Thread: Calling all saw gurus

Not an exact match but the tyzack no 7 here has a warranted superior medallion. The saw seems consistent with this series.
Tyzack Hand Saw - No. 7 - Review

cheers

MA

The handle looks to be English Beech and the etch on the plate is self-explanatory.

The medallion is another matter. I have never been quite sure where that style originates. I have always assumed ( ) that it is American, but I have no evidence to support or disprove that. Disston tended to use their keystone symbol in conjunction with the Warranted Superior moniker for their secondary lines rather than that ring of dots.

There were various Tyzack enterprises and my memory tells me they had their own medallion, but I don't have Simon Barley's book with me to verify that.

Of course the most likely scenario is that the medallion is a replacement for a lost part.

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

MA

The handle looks to be English Beech and the etch on the plate is self-explanatory.

The medallion is another matter. I have never been quite sure where that style originates. I have always assumed ( ) that it is American, but I have no evidence to support or disprove that. Disston tended to use their keystone symbol in conjunction with the Warranted Superior moniker for their secondary lines rather than that ring of dots.

There were various Tyzack enterprises and my memory tells me they had their own medallion, but I don't have Simon Barley's book with me to verify that.

Of course the most likely scenario is that the medallion is a replacement for a lost part.

Regards
Paul

Paul,

I take my hat off too you, MA i agree with Paul[emoji3064] it never even crossed my mind, maybe the Medallion is a ring in.

Cheers Matt.

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

..... Of course the most likely scenario is that the medallion is a replacement for a lost part....

Hmm, would "most likely" be more safely phrased as "quite possible", Paul?...

The picture of the saw Martin linked to is not good enough to resolve the medallion sufficiently (at least not on my 'puter), but it looks pretty similar to MA's from what I can see and given the bolts were all equally hard to undo, replacement seems a less likely scenario to me. As you have said on numerous occasions, the "Warranted Superior" medallion story is a murky one...

Cheers,

Thanks Martin for the prompter to look at old Tyzack saws. How many Tyzacks made tools? I found references to W Tyzack, S Tyzack and J Tyzack. Funny how one's pre conceived view can colour one's opinion from that point on. Although I still do think that the handle looks very similar to Disston's D-20 range. Paul you have made mention in the past, of the numbers sramped under the handle. This blade has a "2". Any significance?

Originally Posted by Mountain Ash

Paul you have made mention in the past, of the numbers sramped under the handle. This blade has a "2". Any significance?

MA

That is another of the saw making industry's mysteries. It almost certainly does have significance and the question is as to what it might be.

In the larger enterprises, where materials were passed from one building to another in the progress from saw plate to handling to finished project, we can imagine that identification of a piece of steel could be difficult. There would have been a need to identify exactly which piece of saw plate was intended for each model. The punching of holes for the intended handle would be one means of identification coupled with a skew back or straight back, but still there would be some ambiguity. Logically, you might expect a "1" or a "2" to identify either a model or a grade of steel, but the fact remains that so far we don't really know and there may be considerable variation from one manufacturer to another with each using their own simple code.

The only mark of which we are absolutely certain is the "X" that appears beneath the handle on Disston No.12 saws. Having said all that, others may have further information, which I would welcome.

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by Simplicity

Paul,

maybe the Medallion is a ring in.

Cheers Matt.

Matt

"ring in" A pun?

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by IanW

Hmm, would "most likely" be more safely phrased as "quite possible", Paul?...

The picture of the saw Martin linked to is not good enough to resolve the medallion sufficiently (at least not on my 'puter), but it looks pretty similar to MA's from what I can see and given the bolts were all equally hard to undo, replacement seems a less likely scenario to me. As you have said on numerous occasions, the "Warranted Superior" medallion story is a murky one...

Cheers,

Ian

I couldn't see Martin's medallion at all. Unfortunately, I don't have Simon Barley's book with me and in fact he concentrates on the etches and rarely has specific detail on medallions so there is not much help there either.

Catalogues too don't often focus on the medallion other than to depict replacement medallions and often they are only Warranted Superior, presumeably so a scurrilous individual could not pass off a lower range model with the premium range medallion.

Regards
Paul

Thanks Paul.

Sent from my SM-S928B using Tapatalk

Hi Paul

The medallion on the number isn't an exact match from what I can see The text says it states it says warranted superior. There a number 10 Tyzack saw with Warranted Superior medeliion as well but from the slightly clear photo it not a much as well.

There are two identical medallions for sale on eBay. Both from the USA. Neither identify what saw they are off.
The saw may be a bitsa, or maybe tyzack brought a pile of generic medallions at one stage..

Martin

I have a number of those WS medallions with the ring of dots as spare hardware I have accumulated. At some point in the future I will have to do a "take" on where those medallions are mostly seen. The trouble is, most of my saws have the manufacturers dedicated medallion and not so many with that style of WS medallion. The other difficulty is that to identify the saw there has to be a visible etch too.

Regards
Paul

There are certainly problems with using medallions to type/date saws. Apart from the aforesaid chance of later replacement, either innocent or with scurrilous intent (love that word, Paul, it has such a solid ring to it ), manufacturers would have sourced them in batches, possibly from different suppliers so there would likely have been minor & major variations from batch to batch unless the design was specified rigidly by the saw maker, & since very similar medallions appear on different makers' saws, that doesn't seem to have happened often. Keeping costs down is not a 20thC invention...

Another problem, which has been noted more than once here & elsewhere is that catalogue pictures are not the most reliable guide. Until the 20thC, preparing printing plates for pictures was a laborious process, and the finer the detail required, the more laborious & expensive the preparation (& the more care needed to get a good final product). Manufacturers & printers would often use what was on hand if it was 'close enough' to save costs so catalogue illustrations were sometimes not exact or out of date for the actual model they purport to illustrate.

The older a tool & the worse its condition, the more likely it may have been altered at some stage of its life, so the harder it gets. Paul has seen & dismantled more saws & perused more catalogues than anyone else I know (by a good margin!) and I respect his opinions, but take note that he nearly always, very wisely, includes a few "howevers" with his diagnoses.....

Cheers,

One thing that I haven't checked was the size of the medallions nut compared to the others. From memory, nothing stood out as I was cleaning them up.