How to harvest hand saw nuts
David Miller from Iowa
>I will pay $2 for any saw with a decent name brand medallion � it is amazing how many one can acquire using this criteria. Since the saw is no good (or I would buy it for other reasons than its medallion), I remove the nuts, tie them together and throw them in the saw nut bucket.
Removing the nuts usually involves using one of several thin screwdrivers or spanner wrenches I have made to unscrew the nuts. However, there are three problems with this approach:
1. Often the wood holding the carriage bolt shoulders of the nut is sheared and it is very difficult to get the nuts off when this happens;
2. sometimes the slot is completely worn off making it impossible to engage with any tool; and
3. I often end up with a marred slot.
Lately, have been just sawing the handles off � amazingly easy and the nuts come off like magic. The down side is that it is a destructive process that annihilates the saw handle.
I just put a dull blade in the sliding chop saw and make a series of crisscross cuts, down to the blade (I just go until the sparks fly, which is why I use the dull blade). Start from the backside of the saw where the slots are. Once the wood around the saw nut is isolated, it spins off by hand with little effort. No need to saw really close to the nut. Pop the bolts out with a punch, reassemble them, and keep them all together with a cable tie.
Regards, David