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In the Shop
Hand Saw Blade Cleaning Tutorial
You have made it back from making the circuit of your favorite flea markets and the antique malls and have picked up a couple of pretty good old decent hand saws. They definitely have their share of dirt and grime on the handles and a fair amount of rust, paint and grunge on the blades. Can barely see some etchings on the blades through the rust, but at least no bad pitting. Sound familiar. I wrote an article a while back about cleaning and refinishing hand saw handles so I thought it only appropriate to continue now with a tutorial on the cleaning and refinishing of the hand saw blade. The methods I use are similar to what I am sure a lot of others use, but with a few little tricks I learned from mistakes and doing things the hard way.
Here is an example of a fairly nice old Henry Disston D-8 that I picked up a while back and I am getting ready to clean. Have removed the screws and getting ready to take off the handle
It doesn’t take a lot of cleaning supplies. I use the following: Two sizes of ¾”wooden blocks, one 1-½” x 4” and one 1-½” x 3”, most of the time I use these flat, but sometimes on the edge to sand below an etch and other narrow areas. A pair of cotton gloves that have rubber facings on the fingers and palms. You can get these at most of the dollar stores. They hold up and keep most of the rusty residue off of your hands. Started off using latex gloves, but they don’t stand much wear and the minute you touch a saw tooth, they are gone. Also tried Playtex yellow gloves, the kind ladies use to wash dishes with, these are the pits too. I use four grades of Wet and Dry Auto Sandpaper, about 8 x 11 sheets, 220-320-400 and 1000 grit. Also use regular 220 grit sandpaper. Fold and cut the paper into quarters. Paint thinner as a lubricant. A plastic bottle as a paint thinner dispenser. The best I have found is the type that joggers carry water in that has a pull up spout. You just open the spout and squirt some on the blade, then close it back up. Forget spray bottles, they just make a big mess and get everything wet. A scraper used to scrape window glass (these are available at Ace Hardware) blades are heavier than razor blade scrapers, and about 4“ wide. The kind used to scrape off window stickers. And lots of paper towels.
I got myself four plastic bins to keep scrap sandpaper in. Sometimes you will use a new piece for just a little while, but it is still perfectly good. When I first started out cleaning saws, I just used a cardboard box and just through all of them in together. Not all scraps of sandpaper have numbers on the back and in together you don’t know what you’ve got. The bins keep everything separated.
First step in cleaning a hand saw is to scrape off as much surface rust as possible with a blade scraper held at a low angle, so as not to dig into the blade surface. The window glass scraper I use is the best I have found. They are wide, stiff, the corners are already rounded off, and best of all they don’t flex. Scrape with short strokes, the length of the saw blade from one end to the other. Wipe off with a paper towel; scrape a couple more times until most of the loose rust is gone. The more you get off this way, the less sanding you have to do.
I use newspapers under my sanding like I am sure most everybody does. One thing I do different is the way I lay them down. I take four regular sections about the same size and unfold once and stack them one on top of each other (left side of picture) then take one or two sections, left folded and butt up against the four, just so they are flat and the same thickness across the seam and connect with short pieces of tape (right side of picture). When I first started cleaning saws I just took the paper sections and staggered them left and right over lapping. Doesn’t sound like much a problem, but over lapping created ridges in the paper and caused bright spots across the saw blade as I sanded. Now take a quarter sheet of 220 Garnet or any type of 220 sandpaper you usually sand a wood project with (Not Wet or Dry) and rip that in half, and fold once, use “Dry“. Don’t use a thick pad of sandpaper, because you need to feel the blade under the sandpaper with your fingers so you can tell how you are doing. Sand lightly, first over the area of the etch to see if one is there, then the remainder of the saw. Sand just enough to loosen and break up the top coating of rust. Wipe off the rust powder with a paper towel.
Put on gloves and pour paint thinner from the bottle, enough to cover the etch and clean this first. Take a quarter sheet of 1000 grit wet or dry paper, wrap around the 1-½” x 4” block and sand with medium pressure, length wise over the etch back and forth. Keep the block moving across the blade; don’t keep sanding continuously in the same place. Sand from the teeth to the other side of the blade and back again several times. Wipe off, put on more thinner, a clean side of the sandpaper and repeat. As you sand, red rust will float on the surface. Continue to sand and wipe until the rust is gone. If the 1000 grit doesn’t seem to do the job, then change to 400 grit and try again. I have sanded etches down to 220, but you have to be careful. What you want to accomplish is to remove the red rust and lighten any dark spots or areas to match the surrounding lighter areas of the blade as much as possible. Don‘t try to make the blade look like new, you will only be left with numerous bright spots. Some etches are not very deep, so keep an eye on the etch as you sand and if it appears to fade, “STOP“. On thin etches its better to sand with the finer paper. Clean the rest of the blade on either side of the etch and on the back with the sandpaper, thinner and block in the same manner. Blending in the darker areas with the lighter areas. You can’t get rid of all the dark areas, but you can make them less noticeable. If the etch cleaned up fairly well, then try to clean either side of the etch to match. I have spent some time here talking about etches, but this is what is most important to most people, so take your time. On the back side of the blade I clean with the block, but sometimes find it easier to clean with the sandpaper and fingers held flat. In some cases as in around the toe or across the teeth with finger tip or thumb pressure. In these areas you can use coarser paper, try 400, 320 or 220. Rip a quarter sheet of sandpaper in half and fold over only once as I said before to keep a feel for the blade. If you go to the 220 or 320 then go back up through the grades to 400. Clean about one fourth, then make the second fourth match the first and so on.
Here are a couple more little tricks. Wrap wet or dry sandpaper around a new lead pencil that the eraser hasn’t been used, to sand in tight or small areas. You can also take the sandpaper wrapped block lay it flat on the blade and then cock it up on the 4” corner. This is handy to sand in between letters and writings on an etch. Once you are satisfied with the cleaning, take a ¼ piece of 1000 grit wet/dry paper, sprinkle on a little thinner and ever so lightly make a quick pass from end to end, both sides.
After the blade is clean, wash both sides with paint thinner on a clean paper towel and then dry with another. Set aside to dry for a couple hours.
This is the D-8 etch and inscription after cleaning. Before it was just barely visible. Not all stains and discolorations can be completely removed, but most can be blended in to be less noticeable.
One last step, apply a good coat of paste wax, let dry and then buff.
Some hand saws that you find out there in the wild turn out to be quite real nice finds such as this E. C. Simmons Fast Mail Saw with a beautiful etch of an old locomotive train. The only flaw on this nice old saw is that some fool decided he had to have a small hang hole in the end of the saw. Why people can’t figure out that you can just as easily hang up a saw by the hole in the handle I will never know. Maybe it once belonged to one of the peg board boys and he had to have the hole in it so it would fit his peg board hook. Fortunately the hole in this saw is
very small, so I have decided to leave it as is. I am using it here
as an example to show what I have done on other saws with this
problem.
Put the saw blade between two wooden blocks in a vise and cut down the marked line. To make cutting easier, reverse the hack saw blade in the frame and let the teeth cut backwards. Remember you can cut just the tip off or if your saw is say a 26” and the maker of your saw also had 24” saws, you can cut it off to that and make a 24“ saw out of it.
Once the end of the saw has been cut off, dress the top corner to a nice radius curve. Then file down any sharp edges from the saw cut.
Finally clean the end of the saw with a good cleaner-degreaser and apply a little bit of touch-up gun blue. After the blue has dried, rub lightly with 0000 steel wool (sometime I use an old terry cloth rag) to blend the blue in with the tip of the saw. Bob Sturgeon,
Having fun in Indiana |
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