Todd Ferrante
07-16-2011, 3:44 PM
A cascading chain of events, starting with a water heater leak, led me to reorganize my garage shop a bit. Part of the reorg was consolidating all my saws into a new saw till.
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6123/5939735617_41c1d2709d_z.jpg
It's a minimalist design I like to think of as Arts and Crafts style. No solid panels, just rails connected on the major load paths. Along the way, I cleaned up one of my flea market hand saws. (Previous post here (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?168354-Hand-Saw-Restoration&highlight=saw+restoration).)
When doing online research about saw restoration, one comes upon tons of stuff written about saw sharpening. I have never done that before, as I've taken care in my flea market finds to only buy saws which were perfectly straight and very sharp to the feel. But, I decided to give it a try.
Not wanting to mess up my good saws experimenting, I resolved to use our annual 4th of July pilgrimage to Ohio to hit up some flea markets for saw sharpening equipment and some beat up saws to sharpen. My haul included two saw sets and five saws, shown below, as well as a bunch of files and rasps for sharpening teeth and repairing handles.
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6143/5939682821_d235c70db4_z.jpg
Upon returning to VA, I decided that before trying to sharpen, I needed to organize all my files and rasps. I gathered all my scattered files from the various drawers where they were hiding, and organized them into a single drawer. The files are kept from banging into each other and making themselves dull. There is a lower layer with all the big stuff, and removable trays for the small stuff and file handles.
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6150/5940253890_76806d92ca.jpg http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6030/5939699183_19bee189e6.jpg
I also needed a saw vise. I had looked for one in Ohio, and only saw two, one of which was broken, and the other that looked too flimsy for my taste. After doing more online research, I built my own wooden one.
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6127/5944055876_ca87d2e509_z.jpg
While building the vise, I was simultaneously disassembling and cleaning the saw I had chosen as my first experiment with saw hammering and tooth filing. I finished up the vise Thursday evening and looked forward to spending Friday evening working on what turned out to be an early Atkins Silver Steel, Perfection handled saw.
On a whim, at work on Friday I checked out auctionzip to see if there were any auctions worth attending on Saturday. Nope. Before leaving the site, check out the Friday night auctions. Just an auction of military memorabilia, not even a listing of the stuff. OK, scan through the pictures. Wait a minute. That looks like a saw vise in that tiny little thumbnail picture. Click. It IS. Google search. Holy Cow! It's the Holy Grail of all saw vises, the vise from an ACME saw filing machine! Unbelievable!
I mentally set my upper limit for the ACME vise at $150, the price of a new Gramercy Tools saw vise.
With my heart pounding and wearing my best poker face, I dragged my wife to the auction house. It was a couple hours before the vise came up. I was the only person in the place interested, but there was a phone bidder with an opening bid of $10. I went to $15. The guy on the phone and I raised each other to $100 in increments of $5, with the crowd in open amazement. When we hit $100, the auctioneer took the next bid to $110. That bid was mine, and the phone bidder dropped out at $100. With buyers premium and sales tax, the total price came to $127.50; not the killer deal I had hoped for when the bidding started at $10, but below my self-imposed upper limit.
Here is the vise sitting on my bench last night.
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6135/5944055890_ca1437007d_b.jpg
Now comes the fun part: restoration! All the castings are in great shape except the handle, which has about 1/3 of it broken off. No problem, that just means I get to attach a personalized handle end onto the existing casting. The vise could also use a new paint job. I sprayed it down with WD-40 to soak overnight, and started pulling off parts this morning. So far, everything has come right apart with no new surprises.
I'm psyched to get a chance to restore and use this great old tool. Going fishing tonight, but looking forward to a fun day of shop work tomorrow.
Todd F.
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6123/5939735617_41c1d2709d_z.jpg
It's a minimalist design I like to think of as Arts and Crafts style. No solid panels, just rails connected on the major load paths. Along the way, I cleaned up one of my flea market hand saws. (Previous post here (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?168354-Hand-Saw-Restoration&highlight=saw+restoration).)
When doing online research about saw restoration, one comes upon tons of stuff written about saw sharpening. I have never done that before, as I've taken care in my flea market finds to only buy saws which were perfectly straight and very sharp to the feel. But, I decided to give it a try.
Not wanting to mess up my good saws experimenting, I resolved to use our annual 4th of July pilgrimage to Ohio to hit up some flea markets for saw sharpening equipment and some beat up saws to sharpen. My haul included two saw sets and five saws, shown below, as well as a bunch of files and rasps for sharpening teeth and repairing handles.
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6143/5939682821_d235c70db4_z.jpg
Upon returning to VA, I decided that before trying to sharpen, I needed to organize all my files and rasps. I gathered all my scattered files from the various drawers where they were hiding, and organized them into a single drawer. The files are kept from banging into each other and making themselves dull. There is a lower layer with all the big stuff, and removable trays for the small stuff and file handles.
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6150/5940253890_76806d92ca.jpg http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6030/5939699183_19bee189e6.jpg
I also needed a saw vise. I had looked for one in Ohio, and only saw two, one of which was broken, and the other that looked too flimsy for my taste. After doing more online research, I built my own wooden one.
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6127/5944055876_ca87d2e509_z.jpg
While building the vise, I was simultaneously disassembling and cleaning the saw I had chosen as my first experiment with saw hammering and tooth filing. I finished up the vise Thursday evening and looked forward to spending Friday evening working on what turned out to be an early Atkins Silver Steel, Perfection handled saw.
On a whim, at work on Friday I checked out auctionzip to see if there were any auctions worth attending on Saturday. Nope. Before leaving the site, check out the Friday night auctions. Just an auction of military memorabilia, not even a listing of the stuff. OK, scan through the pictures. Wait a minute. That looks like a saw vise in that tiny little thumbnail picture. Click. It IS. Google search. Holy Cow! It's the Holy Grail of all saw vises, the vise from an ACME saw filing machine! Unbelievable!
I mentally set my upper limit for the ACME vise at $150, the price of a new Gramercy Tools saw vise.
With my heart pounding and wearing my best poker face, I dragged my wife to the auction house. It was a couple hours before the vise came up. I was the only person in the place interested, but there was a phone bidder with an opening bid of $10. I went to $15. The guy on the phone and I raised each other to $100 in increments of $5, with the crowd in open amazement. When we hit $100, the auctioneer took the next bid to $110. That bid was mine, and the phone bidder dropped out at $100. With buyers premium and sales tax, the total price came to $127.50; not the killer deal I had hoped for when the bidding started at $10, but below my self-imposed upper limit.
Here is the vise sitting on my bench last night.
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6135/5944055890_ca1437007d_b.jpg
Now comes the fun part: restoration! All the castings are in great shape except the handle, which has about 1/3 of it broken off. No problem, that just means I get to attach a personalized handle end onto the existing casting. The vise could also use a new paint job. I sprayed it down with WD-40 to soak overnight, and started pulling off parts this morning. So far, everything has come right apart with no new surprises.
I'm psyched to get a chance to restore and use this great old tool. Going fishing tonight, but looking forward to a fun day of shop work tomorrow.
Todd F.