Hand saw adventures
Skip in Falls Church
>I finally finished sharpening both of my practice saws - a Disston K-5 26" 8 point crosscut and a little Jackson 10" 12 point backsaw. The Jackson was really easy - it only took a little jointing and the teeth were regular and well formed and had been sharpened rip. I resharpened it rip and it cut straight with no problems. I think I gave it a little too much set - but I'm just going to leave it that way. It should be fine for soft woods. I scraped the old finish off the handle and gave it a couple of coats of BLO - and it looks fine to me. Now, if I can just find a saw nut for it although the bolt alone seems to be holding the handle tight for now.
The K-5 had seen a really tough life, the blade was kinked and bent while the handle was cracked and scorched on one side. However, the blade was slightly breasted (the right way) and the teeth were regular and well formed - although some of them didn't have much in the way of set in them after I banged on the blade to straighten it out. I did get most of the kink and bend out of it and letting it stand in the saw vice seemed to help a bit more. It still has a slight bend in it though. This was the first crosscut saw I've sharpened - surprisingly, at least to me, it made several straight cuts in some 3/4" maple with no stoning.
Of course I had to make a handle for the K-5. I picked another piece of 4/4 hard ambrosia maple - a piece that I probably couldn't have used for anything else as it had a crack about three quarters of the way through at one of the streaks. I also redesigned the handle as the original was designed for a 4 finger grip. Because of the way the handle attached to the saw it was easiest to maintain the bottom part of the grip and move the top of the hole down. I maintained the same angle on the new handle as the old one had. Again, except for the holes for the saw nuts and bolts where I used a drill press, I used all hand tools.
When I completed the handle I had to take care of the crack I had "designed in". I cut the handle so that the crack went through the grip - but not through the body of the handle. To fix the crack I used a self-centering doweling jig to predrill and countersink a hole for a 2 1/2" deck screw, forced some wood glue into the crack and inserted the screw. I then filled the hole with a 3/8" dowel. I didn't get the hole for the medallion bolt quite big enough and created a small crack on that side of the handle when I started tightening it down. To fix the crack I tried drilling a hole perpendicular to the crack and gluing a toothpick into it. That didn't work. So I took a super glue pen and wet the area of the crack with super glue then clamped it for a while. That actually worked to repair the crack although after I gave the handle 2 coats of BLO it left a clear shiny spot. After a couple of coats of a wipe on varnish the spot wasn't obvious except as a light spot. I also filled in all the beetle holes by gluing in pieces of toothpicks. One of the nice things about ambrosia maple is that with all the variations in the wood, the repairs aren't too obvious.
As an encore I resharpened a 6 point tree trimming saw - the kind on an extendable pole. I haven't tried it yet - but it looks fine. I put a little more set in the blade while I was at it as I usually use it on live limbs.
I feel comfortable enough now to resharpen my good rip saws - although I think I may want to practice a bit more before I jump into my good crosscut saws.
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