Frankensaw
Moses Yoder in White Pigeon, MI
>Yesterday at Bill Phillip's shop in Pennsylvania (boy, if you ever get a chance, take it) I was in bottom feeder mode looking at saws in a barrel for $3 each. I of course noticed the one behind the barrel, and when I picked it up noticed an early but pretty rusty saw with an intact nib and good handle. He said "those behind the barrel aren't included in the $3 deal", so I handed him the saw and asked how much he wanted for it, to which after looking it over he replied "$3, You won't be able to see the etch when it's cleaned up." This afternoon it shows a legible but faint etch, unfortunately the "S" that would normally be behind the "son" on "Disston and Sons" is missing from the etch; I'm not positive it's a "Disston and Son" saw, but it certainly appears that way as every other letter is clearly legible in the etch, just may have had a small spot of extra rust where the "S" is supposed to be.
Another unfortunate is the nuts are missing, and what appears like it used to be a two part medallion is missing the outer part and the inner part of the medallion only reads what appears to say "Millard" in the center with an 8 at the top and a 16 at the bottom. The nuts are missing but may have been the "improved" saw nuts with the washers that were used right after the split nuts by Disston guessing from the depression in the handle.
Disston never used a medallion where the center of the medallion was seperate from the outside of the medallion, did they? Do you know of any manufacturers that did?
The more I look at saws and planes, the more information I realize that there is to learn; a person could easily spend a lifetime just in researching Disston saws, and still not know much. The same with with Stanly planes. A very interesting time yesterday; the stop at Bill Phillips shop by itself was well worth the drive form Michigan.