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Handsaw Restoration by: Mark Harrell

http://www.badaxetoolworks.com/

The first step in restoring a vintage saw is to remove the handle. All too

often, the sawnut/bolt assembly has become frozen over time—and it's always far easier to clean the sawplate without the handle, or if you have some horn repair

ahead of you.

Get a Wooden Clamp:

Nothing too large—a 10-incher will do. Break out your drill—you're going to bore

a hole in it.

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Bore a Hole:

Bore a 3/4" to 7/8" hole in the clamp, about an 1.5" down from the tip. The intent here is to clamp your saw in the clamp, and access the frozen nut through the

hole.

Clamp the Saw:

It helps to remove the other sawnuts/bolts that aren't locked up. You want as much wood on handle contact as possible. The clamp will hold the sawbolt in

place while you torque the sawnut out.

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Unscrew the Sawnut:

Make sure your slotted screwdriver is ground thinner, such that you can fully

insert the tip inside the sawnut to avoid deforming the edges.

Tap out the Sawbolt:

A note of caution here: make

sure when tapping out the sawbolt, that the handle is

supported on either side of

the sawbolt, so that you have

a void to tap the sawbolt

into—otherwise you'll wind up

deforming the shank of the

sawbolt.

You're Done:

So that's it: the concept is to clamp your saw tightly with a wooden clamp you've bored a hole into to access the frozen sawnut. Pretty simple, but someone had to

tell me how to do it, too.

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One man's patina is another man's rust. I fall into the latter group. Rust on

a sawplate promotes friction in a cut, and should be removed prior to sharpening

your saw. You could always pay me to do it for you, but why? All that's required

is a little elbow grease. With the procedure and pics below, I'll how you how to

clean up your sawplate in about twenty minutes.

Equipment Outlay:

Here's the stuff I like to use. It's certainly no

product endorsement;

essentially what you've got is a bottle of rust remover

available at any home

store, a razor-blade

scraper, some Scotchbrite

pads (medium and fine), a

Sandflex block rags, and metal polish. Note the

gloves—use them. And if

you have more rust than

what you see on this saw,

it's a good idea to use a

mask.

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Spray and Scrub (quickly!):

Lay down some cardboard or thick kraft paper to keep the

crud off your workbench. Then

spray the bottle of rust remover

onto the sawplate and

immediately begin scrubbing.

Important to do this quickly, or the rust remover will pool in

spots and leave marks on the

metal. I like using a fine

sanding sponge for this stage of

the cleaning. Use it on edge to

concentrate on spots where the rust is heavily built up, and hit

the teeth with it in particular.

Scrape:

There's usually a 'grime-line' that contours the handle—this is a good time to

scrape it off with a razor. Be careful—don't want to scratch the plate, so use a

sharp razor and don't let the corners dig into the sawplate. The razor is also good to use on other spots on the sawplate where rust is heavily built up.

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Clean the teeth:

Using all the abrasives shown in the outlay, concentrate on really getting the

teeth clean. This is where having a clean sawplate really counts. Rusted teeth just won't cut well, and it's worth the time to clean them up right. Be careful—they

like to bite fingers, lol.

Scotchbrite Medium & Fine:

Now that you've shredded your sanding sponge, wipe down the plate with a paper towel and go to work on it with your Scotchbrite medium and fine pads. Great

products, useful for wood finishing as well.

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Sandflex Block (Fine):

Another product I like to use are sandflex blocks; they're

rubberized sanding blocks

with varying grits (yellow is fine, green medium, and red

coarse). I never use

anything coarser than the

medium block and find that

the yellow/fine block handles

75% of my needs when cleaning a sawplate. Now's a

good time to flip the

sawplate over and repeat

the above steps prior to

polishing.

Polish:

Wipe down the sawplate with another paper towel to remove any residual grit from the sanding process, and break out your metal polish. I like using Wizard's

metal polish. Just squirt a little on an old tee-shirt or cotton cloth, and wipe away.

Really brightens and protects the metal.

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You're Done:

And that's all there is to it. Takes anywhere between 15 minutes to half and hour,

depending on the degree of rust. Rust is funny—never can tell what lies underneath, and many's been the time I've found a great etch. At any rate, if

you're sending a saw to me for sharpening or repair, I strongly encourage you to

clean your sawplate first.

Anyone can restore a saw handle — it's not rocket science. It does

require some patience, but most of all a determination to see it through. There

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are a lot of pics on this page, and it can seem a bit overwhelming. But trust me

on this—it's easier than you think. This is my method, and like anything else,

other methods will work. Have fun with it—the worse that can happen is you

simply saw off your repair piece, and start over.

Equipment Outlay:

Here we have a nice old

Harvey Peace panel saw handle with a blunted upper

horn—a pretty typical

scenario. This shot reflects a

suggested outlay of the

equipment and finishing

supplies I like to use. Essentially, you'll want a

small crosscut saw, your

dovetail saw, rasps to

contour-shape the horn,

some cyanoacrylate glue, a

dremel with associated buffs and sanding drums, a

scraper, an exacto knife, clamps, and even rubber bands.

To Cut is to Heal...

...that's what the SF medics used to tell me anyway before scrubbing an infected owie away with a ScotchBrite pad (in the name of debriding the wound, right?) As

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it applies to horn repair, what you're doing is cutting away the damage. Clamp

the handle in a vise and cut away the damaged part of the horn with a small

tenon saw, no coarser than 14 ppi. You may have to cut away the entire damaged piece with a vertical miter cut, amputating the damage completely,

such that the underside of the horn cutaway is longer than the upper side. This

utilizes as much of the remaining wood on top as much as possible where the

repair will be most apparent. Other times, the damage won't exist across the full

depth of the horn, like the Harvey Peace handle I'm working on here. What I'm

doing is creating a notch—a 90-degree angle for the repair piece to fit into. I make a cut across the grain with my crosscut saw, and make the notch with my

dovetail (or small tenon) saw, by sawing with the grain to the crosscut kerf. Do

this whenever possible, because two glue-up surface are stronger than one.

Clean the Cut with a Chisel

Once you've made the cut or cuts to remove the damaged wood, you'll now want to pare it smooth with a chisel (for notched cuts), or a block plane (if making a

through cut. Notched cuts require a 90-degree angle, and so some tweaking here

is in order prior to gluing up the repair wood.

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Cut the Repair Piece to Fit

Now rip-cut your repair piece of wood

lengthwise to

appropriate height with a shallow mitre

appropriate to the

grain flow of the

handle. Much of the

time, you'll want to

use apple, but cherry is a good choice too.

You'll wind up staining

it to the look of the

handle later on

anyway. The main

thing is to predicate your cut(s) to match

the grain flow on the

handle. You don't

want to glue on a piece of wood with grain that zig-zags from the original wood.

Here's a shill for my Bad Axe Bench Hook set. This is a very useful accessory

while you’re making these cuts. Lee Valley’s wonder dog, bench pup, and bench

clamp are other great accessories to free up your hands while you work.

Check the Grain

Test-fit the repair piece to the handle.

Don't worry about

cutting it to length yet—it's easier to

clamp with a longer

piece of wood. Also,

make sure the repair

piece is about a 1/16"

taller and wider than the handle wood, so

that you can shape

the contour, height

and width to size in

the pics that follow.

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Again—you're miter-cutting the replacement wood to match the grain direction of

the handle. Don't attempt to shape or cut the repair wood yet. Use an over-sized

chunk. The repair piece should be thicker and longer than what is required. You’ll

cut and shape it to size later.

Invest in some Rubber Bands

Here's the fun part: use

a couple of rubber bands

to clamp the repair piece

into position. Rubber

bands let you clamp the repair piece into position

flush with the notch or

miter cut, and they work

great for clamping

asymmetrical pieces

together. Don't glue it up yet, so you can get

the pieces lined up

correctly. Note the piece

of bracing wood to

achieve the direction of

pull I want.

Glue-up

Now clamp your handle in a vise, gently lift the

repair piece, and apply

the glue, making sure you

get both surfaces. I like

using the gap-filler cyanoacrylate glues

available from Lee Valley.

Wear gloves and like Mr.

Bill, don’t inhale—this

stuff is potent. Wipe off

excess glue with a paper towel, and clamp the

handle in an orientation

where any gaps to fill will

pool the glue in place for

a stronger seam. Let dry overnight.

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Repairing a Crack

If you're feeling cocky by now, you

can also attempt to

repair other damage, like the

through-crack I'm

gluing up just above

the lower horn. In

this shot, I'm

wedging open the crack with a

screwdriver, while

applying the glue.

It's smarter to wait

until the other repair

is dry first, but I was feeling pretty full of

myself the day I worked on this handle. Wedge apart the crack with a thin-bladed

screwdriver or an exacto knife, and shoot the glue into the crack using a wood

glue syringe. If you don’t have a syringe, use a razor blade or the tip of a knife to

'push' the bead of glue into the crack, and gravity will take its course. Use two

clamps to squeeze the crack closed along the vertical and horizontal planes. If you have a major crack in the handle, I’ve found it useful to insert two opposing

and tapered pieces of wood inside the grip to spread the crack. If you wind up

completely breaking the handle, don’t flip out. Just glue the pieces together and

clamp.

Cleaning the Brass

The next couple of shots show how I clean up the

medallion sawbolt and

sawnuts using a brass

wire wheel on my Dremel. This is a matter

of personal taste. Some

people like shiny, others

don't. When working on a

vintage saw, I clean out

the gunk with the Dremel without overdoing it,

leaving some patina to

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match the appearance of the saw handle itself. In situations where I have to

completely strip the handle, I'll make the brass shiny at that point. Regardless,

exercise care not to grind down the embossed artwork and lettering within the

medallion.

Be the Dentist...

Dental tools aren't just for

probing root canals and cleaning your M16; they

work great to pick out

decades of gunked-up skin

cells and oil inside slotted

sawnuts. I've often found

that if you clean out the slot, you'll be less apt to distort

the brass when removing or

tightening the fasteners with

your screwdriver. On that

note, file or grind the

flathead screwdriver you use to achieve a thinner tip so it

can fit all the way inside the sawnut slot—antique sawnuts often require a thin

blade to fit.

Polishing the Brass

Here's where purists will take umbrage with me—actually

polishing the medallion

sawbolt/nut. If you like

shiny, you can chuck the

medallion sawnut in your cordless drill and bring the

polishing cloth to the

spinning medallion. If you

want to retain a clean patina

appropriate to the

salvageability of the original finish, a gentle buffing will

suffice, such as I'm doing

here.

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Part Two of handle restoration covers shaping the repair to the correct

length, width and contour, and how to finish the repair.

Draw the Horn

Once you've let the glue-up cure overnight, draw the contour of your new horn onto the repair piece. If you have a matching handle with intact horns, use it to

trace the outline on the repair wood. Not a mission-stopper if you don’t. Web

sites like www.disstonianinstitute.com have many pictures of vintage Disstons to

go by.

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Cut the New Horn to Length

Here's a step that's easy to goof up: while cutting your hon to length, don't cut to

the line; leave yourself an eighth of an inch so you can creep up to the line while

shaping the horn in the following steps.

Break Out Your Rasps

Time to shape the radius, length and

width of the repair

piece with your

favorite rasp.

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Shilling for Joel at Gramercy Tools

Now shape the contours of the repair piece with a

saw handle rasp. Tools

for Working Wood sells

their Gramercy Tools'

saw handle rasp for this

step of the procedure, and it’s a pretty handy

tool to have in your

arsenal. If you don't own

a saw handle rasp, use a

Dremel equipped with a

sanding drum. After roughing out the shape

with a rasp, I like using

my 10.8 Lithium battery

cordless Dremel with a

sanding drum to further refine the repair piece to shape and appropriate contour.

Strongly recommend safety glasses with the bifocal lenses and a dust mask while doing this, not only for safety reasons, but so you can get close in and see in

minute detail what you’re doing.

Scrape the Glueline Flush

It's important to make the transition from vintage

wood to replacement wood

smooth and even, with no

ridges or bumps.

Recommend you put a

fresh burr on your scraper at this stage to make a

good transition.

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Buff the Repair Smooth

Starting with the coarse and graduating to the fine Dremel buffing wheels, smooth out both vintage and new wood. This softens the edges and helps you

achieve a smooth transition between the two pieces, and prepares it for your final buffing with Scotchbrite pads prior to staining and wood treatment. You might

find yourself alternating between the Dremel, your scraper, and some fine

sandpaper at this point to attain a consistent transition between both pieces. Be

careful with the Dremel so you don't wind up sanding a ridge or hollow in the

wood. Pop the grain with fine and polish-grade Scotchbrite pads.

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Evaluate for Fit and Proportion

Time to walk away and throw a beer down your neck. When you come back, check out your work. Look at it objectively, and make sure it feels right in your

hand. Hold it at arm's length and see if it has the kind of shape that resonates

with the rest of the

handle.

Buff the Rest of the

Handle

Now that you've repaired the horn, it's

time to buff out the rest of the handle. If

the original

finish/lacquer on the

handle isn't worth

saving, strip it down

to raw wood. Often, however, you can

save the original

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finish by gently buffing the handle and judiciously scraping off grime and paint

splatters with your scraper. The intent here is to even out the remaining color on

the handle in preparation to stain the raw wood marks from the repair work.

Stain the Raw Wood

Stain the handle's raw wood with the procedure of your

choice. I generally use a touchup marking pen in Red

Oak, which usually attains

the color of vintage finishes

with repeated coats.

Treat the Wood

Buff the entire handle with

0000 steel wool (or Scotch-

Brite equivalent), treat the

wood with the product of your choice, such as

Murphy's Oil Soap. I like

using a wood treatment

called Kramer’s Antique

Improver, which cleans and preserves antique woods without stripping the

original finish. I’ve also found that it assists the final blending of the two pieces to

mitigate the ready appearance of a repair. You're done when you're happy.

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Drum Roll...

So here's the end state: the handle's upper horn has been repaired, and with repeated coats of stain the repair should blend over time with the rest of the

handle. The through-crack above the lower horn is now secure. Though it is

obvious that the handle has been repaired, it is now a far stronger handle and with care, the saw will see another century of use with a comfortable feel in the

hand and a renewed ability to saw with confidence.

This above all: have faith in what you’re doing. Repairing a saw handle is not

rocket science, but seems a little intimidating the first time you do it. Don’t sweat

this. The worst that can happen is that you cut away the repair piece and start

over.

Henry Disston posted a motto throughout his Philadelphia plant

stipulating—'Quality Sells.' Likewise, the NCOs bringing me up in Special

Forces when I was a young Captain use to drill into my head that

'excellence is not an option with anything you do. Do it right, do it on time,

and do it better than anyone else.' This is the philosophy I bring to the table

with the Bad Axe products I offer to you.

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That's me in the middle with my crew in Afghanistan in 2007, where we ran

a special training program for the Afghan National Army. It was a great assignment, fantastic bunch of guys to work with, and a meaningful deployment.

After 28 years of bouncing around the planet with the U.S. Army, I retired and

am now living in Southwest Wisconsin, where I once ran the ROTC department

for University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. Restoring vintage hand tools and working

on my environmental home in Bad Axe feed my passion and underscore my

philosophy that the progressive Luddite does not have to reject the new to

embrace the old.

— Mark Harrell