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.
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| 26" crosscut saw from E. C. Atkins |
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| 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. |
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| 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.
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| Looking up the tooth line from the heel. The kink was much more pronounced than it looks here. |
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| 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.
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| The "anvil" setup |
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| 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.
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| 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.
Were you able to remove the kink completely, or did some of it remain? How many hours did it take? I imagine for most people this would be a one-time task. As for me, I wouldn’t even attempt it unless the saw was very old or had sentimental value.
ReplyDeleteDo you remember a few years ago when I mentioned the S-shaped curve on the back of my LN small crosscut saw? It definitely looked like a kink, very much like the one in your photo. When I removed the spine, however, the curve disappeared. LN replaced the saw with a newer, longer model, which wasn’t ideal due to its length, and I eventually sold it.
I’m wondering what could be done to fix it. It’s quite annoying when taking full strokes and feeling friction at the back. Most of the time I stop halfway, but it feels awkward. I suspect the spine would need replacing, but that’s beyond my skill level. Perhaps you have some ideas?
Salko, there's still a tiny bend in the plate, but I don't think it's enough to affect the cutting. I used the saw yesterday on some pine and it cut well. As for the time it took to straighten, it was probably a couple of hours, though I wasn't hammering the whole time. At the beginning, I hammered very carefully and probably not hard enough for fear of doing irreparable damage. I'd hammer for about 30 seconds in a pattern around the center line of the kink, about 1 hammer blow every half second. Then check the kink and re-mark the plate for my next round. I did this many, many times.
DeleteI'm thinking I didn't have the proper curvature on the hammer's striking face. After having removed about 50-60% of the kink with the big hammer, I switched to smaller hammers, the last one being the small ball peen hammer, and that seemed to make a difference.
For your backsaw, if the kink disappeared when the spine was removed, then it's not the plate that has a problem. If the spine looks straight, then it's probably fine. If the plate is improperly fitted into the spine, that can band the plate. I recall Paul Sellers showing a trick about 10-12 years ago where he rapped the assembled saw on the workbench a couple times to re-seat the plate in the spine. He did this with the saw teeth pointing up, holding the saw by its handle, and making sure the whole spine hit the workbench at the same time.
I hope you get that saw working properly - it would be a shame to use only part of the saw plate to cut wood. Let me know if it works out for you.