Thread: Spearior Mermaid 88 Saw

Stew

Good to hear from you too.

Unfortunately I just don't have access to enough catalogue information to give a definitive reply. There is no mention of the "Spearior" slogan so I would think that your saw at least pre dates 1928. The 1923 catalogue had only two etches whereas your saw has the additional mermaid etch to the left. I don't think it is 1915 as the medallion has a surround to the medallion that I think was a foil type substance. Your medallion, which I think is beautifully defined incidentally, has only the bare medallion shape.

Because of these differences I would suggest that your saw could be between 1915 and 1923. Because of WW1 perhaps post 1918.

Another anomaly is the absence of the metal guard unless there is evidence that it has been removed in which case a single screw hole would be evident. What timber do you think the handle is made with?

Regards
Paul

PS: I just enlarged one of the pix and there does look to be some ray feature occuring, which I previously thought was absent so perhaps it is Beech. As Ian says there is tremendous variability in timber.

Hi Paul. I wasn't going to post this but your last reply got me thinking. This saw is a bit of a "frankensaw". I had one with a borer filled handle and was going to make a new one but used one of the handles I "inherited" from my uncle. He had the nuts and medallion stored separately but the container was labelled so I knew where to look. I had to drill new holes and wow the blade was tough. And he left the brass guard in place. What's it for? Apologies to CK for hijacking his thread.

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MA

The brass guard is simply a protector to prevent the handle getting damaged. If you use a full stroke of the saw blade, which I believe you should, it does tend to bring the handle close to the wood you are sawing. The irony is that the part of the handle I find contacts timber first is the rounded part of the boss ahead of the saw screws. I am not sure if I am just not careful enough but that is where I hit the handle. S & J had the brass guard available on their top three models in the 1915 catalogue. S & J appeared to have something of an obsession with handle strength as by 1939 they had patented the "Non-Break" handle which comprised a dowel through the length of the grip and it appears that they had dispensed with the brass guard.

In some regards the brass guard is a sales gimmick, but it was not an uncommon feature with a few manufacturers. Harvey W. Peace made a big thing of it with seven of their range getting this feature in the 1895 catalogue and alleged it strengthened the handle. I am not convinced by that argument. Although in many handle designs the lower guard is a weak point, the guard is held with only a single screw. It may give some protection against knocks if it should be dropped. Perhaps that is what Peace meant.

Simonds had a similar guard on about four of their models in the early years and when that occured the saw was designated with an "A" suffix, which is the opposite of the S & J labelling.

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by Mountain Ash

...... And he left the brass guard in place. What's it for?.....

Presumably, to reinforce that skinny bit of wood between the bottom of the grip & the cheeks. They don't break as often as I would expect, given they are almost all cross-grain & far from robust, but I've seen enough broken ones to know it happens. It probably happened more often to blokes out on job sites than in workshops - accidentally dropping your saw when working on a high roof probably doesn't do them a lot of good.....

Cheers,

Originally Posted by Mountain Ash

Apologies to CK for hijacking his thread.

No worries. Actually I am watching this conversation with fascination. I never thought there was so much to saws. It's great.

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk

Hi Paul. It was interesting that the brass was split for much of its length but there was a little dag of brass that only allowed the blade as far in as I installed it. The handle underneath was not cut. This is probably a dumb question but why is the saw blade so tough to drill? Another of my uncles collection of saw handles is a S&J with the dowel through the grip. It has the medallion with the extra washer surrounding it. Im sure I'll find a use for it sometime

Originally Posted by Mountain Ash

Hi Paul. It was interesting that the brass was split for much of its length but there was a little dag of brass that only allowed the blade as far in as I installed it. The handle underneath was not cut. This is probably a dumb question but why is the saw blade so tough to drill? Another of my uncles collection of saw handles is a S&J with the dowel through the grip. It has the medallion with the extra washer surrounding it. Im sure I'll find a use for it sometime

MA

Only mild steel is easy to drill. High carbon steel, from which tools may be made and back in the day was the exclusive metal for such objects, can be "hardened" by heating and quenching. It is subsequently "tempered" by gentle heating again and quenching again. The hardness of the resultant steel is dependent on the level of heat that is imparted to the steel during the tempering process. Hand saws are not hardened to a high degree as the steel must be possible to both set and file. However drilling the sawplate is still a challenge for an ordinary twist bit.

Mild steel cannot be hardened except by adding additional carbon powder and then it will only tend to be case hardened.

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by Mountain Ash

....... why is the saw blade so tough to drill?....

Paul's explanation is quite adequate, but if you ever want to wile away an hour or three, look up steels, what goes into them to give the desired properties, and how the various types are treated for various purposes. You'll see why he kept it basic! OTH, I think it's useful & interesting to know a bit about the heat-treatment of high-carbon steels, it's not all mystery & alchemy, and it's possible to make your own simple forge & do a bit of heat-treating of small blades at home.

I'm a little surprised you managed to drill through a handsaw plate at all if you were using a regular high-speed-steel twist bit. The carbide-tipped "builders' bits", or solid carbide bits designed for metal will sail through them ok. Another trick I've seen promoted is to chuck a heavy bullet-head nail in your drill & run the head end at high speed against the spot where you want to drill your hole, until the spot glows a bit. That will temper the immediate zone enough that a regular HSS bit can handle it. It works, but I'm reluctant to use that method on a 'good' saw as you are going to get some softening around the hole which isn't desirable...

Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

I'm a little surprised you managed to drill through a handsaw plate at all if you were using a regular high-speed-steel twist bit. The carbide-tipped "builders' bits", or solid carbide bits designed for metal will sail through them ok. Another trick I've seen promoted is to chuck a heavy bullet-head nail in your drill & run the head end at high speed against the spot where you want to drill your hole, until the spot glows a bit. That will temper the immediate zone enough that a regular HSS bit can handle it. It works, but I'm reluctant to use that method on a 'good' saw as you are going to get some softening around the hole which isn't desirable...

Cheers,

Ian

I had forgotten about that trick. I think you must have mentioned it somewhere before. I will have to give that a go.

I don't think I would worry about using a nail and just use an old twist bit that I am prepared to sacrifice. Neither would I be concerned about softening the business end of the saw plate as the heating would be very localised and being under the handle a long way from the teeth. The only issue I can see is that to completely anneal, the steel has to get to cherry red and then cool slowly. It is easy to blue the steel with grinding or drilling but that only takes carbon steel to about the level of a cold chisel. Still a level of hardness that is a tough call for conventional twist bits. Even annealed high carbon steel is quite hard to drill.

Regards
Paul

Not sure if that adds to the discussion. I recently put a few old saws together to get a few users out of a pile of old ones. They are not worth mentioning as I mixed and matched the plates and handles as I felt will work for me. Just worth mentioning that I did not reuse any medallions on them in order not to confuse any future owner.
Anyway for that I had to drill a few new holes and burned out the spiral bits I had on the power drill.

I then went to and bought fairly inexpensive 6mm Cobalt drill bit from the big green major hardware store. I did not want to burn that out too so I turned to my Ixion hand cranked drill press where I would not be so fast. Clamping everything in place and it went through like butter. Not sure what that says about the steel of the saw plate as well. But in future I will always use that machine rather than the power one for such job.

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Originally Posted by Bushmiller

...... Neither would I be concerned about softening the business end of the saw plate as the heating would be very localised and being under the handle a long way from the teeth.....

...... Even annealed high carbon steel is quite hard to drill......

Paul, I wasn't concerned about softening the plate as far as the teeth, that simply wouldn't happen. I was just thinking that if the holes are very close to an edge, it could make them more prone to elongation or the bolts pulling through. Not that it would make the saw unusable, I've seen at least one handsaw where a hole was punched so close to the edge it overlapped a bit. And several backsaws I've pulled to bits had holes either perilously close to an edge or overlapping. Until I pulled the handles off, I had no idea the holes were 'off', so I guess it doesn't affect things too much.

I can vouch that the nail works, the first time I heard of the 'trick' was from an old fitter who demonstrated it's effectiveness by drilling a hole through a file. He was a bit of a showman & took bets that he could drill holes in a file wth an ordinary HSS bit - maybe he secretly annealed the file beforehand? Nah, I am 100% positive it was dinky-di. Burning the spot with a drill bit might work, but I have a hunch the soft steel of the nail gives more friction & heats up quicker. Dunno, I may be dead wrong (it would be the first time, of course ), I'll have to do a 'speriment sometime.

If truly annealed, most hardenable steels should be soft enough to file & drill. It really depends on the type of steel, I suppose, some are more difficult to anneal than others (e.g. HSS is quite the challenge!), but the gauge plate I use for plane soles (O1 steel) comes "dead soft" and is no more difficult to cut, file & drill than mild steel (in fact, it's slightly better to file than mild steel because it doesn't crumb & jam the file teeth as much). It gets hard enough to make quite satisfactory blades when heat-treated, as Mr. Hock demonstrates so well.
Cheers,

Paul

sorry for the delayed reply, the hand is beech and there is evidence of where the metal guard was installed ( now removed).

P5280244.jpg

Cheers
Stew

Originally Posted by bunya pine

Paul

sorry for the delayed reply, the hand is beech and there is evidence of where the metal guard was installed ( now removed).

P5280244.jpg

Cheers
Stew

Stew

No issue with delays. It is not like Mission Impossible (or was it Get Smart?) and the details self ignite if not attended to within seconds.

Everything is becoming clearer with this new information and does show that we are on the right track.

Regards
Paul

Cklett

I don't know if you are interested in replacing the missing medallion. You could keep your eyes peeled for another S & J in poor nick and salvage the medallion. You might pick it up for very little or even nothing.

If you are a trifle impatient this current Ebay listing may be of interest:

Vintage Saw Medallion Nuts Spear & Jackson Sheffield | eBay

S & J Medallion.jpg

It comes with extra saw screws. Postage is unfortunately as much as the starting price: Probably a small pre paid package.

Regrettably I am unable to assure you that it will make the saw perform any better .

Regards
Paul