Thread: Restored a Rob Sorby Dovetail Saw

Nice saw SD. Sorry to ask the obvious, did you mean 1880 date wise? Spilt nuts and old beech handle with distinct rays has to be before 1980, well before.

Yes a real old saw. Sorby went through a few trade marks at different times so perhaps before the kangaroo mark.


https://www.robert-sorby.co.uk/media...of_booklet.pdf

Regards
John

Originally Posted by Mountain Ash

Nice saw SD. Sorry to ask the obvious, did you mean 1880 date wise? Spilt nuts and old beech handle with distinct rays has to be before 1980, well before.

I meant 1980 because the Robert Sorby document linked by Orraloon mentioned that they used the Kangaroo Brand until the 1980s.

So far I haven't been able to find much else about the trademark on the saw to give an estimated date of manufacture. I'm really keen to find this out though, something about using a tool made so long ago feels really nice.

Thanks for stating the split nuts and the hand date it well before 1980s, I didn't know that was a thing.

SDB

I agree with MA and John that your saw is old. The split nuts alone probably place it at the latest the WW1 period. The Americans pretty much gave up split nuts as soon as the Glover patent was made available and the 1890s was as late as split nuts were used. It seems that the Brits favoured tradition for a little longer and split nuts may have been used well into the twentieth century, but I have not been able to definitely nail down a timeline. I will have a look in Simon Barley's book this evening if nobody has beaten me to it.

Regards
Paul

Edit: That prominent fleck in the handle is quite characteristic of English Beech and is not, to my mind, seen in American Beech.

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

That prominent fleck in the handle is quite characteristic of English Beech and is not, to my mind, seen in American Beech.

I repurposed an old wooden plane (splits both sides of the opening and screws holding it together) by cutting into lengths for other projects. The fleck (which is beautiful) was much harder to see on the newly exposed faces. I wonder if it is brought out of the timber through the constant polishing of the hands that use it.

Unfortunately I cannot be definitive regarding timelines. Simon Barley's book does not show catalogues and I don't have catalogues for Robert Sorby. Barley's book describes makers marks in terms of stamps and etches and the history of the various makers. He does mention that the kangaroo brand was for export, which was primarily to Australia, and was used as early as the 1890s. Clearly this was a blatant grab to curry favour with the colonials. It gave the impression of being home grown.

I still don't know when split nuts were phased out with the pommy saws, but guess this could have been as late as the 1920s, which was a good 25 years, or more, after the Americans had adopted the modern saw screw pattern (Glover patent).

Spear and Jackson, a contemporary manufacturer, were certainly using Glover saw screws by 1923 (from a catalogue of that year) and I think it is reasonable to assume rivals would be doing everything they could to be competitive.

Regards
Paul

Thanks heaps for the replies helping to estimate the age of the saw