Humpty Dumpty Disston, can we rebuild him?

[Jeff L Miller]

I had an old Disston back saw lying around waiting for me to fix the handle. There was the obvious piece missing from the bottom, the broken top horn, and a large chip out of the bottom horn.230414. The other day I found an Atkins back saw for $3.50 at a gargage sale with only a shred of a handle left but it got me thinking, there might be enough here to make one handle. Here is my attempt to document what was a fun restoration of a very sad saw. Here are the two saws side by side230413 the parts look like they may fit, so its over to the table saw for some finesse cuts on a sliding miter board230415. Here are the parts glued up230416. From here there was a series of filing, sanding, and the top horn repair as well as the bottom chip repair. Additionally, I cut bit too much off and had to let in a small wedge as you can see on the bottom handle hoop. I went through various finishing stages before I ended up with this230417. You can see there were two different colors of apple so I had to darken the wood on the top of the cut line to blend it with the lower darker apple. I also chose to leave all of the dings and stains on the handle so they would make the repair blend a bit better. In all, there were 4 repairs to the handle, top horn, bottom piece, messed up cut on the bottom piece, and the bottom horn. 230418230421.Here is the final product, sharpened and ready for another 100 years. 230340

[Paul Saffold]

I don't see any pictures.?? Bad links.

[Jeff L Miller]

I'm sure the links are fine but the idiot pushing the buttons is about to have a stroke! I have some fixing to do later on today some trial and error.

Jeff

[Jeff L Miller]

I think I fixed the problem with a little help from a child. Sorry about the delay getting the pictures up, I struggle with these things sometimes.

Jeff

[Bill Houghton]

Nice. Very nice. Good to get good old saws working again.

[Jeff L Miller]

Thanks Bill, like I said earlier, the saw project was easier than the listing of the post. I appreciate the kind words.

Jeff

[Joe Bailey]

Very nice - those pictures were worth waiting for.

[Jim Koepke]

Great save Jeff.

Are you going to make a handle for the left over blade?

Often the documentation is more work than the job at hand, but maybe it will give someone else the confidence to try it for themselves.

jtk

[Christian Castillo]

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the technology. We have the capability to build the world's first Atkins/Disston handle saw. Jeff L. Millers Disston will be that saw. Better than it was before. Better, stronger, faster.

[Brent VanFossen]

That's a beautiful repair job. Thanks for the photos!

[Joe Bailey]

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the technology. We have the capability to build the world's first Atkins/Disston handle saw. Jeff L. Millers Disston will be that saw. Better than it was before. Better, stronger, faster.

Brilliant Pop-Culture reference!

[Deane Allinson]

Nice, first class honest repair. You do nice work.
Deane

[Paul Saffold]

Nice work, Jeff. Great match on the color too.

[Jim Matthews]

I think I fixed the problem with a little help from a child. Sorry about the delay getting the pictures up, I struggle with these things sometimes.

Jeff I wonder how much of the NSA is manned by twelve year olds...

[Jeff L Miller]

Thanks for all of the kind words, I love taking an old tool and making it useful again.

Jim, I purchased a big slab of Pear wood from Miles Gilmer (shameless plug for Gilmer Hardwoods) and am going to try a handle or two from that. I went there looking for apple but he sold all of it to Mike Wenzloff over in Forest Grove. The Atkins saw plate is nice and straight and should make a fine user when I get a new handle on it. I've never made one but I've seen some beautiful examples here to learn from.

Jeff

[lowell holmes]

:)
Thanks for all of the kind words, I love taking an old tool and making it useful again.

Jim, I purchased a big slab of Pear wood from Miles Gilmer (shameless plug for Gilmer Hardwoods) Jeff

Just how big of a slab did you purchase and should we be sharing it with our friends?:)

[Jeff L Miller]

Here is a shot of the pear board I bought from Gilmer.230564 This was the smallest of the three they had, according to their employees, the other two are very big boards. The saw leaning up against the pear is a 26 inch Disston D8 for comparison. Should make a few handles and I will have some resawn boards to use for boxes etc.

Jeff

[lowell holmes]

That is a nice board.