A timber beetle larva was gnawing through a tree stump. Its jaws curled left, then right, in alternating C-shaped bites. Oregon logger Joe Cox stopped to watch it in 1946. He spent that summer in his basement copying the shape into steel. The first Cox Chipper Chain sold in 1947. That idea became the basis of modern saw chain, still widely used today. Look at your own chain: the cutters still alternate left, right, left.
