Cute Little Bonsai'd Disston Saw.

[goodvibes]

Interesting pickup from a job lot of tools I bought recently. An 1878-88 medallion 23 inch D8 that I've put in the photos to provide scale, and then there's it's baby brother.

No etch found as yet, but I'm pretty confident that handle has been on it forever. 1896-1917 medallion, 20 inches long and with a Disston pattern handle, but in miniature. My hands are not overly large, but I can only get three fingers in it. Indeed, there's a worn depression on the upper right side of the handle which speaks of many years of three finger use with the index finger outside the grip.

I saw some mention of little saws made for young apprentices - "Manual Academy"???? Can anyone confirm, deny or point me at further information?

DSCN0638.jpgDSCN0639.JPGDSCN0640.jpg

[pmcgee]

If you look at the D-8 page here ... http://www.disstonianinstitute.com/d8page.html

you'll see they were listed in the catalogues over the range from 16"-30" ... and they certainly did special requests also.

Yours looks to be the full original length along the back ... but sharpened down a fair bit.
So someone was using it pretty determinedly.


Cheers,
Paul

[Bushmiller]

In those days the intention was to use only three fingers in the hand hole. It was only a later era that thought it had to get the whole fist in the hand hole. Certainly the handle of panel saws could make for a very tight fit especially for anybody involved with manual work where the hand had thickened.

Regards
Paul

[goodvibes]

Thanks guys.

Maybe there is a crossover point to the smaller handle. I've had a number of D8 saws of that vintage at 22" which had the full size 4 finger handle.

[hiroller]

Guess it depends on how fat your fingers are!