Thread: From my private rust vault

Age hardening? Is this a physical or physiological condition?

Rob

You could have added mental hardening condition to that as well. Then I would have been able to tell for certain whether you were talking about Matt's saw or not .

I have read constantly throughout my formative years of people mellowing with age. I can only conclude from this that I am still forming .

Regards
Paul

Ps. I am glad that Letaage distinguished between antique split nuts and the very fine saw screws you produce. I am still looking for a saw worthy of my Alamo saw screws.

Matt; if your keen to remove any existing free movement within the handle, and dont wish to replace the 2 original split nut assemblies, try tapping the toe end of the hardback with a steel hammer until the heel end is hard up against the back of the mortise housing. At a guess, who ever made that saw, didn't bore the split nut seats deep enough, leaving little choice but to heavily flat sand their raised surfaces flush with the sides of the handle.

Stewie;

Paul,

I've been doing some reading too.

ASM books.jpg

Very interesting stuff despite their age. No mention however of 'age hardening', only 'aging' as applied to various alloys of aluminium, titanium and of course to precipitation hardening steels.

My better half calls this the "Toilet University".

Rob

That looks like a very impressive set of reference books. I think you will find mention of age hardening in volumes 1 & 2! .

I was always under the impression that steel became brittle or in some other way weakened as time went on. However a quick flick across the web revealed nothing to support my statement. There was reference to age hardening, but this was more to do with heat treating alloys by holding them at temperature (hence "ageing").

Looks like I will have to eat another hat (skull caps are best: They don't taste any better, but they are smaller). I will have to rely more heavily on the work hardening aspect to support my reluctance to hammer set out.

There is a corollary to the successful correction hammering of a saw and that is the steel has not been tempered to it's maximum potential, which is why there may not be a tooth failure.

It does seem to me that running an oilstone or a smooth file down the side of a saw is so much easier. if this is required, I do this while the saw is in the saw sharpening vice but I know of others who lay the saw plate flat on the bench to accomplish this task.

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by planemaker

Matt; your might have been a little over generous with that backsaws tpi count.

Anyone else want to count that saws tpi.

Stewie;

Stewie
May sit up the front of the class now.
[emoji106][emoji106]

I wonder how I will look wearing glasses


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Matt

That would put you at the fourfront. (Speaking on behalf of the esteemed group of people wearing glasses to read).

Regards
Paul

11 tpi (if I counted correctly). That suggests a tenon saw, as opposed to a dovetail saw (the initially quoted 16 tpi).

Before doing anything to the set, test the saw out ripping a tenon.

Assuming the teeth are sharp, if the set is still too great, I would still prefer to reduce the set with a hammer (or in a steel vise) and paper. The time to stone the teeth is when there may be an errant tooth or to remove rag after sharpening, or if the saw is not cutting straight. Removing steel from the plate is not a great idea. If the teeth break, there is something amiss with the hardening, and this is likely to affect the next lot of setting anyway.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Matt, imo, that little saw is going to be of limited use to you, with 11tpi. That tooth-count works well when sawing shoulders or the like that are are between say 60 to 80mm wide - plenty of teeth sitting on the wood and gullets big enough to carry the sawdust until the teeth exit. However, with an 8 inch blade, your stroke is limited on a wide board, & it's awkward trying to carry through and empty all the gullets. It'll do the job, of course, but I'll wager it won't be a saw you'll reach for often. OTH, with 13-14tpi, it could make a nice little saw for finer work. The amount of metal you'll sacrifice in giving it a new set of smaller fangs is inconsequential. Given the intervals between sharpenings for most small saws in amateur hands, there are still several lifetimes left in your saw.

You mentioned that it's a dog to start, which a crosscut shouldn't be, the extra rake and knife-like teeth should allow it to slice the wood easily on a light starting stroke. Looking at the teeth in the pics, I can see several that look way high, which may be the cause of the problem. High teeth on one side (a not uncommon occurrence on crosscuts sharpened by the less-skilled, damhik!) can also make a saw veer, which no amount of stoning will correct. So I reckon it could do with a good jointing and a new set of teeth.

I've been wrong a few times in my life (though maybe I was just mistaken? ) but gee those 'bolts' look like rivets to my simple eyes. The ends certainly look as if they've been peined. Of course, the ham-fisted are as likely to 'fix' a loose nut that way as any other, especially when someone else has sanded off the slots and/or stripped the threads. Many (most?) saws of the era were sanded to flush the bolt heads & nuts after they were installed, but there is usually enough of the slot left to get to work on. You'd need to sand a lot off to eliminate any evidence of slots, and the handle looks too symmetrical to have had the daylights sanded out of one side. Whatever the case, it looks like getting the handle off is going to involve a bit of metal-destruction, one way or another. You could choose to leave it in place, and clean it up as best you can, if you want to preserve it in as original a state as possible. But if you do decide to drill them out, I think the new bolts like Rob & I make would not be appropriate, they have fatter shanks, & would require you to drill out the plate to fit them. I could make you some close-matching replacements that should fool all but a saw museum curator like Paul. I still owe you for a couple nights board & lodging, after all.......

Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

I could make you some close-matching replacements that should fool all but a saw museum curator like Paul.

Curator?

I'm starting to sound like an antiquity .

I take the points Ian has made with the small saw plate. It rather depends on what it's intended use will be. Not a huge use to someone like me who seems to have rough tending to agricultural projects, but maybe alright if you do delicate work.

New saw screws, revised teeth: It may be time to revaluate whether it is worthwhile depending on your proposed useage.

Regards
Paul

Well today I got busy.
Yep ,the saw nuts, bolts, things( I'm not going there).

Were not them, they were past tense, rivets
.As I initially thought.
They are now sitting on my work bench relieved of there job.


Ian ,I would be most grateful if you want to turn up some new nuts.
But please ,you don't owe me ,it is me who owes you, but we can work on that [emoji12].
I am able but bloody time poor.

I also started stripping the handle of what ever the finish was, and years of grime.


I'm putting ten rupees up that it's beech??

I comment more later.

Cheers Matt


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Matt,

I was just now writing a post suggesting you do exactly what you are so I'll shut up.

Cheers,
Rob

I thought I'd replied asking for these details last night, but my post went into a black hole, somewhere!

Matt, I'll need the following bits of info, please: 1. Thickness of your saw handle. 2. Shank size of the rivets, or better still, since the rivets are pretty rough-looking things, find a drill bit that fits neatly in the holes in the saw plate & tell me the size of that. 3. The diameter of the recess for bolt heads & nuts.

Eyeballing the bits in your pics, I'd guestimate: ~21mm, 3.2mm (1/8" in old money) and 13mm.
Let's see how far off I am....

And yep, if it's not Beech, it's something so close nobody will ever know..
Cheers,

Ian,
Sorry for my late reply.
I should of said early on ,I'm more than happy to send the saw north, your way once I've finished sorting the handle out.
It's not a big saw ,so I don't think it will stretch my finances that much in postal costs both ways.
Even if Mr head of our postal service is taking a large chunk[emoji849].
Plus ,I would imagine that would make your job a bit easier maybe.
I'm heading up to Ballarat hopefully tomorrow afternoon.
I will check your lotto numbers but I think your close.
I would almost put a small wager down on the shaft being 3.2 mm 1/8 [emoji12].


Cheers Matt



21. 3.2. 13


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