Cleaning up an E. C. Atkins Crosscut Handsaw

Last time I wrote about hammering out the kink that this saw had.  When I was satisfied with the plate's straightness, I moved on to the handle, the cleaning of the plate, and then sharpening.

The finish on the beech handle scraped easily and after filing and sanding it smooth, I gave it a couple coats of BLO.  I much prefer the feel of an oil finish over a varnish or poly finish.

The handle ready for finish

A few days later after the BLO had dried

I also took a wire wheel in a drill to clean up the saw bolts and medallion.  They really shine up nicely when rubbed on a strop.

For the plate, I started with a razor blade to scrape off the heaviest rust and grime.  Then I used sandpaper, eventually using a stick with sandpaper wrapped around it to help remove the rust and grunge that had built up over time.  Sanding included grits of about 50 up to 220 (or 400?) and it looks pretty respectable now, though there are still some rough marks or light pitting.  There was no etched maker's mark on the saw plate, so I didn't have to avoid any areas with the sanding.

The plate before cleaning

Sanded in sections - a lot of elbow grease expended

Still some light pitting

But the plate looks so much better than before

This pic shows the degree of curvature of the breasted tooth line

I took great care in sharpening the saw.  The breasted tooth line needed a lot of jointing to get down to a shiny bare metal spot on every tooth tip.  I was very careful to file the teeth so as not to end up with alternating deep and shallow gullets (cows and calves).  I used about 15 degrees rake and 25 degrees fleam.  The saw was over-set by a lot, so I stoned the tooth line on both sides several times to knock down the set.

Looks razor sharp to me

I shined up the brass screws and nuts and put it back together.  The saw looks great and I'm sure it will be a nice user saw for decades to come.

Thar' she blows!

Last thing: I didn't have a screwdriver that fit the saw nuts properly, so I made one from a piece of an old saw blade, a plumbing fitting, and a hunk of cherry.  Last year I made a similar screwdriver for bench plane cap-iron screws and this one is almost identical but with a thinner blade.

The saw screws are much happier with their own custom-fit driver

Fits well enough to stay in the slot

Another nice saw in the collection.  I've used the saw a couple of times now, and it cuts like a hot knife through butter.  Sweeet!

Straightening a Kinked E. C. Atkins Handsaw

A few months ago, I responded to an ad for an old handsaw.  When I looked at the saw, I noted a fairly bad kink in the plate, so I told the seller I'd pass on it.  Realizing it was not worth much, he said "OK, just take it for free".  Not only that, but he also gave me an old Craftsman saw and an old Dunlap smoothing plane.  Those I'll address separately.

26" crosscut saw from E. C. Atkins

The beech handle close-up.  The type of wood, the screw locations and
the lambs tongue were the details that helped me try to identify the model.

And the medallion

Turns out the saw is a 26", 8 ppi (7 tpi) Atkins crosscut handsaw.  I don't know the model number for certain, but the handle and description mostly match a #54 in the 1906 catalog (and 1919 and 1923 catalogs) I found at a blog on Atkins saws by Mark Stansbury.  That doesn't mean this saw is from 1906 - that's just one of the catalogs I saw a similar saw in.  But there is one big difference: the saw I've got has a breasted tooth line, and I didn't see any breasted saws in the catalogs I looked at.

After looking further at the catalogs, it could also be a #58 or #63 or #71.  No etch was seen on the plate before, during or after cleaning up, so that's no help in identifying it.

I've read articles and seen video of getting a kink out of a saw plate, but had never tried it and this saw was a perfect candidate.  The following picture attempts to show the kink in the plate.  The kink is on a diagonal starting about 8" back from the toe at the tooth line and about 5-6" back from the toe at the top of the plate.  The picture does not show how pronounced the kink really was.

Looking up the tooth line from the heel.
The kink was much more pronounced than it looks here.

A straightedge was used to help locate the center of the kink

Then the pounding began.  I used the end grain of a chunk of maple butcher block countertop as my anvil.  My hammers include a 3 lb. small sledge, a 1 lb. carpenter's hammer and a small ball peen hammer.

The "anvil" setup

Hammering out the kink

The hammering took a long time.  It's possible that my small sledge didn't have enough curvature on its head because I noticed much quicker results about an hour later when I used the small ball peen hammer.  But with the kink's convex side up, I hammered and hammered and gradually the kink started straightening out.  I did this in sort of a grid around the main kink area, an inch or two either side of the main kink line, but focusing more blows along the kink line.

Using the small ball peen hammer might have been a better choice

Last year I picked up Matt Cianci's book "Set & File", in which he covers fixing kinked saw plates.  I recommend the book to anyone who wants not only to fix kinked saws, but also who wants to know how to sharpen saws.

I also give credit to Bob Rozaieski, who has a nice video on YT about hammering out a kinked plate.  I'll get into the rest of the rehab of this saw in another post.