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4th August 2021, 04:53 PM #1Intermediate Member
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Restored a Rob Sorby Dovetail Saw
I got a bit lucky on the weekend and picked up an old dovetail saw for a pretty good price. The saw was already in pretty good condition, only issues were a bit of surface rust and a bend at the end of the blade and a few small cracks in the handle.
The restoration process was painless, though a significant build up of crub meant that the handle needed a bit of a sand back.
I was considering selling the saw was restored but it's cutting so well I'm question that choice.
I believe that the lack of the Kangaroo stamp means that this saw was made post 1980.
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4th August 2021 04:53 PM # ADSGoogle Adsense Advertisement
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4th August 2021, 08:33 PM #2GOLD MEMBER
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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.
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4th August 2021, 11:53 PM #3
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
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5th August 2021, 07:31 AM #4Intermediate Member
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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.
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5th August 2021, 01:31 PM #5
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.Bushmiller;
"Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts, absolutely!"
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6th August 2021, 08:06 AM #6GOLD MEMBER
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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.
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6th August 2021, 08:30 AM #7
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
PaulBushmiller;
"Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts, absolutely!"
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9th August 2021, 10:56 AM #8Intermediate Member
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Thanks heaps for the replies helping to estimate the age of the saw
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