Solo or No for this family?

[spike60]

Been a few years since I posted here; very glad to see you boys are still here having fun. May be scoring several interesting Homelites soon and will need some advice for sure. In the meantime, I hope you can settle a friendly disagreement with my buddy Walt. Is this 410/540/880 family made by Solo or not? Unlike the 290 and 340, which are relabeled Solo 647/654's,there are no corresponding Solo models to this family. I figure it would be more likely they'd have relabeled the Solo 680, than build an "ouside" chassis like the 540/8800. Not to mention the "made in USA" sticker I see on 540's pictuired here.

So, is this just a rumor that keeps hanging around, or is there any substance to it?

[edju1958]

This has been discussed here previously over the past couple of yrs.& no one has any evidence that Solo did in fact make these saws for Homelite.I personally think that Solo had a big part in theie mfgr.All you have to do is look at the saw (410 & 540) & you can see they used the same fuel cap as the 290 & 340.I didn't include the 8800 because I don't have one,but I do have the 410 & 540.I do however have an MP88 cut off/multi-purpose saw which I believe is very similar to the 8800,& again the fuel cap fits the bill.If there were any records tying the 410,540,& 8800 to Solo I'm sure they've been lost or destroyed since Solo was bought by Dolmar & in turn Dolmar was bought by Makita.On the flip side Homelie was sold to John Deere & John Deere sold to another concern & ultimately Homelite ended up as what is now Ryobi.All of these sales & mergers have happened in the last 25+ yrs.

[matt540]

Oct 6, 2020 8:36:14 GMT -5 edju1958 said:

This has been discussed here previously over the past couple of yrs.& no one has any evidence that Solo did in fact make these saws for Homelite.I personally think that Solo had a big part in theie mfgr.All you have to do is look at the saw (410 & 540) & you can see they used the same fuel cap as the 290 & 340.I didn't include the 8800 because I don't have one,but I do have the 410 & 540.I do however have an MP88 cut off/multi-purpose saw which I believe is very similar to the 8800,& again the fuel cap fits the bill.If there were any records tying the 410,540,& 8800 to Solo I'm sure they've been lost or destroyed since Solo was bought by Dolmar & in turn Dolmar was bought by Makita.On the flip side Homelie was sold to John Deere & John Deere sold to another concern & ultimately Homelite ended up as what is now Ryobi.All of these sales & mergers have happened in the last 25+ yrs.

It's been a while since I have been on here. Thank you edju1958 for your explanation of the above. I had no idea of the above info and hadn't thought of the question asked. Too bad Ryobi doesn't restart making parts for Homelite's, there's quite a following here that could use it! 

[edju1958]

Ryobi is making Homelite saws,but they're not the same quality as the Homelites of old.The new "Homelite" saws you can plan on using about 10 times,then look for the nearest dumpster to chuck it in.

[spike60]

Thanks for that answer edju. With the buyouts and all, the trail kind of goes dry at this point. I guess we would need someone who was there in the day selling Homelite products. I was there in the day myself selling Solo saws, so I'm familiar with those. I certainly remember the 647/654 chassis, but there was certainly nothing at all like the 410 or 540 in the Solo line up. So, in the absence of any concreate proof, I'll continue to lean towards "no" and tell my buddy Walt that he's wrong. LOL

I did score a very nice 550 yesterday, and there's supposed to be a 750 on the way. Likely have some questions over on the other section on those. And yes, the 550 boot has pretty much turned to powder.

[blythkd]

I sold several 410's and some 8800's. Didn't have much interest in the 540/545 platform. Solo may have had some design input, hell Homelite may have even paid them to design it for all I know but I'm pretty sure Homelite built the saws here in the States. I recall discussing the 290's and 340's with our Homelite rep and it was no secret that they were built by Solo. I went to a Homelite service school and discussed the 8800 at length with the guy that put on the school and nothing ever came up about Solo. I even bought his demo 8800 out of the trunk of his car and we talked performance mods. He was getting a lot of power out of another 8800 but he wouldn't cough up his secrets. I'm sure he didn't want Homelite getting wind of him telling techs how to "turn them up".