Jonathan McCullough
10-20-2010, 12:32 PM
Another installment in the series designed to shame myself into turning that hulking pile of steel and wood into a serviceable saw collection reveals a special saw that no one but myself will probably ever use: A 26-inch Atkins No. 53 filed rip with 5 ½ TPI.
http://i575.photobucket.com/albums/ss199/Jonathryn/One%20Saw%20a%20Week/DSC02951.jpg
Like most Atkins saws, it cleaned off very nicely. I think the special "Silver Steel" they advertised was merely a thin nickel coating used to make their saws look polished like the high-class Disston Nos. 12 and 16. The patent they used for their special "Damaskeened Steel" on other saws (like the "Rex") amounts to what is really a decorative nickel-plating finish to make the saw resemble steel created using the painstaking Damascus process, which has an attractive variegated marble-y look.
http://i575.photobucket.com/albums/ss199/Jonathryn/One%20Saw%20a%20Week/DSC02953.jpg
But nickel resists corrosion, and that is essentially what an etch is: Corrosion (by ferric chloride most likely), and the etch on this saw, like other Atkinses, suffers from the fact that the etching is light. It's still detectable, but difficult to photograph.
http://i575.photobucket.com/albums/ss199/Jonathryn/One%20Saw%20a%20Week/DSC02954.jpg
The handle of this saw shows some interesting characteristics. Doubtless Atkins wanted to speed up production and lower costs, and aspects of this saw reveal machine work not previously evident on older Atkinses. Gone are the wheat carvings, instead they used giant presses to emboss this interesting turn-of-the century art nouveau-like floral pattern. There are also a couple of ridges forward of the top horn that are curved in a way that would be difficult to do consistently on a production line without a cutter head.
http://i575.photobucket.com/albums/ss199/Jonathryn/One%20Saw%20a%20Week/DSC02952.jpg
http://i575.photobucket.com/albums/ss199/Jonathryn/One%20Saw%20a%20Week/DSC02955.jpg
The upper horn on this example was nailed in with brads and then screwed in for good measure. The break was old and filled with dirt and gunk, so I leveled it off and made up the difference with a cherry racing stripe, and retraced the floral pattern with a little careful gouge work. I drilled out the hole for the screw and replaced it with a dowel, and filled in the holes from the brads with a little wood putty. There was also a dent from being in a garbage can with other saws and this one's handle had bumped into the teeth of another saw.
Following George Wilson's observations, I used tung oil and I'd have to say it's pretty good advice. It came out nicely to my eyes.
http://i575.photobucket.com/albums/ss199/Jonathryn/One%20Saw%20a%20Week/DSC02956.jpg
The plate had a small kink toward the toe, and I've gotten along in my saw repairing enough that I felt confident in doing something about it. The plate was straight but there was a bump near the teeth from some past foolishness. While using the saw, it kinked up on me at the point of this bump. I put three pieces of wood in my bench clamp, each about 3/8" square and 2" long, and arranged them in a manner so that I was able to fashion an alternating tooth-pattern vise to gently re-kink the bump in the opposite direction to my satisfaction. Sort of like resetting a bone.
My theory about kinks and dents in saw plates is that nothing you do will ever make it perfect or like new, and that any additional work you do on it will work harden areas of the plate and add imperfections, if countervailing ones. Like scar tissue on a patient: First, do no harm. It's risky business, but it straightened the plate and reduced the size of the bump so that it won't rear its ugly head during use. Again, sort of hard to photograph.
The result is a fantastic rip saw. The steel quality is superb, the weight of the saw is just right, it tracks wherever I point it. I think Bob Rozaieski has one of these and in one of his podcasts he gets this fiendishly delighted look as he's ripping through some wood. I now know why.
The Atkins "perfect" style handle is okay, the bump at the palm is a bit pronounced, I've felt more comfy handles, but the five-fingered "ham hand" grip is okay for big ripping operations.
I'll probably never sell this one. I'll bet someone would want a discount for the bump toward the end (I couldn't not mention something like that) but despite the fact that it is fixed and doesn't affect the use of the saw, I just like this saw too much.
http://i575.photobucket.com/albums/ss199/Jonathryn/One%20Saw%20a%20Week/DSC02951.jpg
Like most Atkins saws, it cleaned off very nicely. I think the special "Silver Steel" they advertised was merely a thin nickel coating used to make their saws look polished like the high-class Disston Nos. 12 and 16. The patent they used for their special "Damaskeened Steel" on other saws (like the "Rex") amounts to what is really a decorative nickel-plating finish to make the saw resemble steel created using the painstaking Damascus process, which has an attractive variegated marble-y look.
http://i575.photobucket.com/albums/ss199/Jonathryn/One%20Saw%20a%20Week/DSC02953.jpg
But nickel resists corrosion, and that is essentially what an etch is: Corrosion (by ferric chloride most likely), and the etch on this saw, like other Atkinses, suffers from the fact that the etching is light. It's still detectable, but difficult to photograph.
http://i575.photobucket.com/albums/ss199/Jonathryn/One%20Saw%20a%20Week/DSC02954.jpg
The handle of this saw shows some interesting characteristics. Doubtless Atkins wanted to speed up production and lower costs, and aspects of this saw reveal machine work not previously evident on older Atkinses. Gone are the wheat carvings, instead they used giant presses to emboss this interesting turn-of-the century art nouveau-like floral pattern. There are also a couple of ridges forward of the top horn that are curved in a way that would be difficult to do consistently on a production line without a cutter head.
http://i575.photobucket.com/albums/ss199/Jonathryn/One%20Saw%20a%20Week/DSC02952.jpg
http://i575.photobucket.com/albums/ss199/Jonathryn/One%20Saw%20a%20Week/DSC02955.jpg
The upper horn on this example was nailed in with brads and then screwed in for good measure. The break was old and filled with dirt and gunk, so I leveled it off and made up the difference with a cherry racing stripe, and retraced the floral pattern with a little careful gouge work. I drilled out the hole for the screw and replaced it with a dowel, and filled in the holes from the brads with a little wood putty. There was also a dent from being in a garbage can with other saws and this one's handle had bumped into the teeth of another saw.
Following George Wilson's observations, I used tung oil and I'd have to say it's pretty good advice. It came out nicely to my eyes.
http://i575.photobucket.com/albums/ss199/Jonathryn/One%20Saw%20a%20Week/DSC02956.jpg
The plate had a small kink toward the toe, and I've gotten along in my saw repairing enough that I felt confident in doing something about it. The plate was straight but there was a bump near the teeth from some past foolishness. While using the saw, it kinked up on me at the point of this bump. I put three pieces of wood in my bench clamp, each about 3/8" square and 2" long, and arranged them in a manner so that I was able to fashion an alternating tooth-pattern vise to gently re-kink the bump in the opposite direction to my satisfaction. Sort of like resetting a bone.
My theory about kinks and dents in saw plates is that nothing you do will ever make it perfect or like new, and that any additional work you do on it will work harden areas of the plate and add imperfections, if countervailing ones. Like scar tissue on a patient: First, do no harm. It's risky business, but it straightened the plate and reduced the size of the bump so that it won't rear its ugly head during use. Again, sort of hard to photograph.
The result is a fantastic rip saw. The steel quality is superb, the weight of the saw is just right, it tracks wherever I point it. I think Bob Rozaieski has one of these and in one of his podcasts he gets this fiendishly delighted look as he's ripping through some wood. I now know why.
The Atkins "perfect" style handle is okay, the bump at the palm is a bit pronounced, I've felt more comfy handles, but the five-fingered "ham hand" grip is okay for big ripping operations.
I'll probably never sell this one. I'll bet someone would want a discount for the bump toward the end (I couldn't not mention something like that) but despite the fact that it is fixed and doesn't affect the use of the saw, I just like this saw too much.