Thread: someone to teach me to sharpen a handsaw.

Carl, I have been through the same exercise you are going through at the moment. I found that the smaller files for the back saws were impossible to get locally, at least iI could not find them.

As was previously suggested by a previous poster, I too contacted Lie- Neilsen Australia, and purchased the

Double extra slim taper 15 -20 tpi
Double extra slim taper 12 -14 tpi
Extra slim tape 9 - 10 tpi
Slim taper 8 tpi

The total cost for two of each including postage was $72. I found that larger sizes than the above were available locally so did not worry about them for my first order. I found their prices quite good and not as expensive as I thought so not worth the effort of getting them from the US.

As well as having the web site you can contact them by phone as I did. Paul was the guys name and I found him very helpful. They are not big here OZ and I think it was a one man show but I would not hesitate to use him again for the larger sizes if I need them as I would spend more in diesel chasing them then waiting for the postman.

Check the website first and you will see what their range is. I think the prices are just a bit dearer than what I paid but then so has everything else in the last three or so months.

Peter

Sorry to resurrect an old(ish) thread, but it seemed better than starting a new one.

Can you resharpen the black-toothed (hardened?) saw blades.

You know, the $10 cheapies you can get from anywhere.
Or are you supposed to use them until they get blunt, then toss and get a new one?

Sure, if I had an expensive Japanese handsaw I would learn to resharpen it.
But is it worth spending hours learning to resharpen a $10 saw?

Originally Posted by John G

Can you resharpen the black-toothed (hardened?) saw blades.

No.

Regards
Ray

Edit:
On reflection, it could be done....as follows..

You could cut off the induction hardened strip and cut new teeth, then re-harden the new teeth after setting etc... I imagine it's just high carbon steel?
I would probably just use it without re-hardening. Probably a better idea would be to cut up the saw plate for scrapers.

Regards
Ray

Hey hey.

I had never sharpened a saw in my nearly 40 years until this year when I attended a saw sharpening workshop run by The Traditional Tools Group here in Sydney (there's another on coming up at the end of this month if you are planning a trip to Sydney soon). Great day and very informative. I've always seen saw sharpening as a difficult job but it was quite easy. Hard yakka but a very easy skill to learn. I'm sure it'll take a lot of time to master the skill but I'm very happy with the sharpness of my saw after my first go.

One of the things I would warn against (and this is second hand knowledge passed on from the older members of the group) is using electrolysis on the blade. There is some chance that hydrogen embrittlement could cause your blade to snap during the process or during use afterwards. My trainers also shy away from the wire brush on a saw as it can remove a lot of steel before you know it and your blade loses it's tension. No tension and you have a floppy dead saw that won't cut straight. I've not tried either of these techniques for fear of buggering a saw, so I can't comment on these problems from personal experience.

I clean a blade using a scraper (razors, tungsten paint scrapers, stanley knife blades etc) and then various grades of wet and dry well lubed with WD40. I was going down to 2000 grit but I've since been told that 400 was probably enough. And lamp oil (citronella oil) makes a good substitute for WD40 and is cheaper.

After the saw workshop I made a set of saw-chops from the plans on the norsewoodsmith site, the link to which is above somewhere. Works really well and was a good test of my measuring and sawing.

Some more links to saw restoration and sharpening can be found here:
http://www.wkfinetools.com/tRestore/...tore-index.asp

Good luck and have fun.

Cheers,
Virg.

Originally Posted by RayG

No.

......You could cut off the induction hardened strip and cut new teeth, then re-harden the new teeth after setting etc... I imagine it's just high carbon steel?
I would probably just use it without re-hardening. Probably a better idea would be to cut up the saw plate for scrapers.

Ray - cutting off the teeth is quite easy, & succesful - see here:

https://www.woodworkforums.com/showth...t=kevjed+irwin

It may well depend on what brand of saw you have, though. The two blades I worked on were Irwins. They seemed a bit variable in how far the impulse hardening had gone, but in any case it was only a mm or two above the tooth gullets at most. The rest of the blade was perfectly good sawblade, which seemed to be as hard & springy as the 1095 plate or Bunnies scrapers I've tried. They were a little thick for a small saw, IMO (0.7mm) but quite ok for about 12 tpi saws.

So go for it, John G. It's easy to cut the teeth off by RayG's method of clamping between two pieces of steel & using a 1mm cutoff in the angle gtinder. Test the new edge with a file, & if it files ok, you're done, if the file skates & screeches, take off a few mor mm. You have nothing to lose but an hour or two's work, and you may end up with a saw that's better than the original. At least one forumite seems to think so, anyway...
Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

Ray - cutting off the teeth is quite easy, & succesful - see here:
https://www.woodworkforums.com/showth...t=kevjed+irwin
...
So go for it, John G. It's easy to cut the teeth off by RayG's method of clamping between two pieces of steel & using a 1mm cutoff in the angle grinder...

Wow, that might just be a tad too ambitious for me.
I reckon I might be able to sharpen existing teeth, I even know how to use an angle grinder! But I don't reckon I am up to filing 100 odd new teeth on a blank blade.

Originally Posted by John G

Wow, that might just be a tad too ambitious for me.
I reckon I might be able to sharpen existing teeth, I even know how to use an angle grinder! But I don't reckon I am up to filing 100 odd new teeth on a
blank blade.

John - it's actually a lot easier than you think. Tedious, yes!, but not all that high on the difficulty scale. I'm encouraging everyone to try it, because I whimped out myself for the first few saws I made, & had the teeth cut by a saw sharpeneing place, then set & sharpened them myself. But the finest they can cut is 15 tpi & I wanted some saws with 18 tpi, so I decided to have a go at doing it from scratch. Someone else used an old 18tpi hacksaw blade as a template (wish I could remember who it was to give them the credit) & posted it a while ago. So I tried that on a little (160mm) saw & it worked really well first try! You only use the template to file a distinct notch at each tooth point, then work away at it til a set of teeth emerges. Takes me less than an hour to cut 120 plus teeth. The only 'trick' is keeping the file at the right angle so that each tooth profile is the same. This can be done a couple of ways, but the simplest & most reliable way I've come across so far is to jam the end of the file into a piece of wood about 8mm square by about 50mm long at the right angle so that if you keep the stick horizontal, it holds the file at the right rake angle (see pic).

Don't underestimate yourself - if you can use an angle grinder, you can certainly use a file! Everyone should give it ago - it's even more satisfying using a saw you made yourself than a plane........

I have a few old Diston's I would like to restore.

Is it ok to use Phosphoric Acid on the blade to clean it up? Or is this in the same bad category as electrolysis?

Originally Posted by Wongdai

I have a few old Diston's I would like to restore.

Is it ok to use Phosphoric Acid on the blade to clean it up? Or is this in the same bad category as electrolysis?

Wongdai - I have a suspicion the electrolysis causing brittleness story is yet another urban myth, but as I'm not a metallurgist, & my memories of undergraduate chemistry have faded more than a little, I wouldn't argue the toss. I do know that I have come across several old saws (& I mean older than I am!) that were so brittle you could not set the teeth without snapping at least a few. I am very confident these saws never saw an electrolysis bath, but why they were so brittle, I don't know - surely they were not like that when they left the factory?

As to using phosphoric acid - I can't see it would do any harm, but if the saw is so bad it needs soaking in acid, it's unlikely you are going to get decent teeth - the tooth area needs to be pit-free for that. In my limited experience, if it won't clean up with a succession of papers starting around 120 grit, it's probably not worth wasting time on. I've cleaned a couple of pretty grotty-looking old saws up this way & got a surprisingly good result with very little effort. I don't bother going past 400 grit, & then only for a small saw - 240 will give you a very useable surface. Everyone has their favourite after-treatment, but for many years I have used paste wax (the one sold by our sponsor, of course! ) & have very few problems with additional rusting. I also keep my saws in a closed cupboard, not an open till.

Cheers,

Originally Posted by Wongdai

I have a few old Diston's I would like to restore.

Is it ok to use Phosphoric Acid on the blade to clean it up? Or is this in the same bad category as electrolysis?

Electrolysis is bad for steel? How? I hope not, because If it is, then I just chargrilled a Disston It definately had it coming either way though Rusty piece of C$%p
How are you Clarky?

As I understand the matter - the hydrogen embrittlement is only a problem with spring steel, especially under compression, eg spring calipers. Under compression people I have spoken to have seen it happen - the spring snaps. Saws are spring steel. Acid has the same effect. However a short dip in citric acid is not likely to have any significant effect,

Cheers Peter

ps The next TTTG workshop is on saw sharpening and use.
http://www.tttg.org.au/php/tttg_Page.php?n=04

Originally Posted by Heavansabove

As I understand the matter - the hydrogen embrittlement is only a problem with spring steel, especially under compression, eg spring calipers. Under compression people I have spoken to have seen it happen - the spring snaps. Saws are spring steel. Acid has the same effect. However a short dip in citric acid is not likely to have any significant effect,
Cheers Peter

Peter - I have no doubt metal has failed after electrolysis, but how does anyone know if that wasn't due to ordinary metal fatigue or some other cause? I would like to see a genuine explantion of this putative "Hydrogen ion" embrittlement. The only references I can find don't explain it at all satisfactorily, so I remain agnostic.

In any case, a bit of elbow grease & a few grades of paper ought to restore any saw that isn't pitted beyond use, if you are nervous.

Cheers,

Hi Ian, Peter,

Some old saws seem at times to have brittle teeth, this has been attributed by some to hydrogen embrittlement (caused by electrolytic cleaning), but never proven and to my mind you would need to do some careful research to support the theory. In any event if there is any hydrogen entrapped it could be released by warming, some people have said putting the saw in direct sunlight for a while is enough. Others say 300F for a few hours.

The view put forward by Pete Taran, is that some of the older saws were tempered VERY hard, as originally manufactured and just need a bit of care when sharpening and setting.

Citric acid cleaning is very unlikely to cause a problem.

Regards
Ray