Science can’t build a Stan Newlun machine. The unusual job done by this modern Paul Bunyan in the tall timber country of the Great Northwest has the technology boys licked.

Not only is Stan Newlun’s work for one of the world’s largest shingle manufacturers so keenly specialized as to stump the push-button fraternity, it’s a job that only a few human beings on this old planet can do. Trade schools can’t teach it, and an apprentice might as well forget it unless he’s gifted with Herculean strength, an outstanding mechanical knack and with a dozen or so superhuman qualities thrown in.

The title Head Saw Filer hardly describes Stan Newlun’s duties. General Superman is a better label. As anyone connected with logging will tell you, no machine can do what Stan Newlun does as master of the mill saws.

He’s a tall, broad, bearded giant in his early fifties and weighs around 270 pounds with rock-hard biceps and a 56-inch chest. There’s a twinkle in his grey eyes that’s a clue to the wry sense of humor and a high IQ behind them.

Newlun draws a fat paycheck as the head saw filer in the M.R. Smith Shingle Mill in Beaver, Washington. In this remote and relative primitive rainforest area of the United States – one of the last frontiers in our modern civilization – the busy Smith Mill spews out enough shingles during each six-hour shift to cover the roofs of twenty houses. Without Newlun they couldn’t do it.

First of all, the bearded strong man has to know every job in the mill, and be ready to take over any one of the 80 of them on split-second notice. He’s got to keep two dozen saws operating constantly with all their whistling teeth razor sharp.

And, Holy Hernia! As mere routine the muscular mill man picks up and carries saw blades weighing 175 to 200 pounds with no more strain than a neighborhood butcher carrying a cleaver. Don’t try this trick for a kick unless you want to risk a close shave from head to toe and a missing foot.

The scars on Stan Newlun’s body are lifelong reminders that the saw blade that slices through a giant red cedar log like it’s a marshmallow can raise hell with the human body. A man has to know what he’s doing down by the old mill stream, and do it right the first time to stay in one piece in such a dangerous occupation.

In the case of a saw filer in a shingle mill, it takes more than brute strength.

“Nothing can take the place of the human eye,” says Newlun. By this, he means perfect vision is necessary to detect those tiny imperfections on a saw blade. Such babies have to be sharpened keen enough to cut a whisker.

From years of experience Newlun has developed an extraordinary sixth sense. Just let any saw in the huge plant run into trouble and he knows instantly which one it is. When you consider the noise in a shingle mill is deafening and you have to shout at the top of your lungs to be heard above the tremendous roar, it comes to you like a light bulb going on in your head that here’s a man with built-in radar.

A head saw filer is faced with a different set of circumstances all the time – different temper of steel, different types of timber, changing weather conditions – and since the set-up must remain in perfect balance, a computerized mind is needed to compensate correctly for these inevitable variances.

It’s easy to understand why saw filing is a dying art and why very few of today’s eager young job seekers plan to step into Newlun’s shoes. At 53, Newlun is the youngest saw filer in the age-old business. Older saw masters speak of him as “that kid”.

To Stan Newlun every saw in the mill has its own personality. He can tell you how long each has been operating and its life expectancy. Apparently he has almost total memory recall because in his mental index there’s an accurate inventory of every single piece of equipment in the mill.

Besides the uncommon characteristics of strength, skill and special instincts important to the job, you have to figure on years of apprenticeship in a dangerous business to cram your head with knack and knowledge – not spelled out in a text book. On top of this, the saw filer’s got to be ever alert. He can lose a hand during the blink of an eye, or lose a foot with the sudden slip of the wrist by dropping a heavy saw. Hangover sufferers need not apply.

Saw filing seems second nature to Stan Newlun. Standing among a myriad of spinning, buzzing blades, wearing his leather apron and thick gloves, he appears as causal as your host at a Sunday afternoon barbeque. Only his eyes betray the fact he’s aware of everything going on around him. His mind is as keen as the saws he keeps to a razor’s edge.

On his broad shoulders fall the responsibility of keeping the mill in action as gigantic logs, eight to twelve feet in diameter and from 500 to 3000 board feet apiece, are rafted and shuttled by tugboat to the slip, reach the busy log deck where a cutoff saw and power bolter slice them like a loaf of French bread into 16 to 18 inch blocks before they move on conveyer chains to the sawyers and individual machines where they are cut into specified shingle sizes.

Whenever anything goes sour in a mill, the workers invariably put the blame on the saw filer, gripe that it’s his fault. But this grumbling takes place behind Newlun’s wide back. His size and strength discourage face-to-face accusations.

“My saws have a clean cut, and I don’t want them mangled to hell,” Newlun informs the new mill worker. The authority in the deep voice penetrates and from that moment on the new employee does his best to co-operate.

Newlun’s strength is legendary. His co-workers never tire of telling tales of his mighty manpower. A favorite story told over tall beers in timber country taverns recalls how he once lifted a full barrel of oil – its weight close to 500 pounds – and carried it from one end of the mill to the other. Asked about such remarkable feats of strength, Newlun shrugs. “I just carry whatever has to be carried. I don’t stop to think of what it weighs.”

The M.R.Smith Shingle Mill at Beaver is a quarter of a century old and Newlun has been with the company most of that time.*

“I went into saw filing because it paid the biggest money in mill work,” Newlun admits.

Away from the mill the bearded superman enjoys “fast cars and strong whiskey”. Hunting and fishing run a close second in a country abounding in elk, deer, trout and salmon.

Northwesterners will tell you Stan Newlun can drink any man under the table. In a hard-drinking community famous for men who can hold their liquor, this is the highest possible tribute and marks Newlun as a man among men of distinction. Yet, loggers and mill workers hasten to explain they never saw him drunk and never saw signs of a morning after.

What’s more, lumber men insist there’s not an electronic genius on earth who can make a machine to take Stan Newlun’s place in a mill. Show us a machine that’s big, brawny and brainy and, unless it’s equipped with some super circuits besides, it still won’t qualify.

{article written by Sam Ewing and published, with pictures in Topper Magazine, 1967 ~ * prior to joining the Beaver mill operation, Newlun worked at the Moclips, Washington mill ~ Stan Newlun passed away in February 1987 with all of his fingers and toes intact ~ unusual in his occupation}