Doing a little web surfing today, due to not wanting to work today( BOM says it very hot, 40 degrees)and I’m a whimp.
I was looking at Blackburn Tools website checking up prices for saw blades as I am now basically out of stock.
Now I have no affiliation with Blackburn tools in any shape or form just a happy customer.
I’ve shopped there once and that was it
But I got thinking about saw prices and more importantly prices of saw plate.
Saw plate is generally 1095 spring steel these days, not the kind of steel you can pick up from the local Bunnies store or probably even your local steel supplier.
An being in Australia down the bottom of the earth too some.
Tho that depends what way you hold the global map of course.
Shipping can be a killer, if you find some overseas and have it posted too you.
So for $45.76 plus let’s say $10 postage.
Equaling $55.76 I can have a nice new 300 mm long by 0.51 mm thick height unknown but let’s say 100 mm high shining piece of saw plate delivered to my penthouse sweet in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne.
But wait there’s more, for my $55.76 Au the shining saw plate comes with all its fangs as Mr Ian W likes to call them(teeth)cut out ready to be sharpened.
So $55.76 saw plate is looking quite economical a good buy.
Now if you were to buy a piece of 1095 steel from say amazon at 300 mm long 100 mm high 0.51 thick.
With postage and the brand new Tax the Australian government slipped in while you weren’t watching around the start of the new year.
That piece of steel is going to cost you around $50 ruffly.
But there’s more bad news with your internet shopping steel it doesn’t come pre fanged.
So if you don’t happen to have a Foley saw tooth cutting machine in the workshop for which I dont[emoji849].
Your now going to have to cut your own teeth in to your new bit of saw plate.
Now ruffly a saw of that size is going to cost you one saw file to at least cut the teeth.
Depending weather your new to that or a seasonal professional you may get more than one saw plate out of your new saw file.
Price ruffle of saw file landed to the penthouse sweet $15 Au .
Plus remember once those fangs are cut in they will now need sharping.
But for the sake of this argument let’s say you get your teeth cut and sharpened with one file.
So we’re all ready behind Mr Blackburn’s saw plate.
At $50 for steel
$15 for a file
Total $65.
Now this one will put the cat amongst the pigeons.
Let’s say to cut and sharpen all your fangs in your brand new piece of 1095 steel takes you 1 hour because you watched some YouTube clips it’s p.... easy.
Your labor rate is $75 Au an hour, to be fair I really don’t know what a person making or hoping to make cutting teeth on a saw would charge but I think that’s a fair to even lowish price.
Now that’s basing that on a “living wage” not a passive wage I do this to stay in the shed longer with out affecting the house hold budget wage.
So Blackburn tools saw plate to the penthouse $56 Au
Internet steel plus file plus labour
$140 Au
So after all my rambling on what’s others options have I completely just fogged over this
??
Cheers Matt(it’s still hot)