Musings

Salvaging Some Rust Bucket Saws – I

At many points in the distant past I picked up several pretty far gone saws with the expectation that some day I might get them rehabbed and put back to work.  Well, for some of them that day has come and gone and several are now in service.  Today I will start with the simplest one.

The first saw was a nicely proportioned back saw plagued with deep corrosion pitting on the plate extending up more than a half inch from the teeth at the toe.  There was no way I could remove all the pitting from the plate, but I decided to cut the plate back to good metal for filing in some new teeth and at least salvaging the tool.  My strategy was to achieve a tapered configuration, losing a good bit at the toe and almost nothing at the heel.

With a carbide scribe, hacksaw, and my trusty rotary tool and a one inch grinding disk (well, several actually) I made the cut, then cleaned it up by sanding the upright saw on my granite block I normally use for restoring edge blades, equipped with a 60 grit belt.

After that it was a very simple matter of re-toothing the saw, I vaguely recall making it into a 16-point ripsaw.  Somehow I managed to forget where the pictures of the finished saw are, but you can use your imagination.  After getting it to the point I was satisfied I included it in a shipment to Rob Hanson, my personal “Care” packages to a fellow craftsman who lost his home, shop, and business in the California wildfires almost two years ago.  I hope he is giving it a good workout.

Which reminds me, I need to get another box of tools packaged and sent to him.