Refurbished Handsaws

[Phorester]

Handsaws I've refurbished over the last couple years. "Refurbished" instead of "restored. "Restored" to me means restored to an accurate original.  These are just cleaned up and repaired. All usable, most fairly sharp. Some from my Father and Father-in-law, some bought at flea markets.



Some rip, some crosscut.

The aluminum-handled one is a curiosity.  A rip saw. No name or any other mark on it anywhere. 





Oldest handsaw.  Atkins.  Early 1900's

[POSTON WIDEHEAD]

Wow....this is just toooo COOL! Beautiful! 

[Dan_Shade]

what did you use to clean them up?

[Phorester]

The purists will cringe, but I just use a belt sander on the blades. Work with 3 different grits of sandpaper from coarse down to fine.  I lightly hand sand the blades first to see if there is any company etching or painted emblems.  If there is, (none of the saws in this picture had them except for the Atkins saw) I lightly sand them with fine grit or just rub hard with a cloth unless this begins to remove the emblem, then I stop. I then sand around these with the belt sander. I don't try to sand out all the rust pits in the blades to get a perfectly smooth blade, just remove the surface rust in the pits. After getting the blades as shiny as I want, I wax them with car wax. 

I take off the handles first.  If the finish is bad, I remove what is left, sand, do any necessary repairs,  and refinish them with shellac or polyurethane. I might stain a handle to get a uniform color before I put on the shellac or poly.  Clean the nuts & bolts with a wire wheel on a bench grinder.

Like I said, this is not historical restoration.  You'd have to use gentler techniques for that. Just cleaning them up to look good and be usable. The big crosscuts are wall hangers. The others I occasionally use. I'm trying to learn how to sharpen handsaws, but I'm not good it yet.

[beenthere]

I don't think I'm a purist, but I did cringe.

That belt sander technique must remove the set point on every tooth.   ???

Do you file the saws then and reset the teeth? Seems it would take a lot of filing to recover the saw for use as a saw.

[Phorester]

Good point. (Pun indended  ;D) 

I don't use the belt sander right up against the teeth, maybe to within 1/4". I then clean around the teeth with the sandpaper by hand, trying not to sand over the tooth itself.

Another point, final sanding is with 600 grit paper.  Very fine.

[Clam77]

The only place I've seen aluminium handled saws used is in a butcher shop due to wood being too porous to keep bacteria out - with the relatively smaller teeth on it, it does kind of look like a bone/meat saw.

Looks like a nice collection though!!   

[Phorester]

I could be wrong, but I wouldn't think this is a meat saw.  It's 30" long, rip teeth, and all meat saws that I've seen are made like a hacksaw (with thin blades). I expect for ease in cutting through meat and bone since a narrow blade would not drag on the meat as a wide blade would.

I also thought it might be an ice saw, but those I've seen have much bigger teeth.



30" long blade.  No markings.



4 pts. to the inch.  Rip teeth.



Aluminum handle tightly riveted on. No markings.

Anybody got any ideas? 

[POSTON WIDEHEAD]

I thought is might be a RIP SAW.

[Phorester]

I also think a carpenter's rip saw.

Anybody have an idea as to a manufacturer or when made?

[DanG]

I'm thinking it could still be a meat saw, maybe specifically for splitting a large carcass down the spine.

Phorester, have you tried using a wire wheel on a drill for cleaning up those blades?  Seems like it would be gentler than the belt sander.

[CHARLIE]

I used to buy old wood planes at garage sales, take em apart and clean them up. I would steel wool the metal clean and then apply cold gun blue for protection. It seem to work pretty good and looked nice.  I haven't done it in many years now though.

[Phorester]

Yep, DANG, used the wire wheel.  Extreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeemely slow, though, on a long saw blade with thick rust. I use them on ax heads, though.  Tried steel wool too, but you might as well rub them with a rag as to use steel wool.  Several ways to remove rust on old saws, this is just the way I use on most of mine nowadays.  I first lightly sand by hand in the center of both sides of the blade where the logo or brand is placed.    If I find something there, I go very easy on that spot by hand.  If I begin to remove the logo, I stop and leave it, then sand around it.  If I feel sure that nothing is there then I just sand it along with the rest of the blade. Also right at the end of the blade underneath the handle is where the # points is usually stamped.

I'm intrigued with using electrolysis. From what I've read, this takes off rust and old paint with no damage whatsoever to the blades with minimum effort. But I haven't tried it since I don't have a car battery charger that I understand is needed for this.  Don't really need a battery charger, and for the small amount of metal I have to clean, I didn't feel it worth the expense of buying one.

[Mooseherder]

I've never seen a Meat Saw in that style either.
The teeth look way too big for cutting bone.
The blades on a meat saw look more like metal cutting style with shorter teeth and the frames look similar to a large hacksaw.

[Woodchuck53]

I left one out as a kid and had to clean it up. Dad made me use diesel and an old Rapides common red brick. They were fired here in Rapides parrish and red for the red clay hills they were made from. Worked with enough elbow grease. Then just wipe them down and hang back on the wall board.

[Phorester]

Browsed the internet yesterday and found pictures of a few other carpenter saws with either aluminum or iron handles.  Very similiar to mine as far as attachment to the blade (riveted) but handle shape was different. So evidently at least one manufacturer was making these at one time.

Surprised that they didn't put their logo on them, unless it was on the blade and has been worn off or taken off with cleaning. All of the info with the other saws I found pictures of also indicated there were no markings on them.  As far as mine, this is one saw that had a bright shiny blade when I got it.  No indication of an etching or painted logo on it.