“Whitey” is “Logger Wade” Etienne’s nickname for his service truck
You may have seen “Logger Wade” Etienne and his battered service truck, Whitey, on the History Channel’s Ax Men TV show. The irrepressible Etienne is the go-to guy for his family’s logging company, Etienne’s Timber, in southern Indiana whenever machinery breaks down. He’s famous for unconventional but functional repairs.
“I once cut the ends off an 1-1/2-inch wrench and welded that handle in as a gusset,” he laughs.
Etienne holds one of his custom-built hand tools
Whitey is Etienne’s four-wheel-drive, high-clearance International 4800 service truck equipped with a DT466E engine ahead of an Allison automatic transmission.
“The big thing for me is that it is four-wheel-drive, has lots of clearance so we can jump stumps, and that it has open-shoulder tires for lots of traction,” he says.
A massive front bumper and battered rear deck/bumper on the Knapheide service body are multi-functional.
“Sometimes we need to be able to use the truck as a bulldozer,” he says. “Sometimes we need to be able to push it with a bulldozer. There ain’t much paint left on any corner of the truck.”
Whitey carries a 10,000-pound-capacity Iowa Mold Tooling crane with tethered rather than radio-controls. Etienne prefers to minimize the chances of high-tech components going wrong in the field.
Big work deck is “tough enough to use as a bulldozer.”
“I get annoyed when some electronic doo-dad malfunctions and stops me from fixing what I’m working on,” he says. “Or if I don’t have the right tool. That’s why I’ve got a drawer full of wrenches I cut off to make a stubby wrench, or bent in an ‘L’ or ‘U’ shape to reach a nut or bolt. I’ve got some nice Snap-on tools and wrenches, but I’ve almost got more wrenches that are cut, bent or customized.”
Frequently used hand tools, a Miller welder, and a Honda engine-powered Ingersoll Rand air compressor live on the left side of Whitey’s service body to help balance the weight of the crane on the right side. Welding gas bottles, hydraulic hose crimper, and other parts and accessories fill the right-side boxes.
“In grade school, I was welding when all the other kids were playing basketball,” he says. “We run a lot of used equipment under rough conditions, so I do a lot of welding. That, and fixing hydraulic leaks. I’m always brazing steel hydraulic lines, and constantly building and replacing blown hoses.”
The on-board hydraulic hose crimper and a supply of photocopies are Etienne’s secret weapons
Welding, torching and grinding gear share space with a shop-built hose crimper
for fast hydraulic repairs. They have at their shop tech books and parts books for all their major machines. He photocopied schematic and specification pages from the tech books and built a file folder of critical information he keeps in Whitey’s cab.
“I’ve added my own notes to all those photocopies,” he says. “Any time I replace a hose, I write down its length and specifications for its fittings. If it blows again, I go to my notes to get the hose length, build the hose, then use the old hose to pull the new hose through the machine.”
His detailed notes reflect any customization he’s done to the company’s machinery.
“If I’ve turned up the pressure 50 psi on a machine, or jumper-wired a harness, I write it in the notes I keep for each machine,” he says. “That way I’ve got both the factory recommendations and the ‘Wade-way’ of making it actually work in our world.”
Of all the name-brand, non-name-brand, customized or unconventional tools Logger Wade uses, he rates Whitey at the top of the list.
“Of all the bulldozers, trucks and logging equipment we have, Whitey’s my favorite piece of equipment,” he says. “It’s used and abused, but I think it’s beautiful in an ugly way. It’s the piece of equipment that keeps everything else moving.”
— Dan Anderson
Dan Anderson is a part-time freelance writer and full-time heavy equipment mechanic with more than 20 years of experience working out of service trucks. He is based in Bouton, Iowa.
Logger Wade and Ax Men
Plans weren’t finalized at the time this went to press whether “Logger Wade” Etienne would be part of the 2020 episodes of Ax Men on The History Channel, but he was hopeful.
“It was a lot of fun,” he said. “It’s Hollywood, so sometimes they ‘amplify’ what actually happens, but for the most part it’s what my job is like. They may take parts of four or five jobs over two days to make one episode, but it all really happened. I love people, I love to talk and I’m sort of a show-off, so it’s a good fit for me.”