Replacing the Handle on a Knew Concepts 5" Fret Saw

[Mike Henderson]

Recently I bought a Knew Concepts 5" fret saw to use for sawing out the waste on dovetails. The saw is an excellent quality tool but in reviewing the comments about the saw on the web, I noticed that a significant number of people were replacing the handle.

I didn't have anything against the stock handle but I wanted to see what would be involved in replacing the handle with a shop made handle. In this posting, I'm not going to show how to turn a handle - if you can't do that, you probably won't be replacing the handle unless you buy one already turned.

Here's what the stock saw and handle look like.
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The handle is held on to the frame with a rolled pin (also known as a "spring pin") pushed into the handle and through a tang of the frame (the hole for that is pre-drilled). If you look at the opposite side of the ferrule from where the rolled pin went in, you may see a bulge in the ferrule where the pin pushed the ferrule out.
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I took the saw to my grinder and ground the bulge out, exposing the rolled pin.
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Then I drove the pin out with a 1/8" pin punch.
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Here's what the parts look like after removing the handle.
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Continued on next post.

[Mike Henderson]

Looking into the end of the old handle, you can see that it was drilled with a 1/4" drill and then the wings were cut into it to accommodate the tang of the frame.
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I began on the new handle by drilling the 1/4" hole. I did this by putting the drill bit in the tail stock of the lathe, using the headstock for alignment, and turned the handle by hand to drill the hole.
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Then I used a 1/8" chisel to cut the space for the tang.
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I pressed the handle on to the frame and took it to my drill press to drill a 1/8" hole through the handle and tang. It would be almost impossible to drill a hole in the handle that aligned with the existing hole in the tang.
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Then I drove the pin into the hole. I hadn't drilled the hole quite deep enough so there was a small amount of pin sticking out. I just ground it off.
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Continued to next post.

[Mike Henderson]

And that was it. Here's a couple of pictures of the completed handle replacement, viewed from the left and right.
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It was pretty easy. Probably more work turning the handle than installing it.

Mike

[The handle is some lignum vitae I had around the shop. Not a real showy wood but heavy and I like the extra weight in the saw.]

[Jeff Bartley]

Nice work Mike! I love lignum vitae, though I've only worked it once while repairing a mallet. It smells better than any wood I've ever cut!

[Mike Henderson]

Thanks, Jeff. The thing I thought was unique was the way I removed the handle. In searching the Internet for how to remove the handle, I found many different approaches, including basically destroying the old handle by chopping it off. I felt that my approach of grinding out the opposite side of where the rolled pin was inserted and then driving the pin out was a much better way of removing the handle. It saves the handle so that if someone ever wanted to put it back on, it could be easily done, although you might have to get an new rolled pin, which you can probably do at Home Depot.

Mike

[David Sloan]

As I am going to turn a new handle for my 'new Knew' Concepts fret saw, thanks Mike (and also Derek C) for the detailed pictures of the process. I find it very helpful to find these older threads. There really is a remarkable amount of great information on this site.