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.

The Cutest Little Saw

At a tool collectors' show a couple weeks ago my raffle ticket was called and I won my choice of 5 or 6 tools.  I couldn't even tell you what the other tools were, because my eyes were immediately drawn to this small 8" dovetail saw.

Isn't she cute?

Right side view

To get an idea of the size, here it is with a 26" Disston D-115

It's very difficult to see and much more difficult to photograph, but I saw on the left side of the plate that it's a Disston.  Below is an enlargement of the saw plate in the first photo above.

HENRY DISSTON
PHILADELPHIA

Eventually after some clean-up, I was able to get a better pic of the etch

The saw was in pretty rough shape.  I'm sure it hadn't been used in decades.  The teeth were irregular and rounded over, the plate had some waviness and the back was bent.

Looking down the tooth line from behind the handle - see the bend?

17 tpi / 18 ppi
You can see here how uneven the teeth were.

Maybe the nicest part of it was the handle, which I initially thought was beech, but now I think it's apple.  The handle is quite small, even for my narrow hand, so maybe this was originally made for children.  I don't think it's too old based on the etch above.  There's no medallion.  I'm guessing it's from the 1950's, but there'll be more on that below.

I should have done this research before I cleaned it up, but after some snooping around the Disstonian Institute website, I'm pretty sure this is a Disston #70 dovetail saw.  According to one of the Disston catalog pages from that site, these saws came in an 8" length (among others), had an open handle made of apple wood, a plate from 26 gauge (0.018" thick) spring steel, a brass plated steel back, 17 ppi (16 tpi), and about 1 1/2" of plate width below the back.

Close enough.  I measured the plate at about 0.017" thick.  I counted 17 tpi in a few places, but it probably started life as 16 tpi.  There are remnants of brass plating on the back - most of it gone now.  There is still 1 3/8" of plate showing at the rear, closer to 1 3/16 at the front.  Based on pictures, I don't believe the plate was supposed to be less deep at the front - I think the plate is recessed into the spine more at the front for some reason.

The teeth were a mess, and I ended up filing them off completely.  Before realizing from the Disstonian site that the teeth were probably originally 16 tpi, I intended to file to 17 tpi.  But the tooth-spacing templates from Blackburn Tool's website only go up to 16, so that's what I used.

Starting to cut in the new teeth, using a template glued to the plate

Getting closer

I added a little set to the teeth - very little - being careful not to go too far.  A saw like this that is designed to make shallow cuts doesn't need much set.

The screw holes in the handle held a mystery green gunk.  I don't think is was a result of corrosion of the brass screws.  Maybe some compound a former owner put in there to try to tighten up the screws.  Not sure why - the screws seems to hold fine.

Mystery green gunk

The handle was missing a piece where the spine fits in.  I glued on a scrap of beech and shaped it to match the other side.

Chiseled the broken area to get a flat surface

Glued on a piece of beech with some creative clamping

After shaping it like the left side, the right side matches in all but color
(the color got much closer after a few coats of oil)

I also scraped and sanded the rest of the handle to remove any old finish, then put on three coats of BLO over three days.  I love the feel of an oil finish on saw handles.

Ain't she pretty?

For the slightly bent back, I was able to bend it back the other way - very carefully.  The bent saw plate seems to have been mostly fixed by adjusting the spine a bit.  To adjust the spine, I clamped the saw plate in the vise with the spine above the vise jaws and tapped a stick with a kerf cut in it with a hammer to move the spine.  Now, the plate is almost perfectly straight without the handle, but I have a little bend near the back of the plate when the handle in installed.  Makes me wonder if there is something funny about the slot in the handle.  I ran a piece of sandpaper through the slot a few times, but I still have a slight bend in the last inch of teeth.

I did a little more research with the help of the Internet Archive, where I found many old Disston catalogs and manuals.  In a 1918 catalog, the #70's handle looked a little fancier with an extra fillet (not sure if that's the right term) forward of the top horn.  From 1929 through 1949, the saw shows up in the catalogs and/or manuals with a less fancy handle like mine, but the #70 is not found at all in the 1949 and later catalogs.  Maybe that means the saw is from the '29 to '45 time period, but who knows - they might have still sold them after 1945 and not put them in a catalog.

I've made a few test cuts now and it cuts well.  It leaves a very fine kerf.  I'll do some practice dovetails later today.

Tyzack Sons & Turner Backsaw

I mentioned in a recent post that I found this saw at a garage sale.  It's by W. Tyzack Sons & Turner PLC, and the seller thought it might've been from the 1950's or 60's.  He's probably right, but could be later based on the interesting "medallion".

The saw as-found

Can you call it a medallion if it's not made of metal?

It's some kind of plastic that fits around an ordinary saw bolt.

The owner had made his own handle for it and also included the original handle.  His African mahogany handle looked very nice, but it didn't fit my hand well - in fact, he said it was too big for him, too.  The part that the hand wraps around was way too thin.

I don't own any, but I've seen saws where the saw plate at the front is shallower than at the back.  This saw was like that, but when I looked closer, I saw that the front of the plate was just pounded further up into the brass back.

Back end - a little over 1/4" extends up into the brass back.
Due to where the brass back sits in the handle's mortise, it couldn't go any further up.

At front the plate it's jammed way up near the top of the slit.
I tapped the back up to even it out with the back end.

The brass back is massive, so the saw is relatively heavy.  I sanded the back and the plate.  They didn't need much, but they look better now.  The saw plate had a little curvature to it, but I was able to bend it back into straight.  Then I put the original beech handle back on.

On the underside of the lower horn was a past owner name (not the seller)

Original handle reinstalled

This still didn't look right to me, so I removed the handle, scraped and sanded it, and did a little reshaping.  I like it much better now.

Added the notches (large arrows),
eased the lower horn (medium arrow) where heel of hand touches, and
eased the sharp transitions (small arrows) that I just didn't like.

After a couple coats of BLO and a good sharpening, she's ready to go.  I kept the teeth at 12 tpi rip, though I might change that later.  I've made a few test cuts, and it felt ... OK - nothing special.  Only time will tell if I like it.

Left side

Right side (clocked screws, just because ...)

A Couple Funky Saws

This post is as much a request for information as it is to document these two saws.  If anybody knows something about these saws, please comment.

These were part of an auction lot that I bought at my local tool collector's organization, PAST Tool Collectors.  Sometimes when an auction has multiple items in a "lot", you get some oddballs with the stuff that you really bought the lot for.  In these next two photos, ignore the middle saw - I posted about that one separately.

Top: a little skewback;   bottom: an odd two-sided saw

The other side.  Notice anything odd?

The little skewback has no indication of maker.  Based on its size and the small handle (even too small for my narrow hand), it was probably made for kids.  It has a 15 1/2" tooth line, 8 tpi / 9 ppi, filed rip, and the plate is about 0.030" thick.  But look at the bolt configuration.

Only one wingnut shows on this side (Wait. What? A wingnut!!??)

In the first picture above, you'll notice two saw bolts on the left side.  One of them doesn't go through!  Instead, there is a hole in the plate for the through bolt, and a slot for the second "bolt".

OK, that's weird!

The second saw bolt is just a pin with a slotted head

Is that funky or what!?  Why would that be.  It's probably just a cheap saw, but it doesn't seem like it would save any production costs to use a slot instead of a hole.

One last thing.  Look at the tooth line in that last pic.  These teeth are filed rip, but the rake is typical of a crosscut saw at about 15°!  The teeth are almost perfectly spaced at 1/8", so this saw was probably hardly used and never sharpened.  The plate is still straight as an arrow, so I'll sharpen it (with 0° rake), reshape the handle and see if it cuts worth a darn.

Update: I've now sharpened the saw and it cuts fine.  I left the relaxed rake for the first 1-2" and the rest is filed with 0° rake.  Also, when cleaning up the plate, I found this.

After VERY light sanding I found a little bit of an etch.
"GREAT S...."  (GREAT STATES?, GREAT SAVES?) Just can't tell.

Is that some part of the etch at lower left of "GREAT"

Here it is cleaned up, sharpened and handle scraped, sanded, reshaped and oiled

And I sunk a hex nut and dumped that ridiculous wingnut

The second saw is just plain wacky.  Maybe some of you have come across similar saws or know something about this type of saw.

That's one funky saw!

This saw has no maker's mark that I can find.  The beefy, 0.048" thick plate has about 19" of tooth line and there are teeth on both edges of the plate.  The symmetric handle is "hung" so that the "hang angle" is the same no matter which way you hold the saw.  One side is filed crosscut (top in this pic), approx. 7 tpi.  The other side has teeth filed for something else - maybe pruning.

The two types of teeth

Approx. 3 pairs of teeth per inch, 6 tpi

Sometimes crosscut saws are filed poorly and the result is what they call "cows and calves" - every other gullet shallow, the others deeper.  But I'm certain these teeth were shaped this way on purpose.  What exactly that purpose was is my question.

The handle has a split that goes from the middle of the grip almost to the front-most saw bolt.

See the crack?  No doubt that's what the black tape residue was for.

The teeth are very brittle - some have broken off and I broke another just messing around with it.  I won't turn this into a user - don't even know what it's for.  But the blade might be useful as a cutter in a tapered reamer.  And the saw bolts are nice brass bolts in very good condition.  That'll come in handy.

Saw bolts in good shape

So that's it.  If anybody has any information they could share about either of these saws, I would be grateful.

Update: I spied a saw just like the double-sided saw above in an old Atkins catalog.  It's a pruning saw.  I can see the larger teeth being used for that.  But why it has the smaller crosscut teeth on the other side is still a mystery to me.