Thread: Disston 26" Stamped No 8, No taper, split nuts

34 X $1 = she got a great buy!

No medallion so it's not possible to put into the Disstonian date range but the split nuts and stamped blade both argue for early. I have a few 1850's era handsaws and they're not tapered either. Every Disston handsaw I have or that I have seen that is datable to after 1860 has a taper ground blade. The earliest US patent on saw blade grinding is 1836, the next in 1857. The earliest Disston associated patent is 1860.
Your saw is thus likely from the pre-1860 production.

Regards,
Rob

Thanks Rob. In your opinion, do you think the handle could be original?

I'm gonna jump in here and say that in my opinion it is unlikely that this is the original handle.

First, it's not apple. I'm not sure what it is, but it's too course for fruitwood. Also, the really early disstons usually have a carved, defined "lamb's tongue" in the handle, and this one does not. It's a well shaped handle, but it just looks too new to go with the inchworm stamp that this saw has, which, as Rob said, is a mid-1850s era signature.

The fact that there is no medallion is also odd. Only the very, very earliest Disston saws had no medallion. I'm talking about a guy named Hank making saws by hand... like before it was a big operation. If that IS the original handle, and it's a pre-medallion Disston saw, then what you have is a highly, highly collectible item.

I would suggest you go to vintagesaws.com and contact Peter about this one. It's a bit of an oddball. Send him some photos and ask his opinion.

Either way, nice saw.

Cheers,
Luke

These are the handles of two of my early, late 1840's to 1850's(?), era Disstons. Both are the Optimistic Eagle medallion type. Both have inch-worm style stamp marks (reminiscent of the capital omega) on the blade, yours doesn't - it has a circular type that would appear to date it to the 1850's (Online Reference of Disston Saws -- No. 8 Handsaws).

The handles of the more pedestrian marks of Disston saws could be pretty plain looking with little in the way of artistic shaping or carving. Variability in the handle shape appears to be fairly common for this era, note the difference in the bottom rails of the two handles pictured below. I've also seen a number of saws for sale from this time period that are a lot nicer than my saws are so I wouldn't hold your handles nice condition against it.

A feature of your saw that I noticed is that all but one of the screw holes appear to be small except for the hole missing the screw which has been enlarged. The blades of my saws all have small holes and I've noted that all of the Disston split nut saws have holes that are very closely matched in size and position to the holes in the handles. The neatness and size of the holes suggests to me the possibility that your handle is original.

Another feature of your saw suggesting originality of the handle is the semicurcular marks on the blade under the handle cheeks. These marks are made by ridges on the faces of the blade slot. The ridges were created by the circular saw blade used to slot the handle to accept the blade. My saws have them too.

The rounding of the upper back corner of your blade however is not something that I've seen on saws of this era, all of which are straight through the handle and make a sharp corner at the back.

It could of course be a replacement, but if so whoever made and fitted it knew what they were doing. Nonetheless, it's a super bargain for a buck, or even $34.

1850's No 1.JPG1850's No 2.JPG

It's definitely replaced. A few things:

The number 8 was a regular production saw, and it had a handle that looked like the #7, but was made of apple. That handle is beech

If it was late enough to have a regular model number, it would have a medallion.

I can see on the front side a rust line that is pretty far back from the handle, which suggests the original handle is long gone and this is a convenient replacement.

As someone already pointed out, the upper edge of the blade has been rounded, it should be square. You don't say if you can see the top of the blade when the saw is handled. That would be useful info and could explain why the blade is rounded where it should be square.

I have quite a few non-medallion saws, and they all are stamped with unheard of model number like 13, 6, etc. Finally, it's not that hard to make a handle and put new holes in it where they need to go.

Hope this helps.

Pete

PS. You say the blade is not taper ground, I bet that it is. Take a micrometer and measure it at the 4 corners of the blade. I bet the upper toe is the thinnest, and the bottom under the handle is thickest.

I had a #8, the handle was as Rob describes - apple and well contoured and more delicate than later handles. It had the earliest medallion. the only trouble was, I spotted it for what it was based on the handle and the medallion on ebay, and didn't pay too much (it wasn't free, though). I got the saw and the plate was pitted beyond use and had no markings on it, the handle was put on an unmarked plate with no etch and no stamped name.

So I put it back on ebay and sold it and got the same as I paid for it. The medallion was neat, but I'm not that into that kind of stuff.

Hi Pete,

Welcome to the Forum.

I agree that such a saw would be very unusual to not have a medallion and that the fitting of the handle and the blade shape raise doubts. However the number of odd, undocumented, never before/ rarely seen specimens in my limited collection of Disston saws have caused me to believe that there were many different types of saws that were undocumented and are very poorly known today so I've decided to never say never. The standardization of the various product lines became tighter as time went along but in the mid-19th century there were a lot of variants, one-off's and special orders.

Schuld66: Please post some close-up photo's of the handle in place including top and bottom edge views. Perhaps they'll give us additional insight.

Regards,
Rob

Rob,

My collection isn't so limited, I'm 99.9% certain that saw has been rehandled. Cheers.

Here are the photos. I also did some measurements on the thickness of the blade:

Top of toe: 0.030 in.
Bottom of toe: 0.034 in.
Top of Heel: 0.036 in.
Bottom of heel: 0.035 in

I have to say that if someone made this replacement handle, they did an excellent job.

Thanks.
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Thanks Schuld,

Can you give us some close ups of the join between the bosses of the handle and the blade?

P.S. Measure the thickness of the blade around the middle of the back.

I'm not quite sure what you meant, but here are a few more photos.

Thanks.

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If you have a taper ground blade you should see a pattern something like this:

Historical hardness survey of Disston saws 040517a_Page_23.jpg

All of the Disston saw blades are thinner very close to the back of the blade so measure about a centimeter in from the back edge somewhere in the middle (toe to heel middle, not back to toothline middle).

Looking more closely at your above pictures the marked feature makes me think that it has a replacement handle.

Schuld saw marked.JPG

But the picture of the other side doesn't appear to show that imprint.

Schuld saw marked 2.JPG

Can you give us a couple of close-ups of this area?