I guess,” he answers with a shrug. Then he gestures at the saw.

“This isn’t impossible, it’s just hard work.”

Thursday morning the saw engine was “being cantankerous,” he says. He planned to clean its fuel line and change its spark plugs before heading to the fairgrounds.

But he can’t complain. Maintenance on a 150-year-old machine is expected.

“Thank goodness I’m able to do it.”