# Disston #12 Saw Restore



## tc65 (Jan 9, 2012)

All the restore threads recently have pushed me to finally get started with some restore threads of my own. I've got 5 saws (3 Disston and 2 Warranted Superior) that have been gathering dust and rust in various buildings on the farm for about the last 40 years (or more):thumbdown: 

I wasn't going to start with a Disston as I wanted to get a little experience first with one of the "cheaper" saws, but the "wheat" carving on this first saw spoke to me and this afternoon I took the blade off and threw it in an electrolysis bath. 

This first picture is of the handle after I pulled it off the blade. I've wiped it down with MS to clean it a little and you can see what kind of challenges I'm going to have with this one. Namely, the bottom of the handle is gone. You'll also notice it has a nice motor oil stain (I think) on the top of it.








For comparison, here's what an intact handle should look like.








Here's a picture of the back of the handle.









Picture of the dirty medallion.









Here's one of the medallion cleaned.









I've got to give credit to the Disstonian Institute which helped me figure out this saws model as well as relative age. If you have a Disston and want to find out more about it, that's the place to go. The handle style/shape will help you figure out the model number and the medallion will give you dates of manufacture. 

This saw is a model #12 and was manufactured between 1896-1917. It is a 22" crosscut panel saw with 11ppi.

After the blade is cleaned, I will probably wait to sharpen it until I've learned on one of the cheaper saws. 

My first job is going to be getting some apple wood for the handle and a set of riflers to help shape it once I have a blank glued to it. If anyone is interested, Bad Axe Tool Works has a pretty good tutorial for restoring handles.


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## GoIrish (Jan 29, 2012)

Looks like a nice saw.


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## JQMack (Sep 24, 2011)

Cool. I'll be following this one.


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## nbo10 (Jan 26, 2011)

Nice. I'll be following this thread, as I'm in the same boat restoring a couple saws. I recently picked up 3 old saws at a sale, a Disston 9 and 12, and still yet to be determined Disston. I'm amazed at the quality of these older saw, even when they aren't sharpened. I had the hardest time making cuts with a new big box saw. Then I tried one of these older saws and it was like cutting through butter.


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## firemedic (Dec 26, 2010)

Goo to see you are tackling saws now! I look forward to seeing the progress!


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## Phaedrus (Jan 18, 2012)

That was a beautiful saw at one point and I look forward to seeing it made that way again. I am really curious to see some blade before and after. I have a Disston crosscut saw that I use and could probably stand some restoration.


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## tc65 (Jan 9, 2012)

Thanks for the kind comments everyone. It's going to be a learning experience for me so please jump in with any suggestions and comments.

Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures of the blade before I started the electrolysis:bangin:. This after I told myself I was going to document everything on these saws. I do however have pictures of one of the other saws I'm going to be rehabbing that was hanging on the same peg in the barn. 

This one is a Warranted Superior saw and the rust on it is similar to the one I just finished cleaning.









I pulled the blade from my electrolysis bath this afternoon and was pleasantly surprised by a couple of things. Unfortunately I didn't find any evidence of the makers etching, but I did find a couple of other marks. The first is the ppi stamp you can see in this picture (at least the #1 and the lower half of the #2) making this a 12ppi, not an eleven like I said in my first post. 









The other thing I found was an etching of my maternal Grandfathers Name:thumbsup: That was a real surprise as I never really knew him that well and never knew he ever did anything with his hands. After talking to Mom, she said he did some carpentry and traveled around for a while doing general repair work for others when he was a young man.

This pic shows the blade after electrolysis and a little clean up with some 600x wet/dry paper with MS. It's not done yet as I still need to sand more around the teeth, but the majority of the blade is good and smooth. I'll wait until I get ready to sharpen the saw to finish sanding. I gave it a coating of wax to keep the rust off and re-attached it to the handle so I wouldn't loose the medallion or the nuts.









Finally, here is a better closeup of the medallion.









I've decided rather than finishing off the restore on this saw, I'm going to work on getting the other saw blades cleaned and practice sharpening on the cheaper saws before tackling this one. I've got one of the Warranted Superior blades in the bath right now and I do have before pictures for it that I'll post after I get it cleaned.


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## tc65 (Jan 9, 2012)

*Progress in Restorations*

I've finally found a couple of pieces of apple that I think will work to repair the #12 handle. Unfortunately, they are still wet, so why they are drying I'm continuing with the restore of the other saws.

This one is a Disston / HK Porter D8 model (as best I can figure) The medallion Has the Disston name along with the H.K.P. initials so I am assuming it was probably made right after Porter bought Disston around 1955-6.

Here is a picture of the saw before i started - lots of rust, the handle isn't too bad with the exception of some dry rot on the lower horn.









The handle actually cleaned up real well and after a coat of BLO and a wipe on poly it's looking pretty good. The blade cleaned up nicely as well.









Here is a picture of the whole saw after cleaning/finishing. The blade still needs a little polishing, but I'll do that when I get to sharpening the saw. 

Yeah, I'm procrastinating a little on learning to sharpen saws, but I have all the files I need now and plan to put together a homemade saw vise this weekend.


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## tc65 (Jan 9, 2012)

*Warranted Superior Rip Saw*

Continuing with the restore pictures, this is a Warranted Superior 26" 5tpi rip saw. First is a picture of the uncleaned saw. Obviously the handle is going to need to be replaced - another first for me.









Here is a pic of the new handle that I've made out of white oak recovered from barn boards. I was just going to make one quickly to play around and see what kind of hurdles I'd have to overcome, but it turned out so well and felt good in my hand so I decided to go ahead and use it. 









Here is a picture of the new handle finished and attached to the saw.









And finally, one of the whole saw.










I did run into a little snag in finishing work on the handle. I drilled holes for bolt shafts first in my hurry to get it mounted to the blade thinking I'd just counter bore the holes with a forstner bit later. Unfortunately, that's almost impossible to do - especially with a hand drill - which is all I have. So I had to carve the holes with an knife and an 1/8" chisel. It worked, but it also took me over an hour to carve them by hand.


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## tc65 (Jan 9, 2012)

*Warranted Superior 20" Panel Saw*

Here a couple of pictures of another of the saws. This is a 10 tpi cross cut saw that was probably in the best condition of any of the ones I'm refurbishing. I didn't take any before pictures of this saw, but it was almost as rusty as the rest.

What I wanted to show here is the interesting thing that happened when I was refinishing the handle. This first picture shows the handle after a little sanding and cleaning and a coat of BLO thinned with MS. I was pretty happy with the look of it with so little work.









This is a picture the following morning. I about had a heart attack when I saw this. When I sanded and cleaned the handle, I really didn't clean that much around the grip. It was very dark, but smooth and I assumed it was just patina from lots of use. 

Evidently, the MS dissolved whatever was causing the dark color and leached it into the rest of the handle. I don't think ordinary dirt and grime buildup would have leached like that but I really don't know. The only other thought I had was that someone may have used some pine tar on the handle. I don't know if you'd really want to do that, but that was the only thing I could think of that would leach like that. Anyone have any thoughts on this phenomenon??









I suppose I could have applied some more MS or lacquer thinner and tried to leach it out of the wood or evened out the color, but it kind of grew on me, so I went ahead and gave it a couple of coats of poly to finish it.









Actually it's kind of an attractive saw - and definitely the most unique coloration I've ever seen on a handle so I think I'll keep it.:yes:









That's all for tonight, I've still got one more saw I'm making a handle for and will start finishing it later tonight and post some pictures of it over the weekend. 

Then it's time to bite the bullet and start learning to sharpen the saws. I've got six total to sharpen ranging from 5-14 tpi in both rip and cross cut configuration, so by the time I'm done I'll either be pretty good at sharpening or I'll have six nice looking saws to hang on the wall.:laughing:


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## amckenzie4 (Apr 29, 2010)

> Yeah, I'm procrastinating a little on learning to sharpen saws, but I have all the files I need now and plan to put together a homemade saw vise this weekend.


If you still haven't put together a vise, here's a quick solution that more or less works for most saws.

Take a piece of thin stock -- I've used pine 1x2 with a fair degree of success -- and cut down it length wise to within a few inches of the end. If you're using 1x2, you should have essentially two "arms" of 1.5" x ~ 1/3". Make the cut as long as your saw blade, or maybe a touch longer. Slide the blade that needs to be sharpened into it, with the gullets about a quarter inch above the wood. Clamp the whole thing to your bench, and sharpen away.

It actually works well enough for me in my bench's leg vise that I've given up on my plan to buy a saw vise. These are cheap and easy, and I don't have to worry about storing another big metal thing. Just make sure the cut you make is STRAIGHT... otherwise you'll be sharpening a blade that's being held curved, and that doesn't work very well. Don't ask how I know.


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## tc65 (Jan 9, 2012)

Thanks for the tip Alex. I didn't really want to spend the time to build a complete saw vise, glad to know something that simple will work.


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## JQMack (Sep 24, 2011)

Is there anyone that has put together a tutorial on sharpening? I've got all the stuff but have been hesitant to try.


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## tc65 (Jan 9, 2012)

Here are a couple of references I've been reading. The first is one I've seen several people mention, it's here. This is a link to a Lumberjocks post where a member put together a set of links. Here is one more on Saw Restoration and Sharpening. I know I've seen some more out there, but I couldn't find them right now. I also think that Lee Valley and/or Lie Nielsen may have short tutorials as well.


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## amckenzie4 (Apr 29, 2010)

trc65 said:


> Thanks for the tip Alex. I didn't really want to spend the time to build a complete saw vise, glad to know something that simple will work.


No problem. The idea wasn't mine, but I can't for the life of me remember where I read it first.

I forgot to mention, you'll likely want to move the whole assembly at least once in the vise... I find that on a normally sized handsaw blade I want to move it once, when I get about 2/3 of the way down the blade.



JQMack said:


> Is there anyone that has put together a tutorial on sharpening? I've got all the stuff but have been hesitant to try.


I'm not sure if there's one here, but I can't recommend the Paul Sellers book enough. The sharpening section is excellent. There are also a bunch of videos, both of him and other people, doing sharpening on YouTube.


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## Billy De (Jul 19, 2009)

Tim well done on taking on the renovation of these great saws, finding one with a family connection is just to cool.

I think the handle turned out really well looks just the part.

I`ve never used a steel saw vice, mainly just two pieces of wood in a vice and clamped together, but following one of you links I did find a saw horse that was the model of one that was present in every shop that I`ve ever worked in.http://www.wkfinetools.com/tRestore/saw/twoFilHorses/twoHorses1.asp

Its the one on the right.
The one`s i used had a bottom rail that you would rest you foot on and a diagonal brace that you could push your knee against and hold it all steady against a work bench.

If you and Alex are going to start sharpening saws there is nothing to fear and after doing a few you will wonder what all the fuse was about.

A few tips,for your first saw pick a big rip saw about 5 teeth per inch (TPI) fasten it in your wooden cheeks so the teeth are just above the wood and then with a normal file push the file from the handle of the saw to the front of the saw so you have filed the tips of the teeth away.

A metal worker would call this draw filing but because we are wood workers we call it jointing the teeth.The wooden cheeks stop the file from digging into the teeth and will keep the tops of the teeth in a stright line with each other.

The flat part at the top of the teeth is important because this is your reference point.If the saw has been mistreated, lost some teeth or just generally out of wack,you take this opportunity to mark where your teeth should be with the saw file.

On a bad saw you may have to joint the teeth several times but when your happy that the teeth are all where they should be then you can concentrate on the tops of the teeth.

You now file the teeth till the flats you put on them are gone but I mean just gone, to much and that tooth will be to low and wont be doing any cutting,not enough and you will still have a flat at the top of the tooth and then its blunt.

Move your field of vision so you can see the light glint of the teeth,you are looking for the sharp edge of the teeth remember if you can see it, its not there.

Convention says you should file one tooth miss one file one and so on, and on cross cuts this is how you must do it,but on a rip saw you can file all the teeth from one side but you have to stone the opposit side of the saw before you set the teeth.

Read about positive and negative rake,a15 degree negative rake will make the saw cut a bit sweeter.

Thats the beauty of sharpening your own saws you can decide where to put rake on or ease it off, where to have fleam and where not.

Have fun and remember its a learning curve so little by little. Billy


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## tc65 (Jan 9, 2012)

Billy, thanks so much for all that information. You must be a mind reader as I am just now getting ready to start on a 5 tpi rip. You already answered my first question - about whether you needed to skip teeth when filing a rip saw. I'm feeling much more comfortable after reading several different write-ups on saw sharpening. I've found that everybody uses just a little different description and taken together, it all suddenly makes sense.

I hope to get going on sharpening this first saw in the next couple of days and I'll post progress - and questions as I go.


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## Dave Paine (May 30, 2012)

Nice restore on the saws Tim. 

Nice new handle, and love the look of the grain in the refinished handle :thumbsup:

I am interested in the results of your sharpening. I have not tried this myself but likely have a candidate. :laughing:


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## Chris Curl (Jan 1, 2013)

I have a few old saws myself, none as old or as ice as those, but they all need some TLC. Thanks for this progress thread, it is giving me some confidence that I might be able to tackle it on my saws some day.


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## amckenzie4 (Apr 29, 2010)

Billy De said:


> Tim well done on taking on the renovation of these great saws, finding one with a family connection is just to cool.
> 
> I think the handle turned out really well looks just the part.
> 
> ...


All good advice, and thanks!

I sharpened my first saw last summer, and I'm now regretting having sent out another before that: it was absurdly easy, and the one I sharpened cuts a LOT better. The one I did was a ~6tpi rip saw. I ended up giving the last couple inches some rake (about 10 degrees, I think), and leaving the rest with pretty much none. In 3/4" pine, I get about an inch of rip per stroke with the saw, and it's pretty close to that through red oak. Thickness seems to make more difference than species.

I have a few more to restore once it's warm enough to work in the shop again, and I'm looking forward to sharpening a crosscut so I have one that works as well...


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## tc65 (Jan 9, 2012)

I got a couple of hours free last night and jumped right into working on the 5tpi rip saw. 

Billy and Alex are 100% correct. It's so easy (especially starting with a rip) that I'm kicking myself for not starting these restores earlier than I did.

Dave Paine and Chris Curl - If you have saws that need sharpening/restoring, I urge you to tackle it as soon as you have time - it's a tossup for me which I enjoyed more, restoring a plane or restoring a saw. I probably enjoyed working on this saw more as it was such a drastic change.

This first pic shows the tip of the rip saw before I started on the teeth. The teeth on the rest of the saw weren't this bad, but they looked like someone had filed multiple angles on each tooth. For reference, this saw is the same one as shown in the first picture in my post #9 earlier in this thread.









After three times jointing and refiling teeth, this is what the tip now looks like. A pretty drastic change.










Here's a pic showing the rest of the teeth on the saw.









This took about an hour and half of filing, mostly due to my hesitancy with starting and really digging in and also due to the fact that my "saw vise" was really inadequate and I had lots of vibration.

It's not done yet, so don't even ask how it cuts. After jointing and reshaping three times, there is no set left (wasn't much to begin with). I don't have a saw set yet, so that is the next step and then a final sharpening.

I put ~4 degrees of rake on this one, I wasn't quite confidant enough to go with no rake. 

Now that it is 30 degrees colder than it was yesterday, it will probably be a little while before I can brave the shop again to finish this one, but that will give me time to find a saw set.


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## Dave Paine (May 30, 2012)

Thanks for posting. Impressive progress. Nice detailed pictures. :thumbsup:

My candidate is an inexpensive tenon saw. Plastic handle so not valuable.

I will need to get a saw set.


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## Chris Curl (Jan 1, 2013)

Thanks for the inspiration. I bet that saw cuts great now.

I REALLY need to do this to at least one of my saws. It is so dull that I avoid ripping by hand as a result.

It will also help get me off the ground with electolysis.


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## Billy De (Jul 19, 2009)

Tim way to go man,now she is starting to look like a saw.Its a good feeling when it starts to come together,I have a somax saw set had it 45 years and no trouble with it bought it when I was a first year apprentice so they cant be very expensive

A tip when doing a saw that's been left for quite a while inspect the teeth to see if you can see a pattern for how the teeth where originally set.On a cross cut you can see which way the teeth where set by the fleam on the teeth, but on a rip saw there is no fleam.

So if you cant see a pattern the chances are 50/50 that when you set the teeth new that you could be setting them to the opposite side to what they where originally set. When you think about it, this means that you will be moving a tooth that was originally set on one side over to the other side and this can cause stress fractures, and you could start to lose teeth.

Dont lose Hart if this starts to happen at least you will know what is going on fingers crossed.
If you get the somax type saw set the hammer is ok for big saws but is a bit to wide for small saws so take the hammer out and file a little bit off both sides. Good luck and enjoy it. Billy


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## tc65 (Jan 9, 2012)

Thanks Billy, I think there is just a tiny bit of set I can see. I plan on sighting down the saw, (gu)estimating the set and marking the teeth I think go to one side - hopefully then there will be a pattern. Thanks for the info on the Somax set and filing of the hammer. I really didn't want to have to buy two different sets as these old saws range from 5 - 14 tpi.


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## amckenzie4 (Apr 29, 2010)

I wouldn't set it until you've tried using it. The only agreement I've seen in articles about saw sharpening is that most saws have too much set. I'm reasonably sure that that's the problem with the crosscut saw I have, and once I've unpacked my machinist vice with it's anvil, I'm going to set about trying to remove some set to see if that helps. As long as you're not working with green wood, you shouldn't need much set at all, as far as I can tell.


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## Billy De (Jul 19, 2009)

Alex that's a good point about the set on the teeth,IMHO its the smaller saws that suffer from to much set causing the saw to bind in the kerf.

If one of your saws is giving you trouble like this lay it flat on a bench and gently stroke the saw with a oil stone over the teeth from the Heel to the toe (from the handle to the front)Twice on either side should ease the problem try it and see.

The big rip saws 3&5 tpi need the set, coupled with a 5° positive rake the things are absolute beasts.The cut wont look pretty, and it will probably shake your arm off but that's what its meant to do, clean the cut with a bench plane and away you go.

Tim I`ve just looked at the somax it goes from 4-12 TPI.Iàm not sure but I think if you want to go smaller than 12 you will have to get two sets to cover the range.

But if you set a 14TPI to a 12TPI I really dont think you will notice the difference.In fact it takes us back to Alex`s point on over set. Billy


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## ftk (May 9, 2012)

Nice thread so far, really like the transformation. Received some old saws from my mother in law, she said they were from her father or grandfather. Have been planning on restoring them so this thread comes at an opportune time for me! Found an old stanley tooth set in great condition at the flea market last weekend which got me a little bit excited about this restoration


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## tc65 (Jan 9, 2012)

Glad you're enjoying it. It really is a lot easier than I first thought, and the transformation is amazing. 

Relatively quick as well - on the rip saw I've only got about 4 hours work into it so far (not counting electrolysis). About 2 hours to make the new handle and finish it, roughly 1.5 hours into filing and around 1/2 hour in miscellaneous cleaning of saw nuts, sanding blade, etc. I probably have about another hour (I hope) in finishing the filing, set, testing and any adjustment it will need. If you have all the equipment available, it is easily an afternoon/weekend job.


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## tc65 (Jan 9, 2012)

Finally got the saw set I ordered yesterday, it was delayed almost a week because of "weather delay or natural disaster" - all because we had three inches of snow last week.

I had a credit on Amazon from something, so I used it and got the Great Neck saw set. It's not the highest quality tool I've ever used, but it has done the job so far.

I hadn't put the saw I filed to the test yet as it really didn't have any set at all. Once I got the set though I figured I should give it a try before setting teeth. It cut all of about 1/4" before binding:laughing:

Used the set on the smallest setting, set the saw and it cut pretty darn good, but it did have a small wander to the left, so I laid it flat and gave it 2 really light swipes on that side with an old oil stone. Tried again and then small wander to the right - one swipe with the oil stone and it finally cut straight. Lesson: very small adjustments are best - use a very light hand with the oil stone.

Billy De gave the tip of filing a rip saw all from one side and then giving the side you are filing toward a light swipe to even the teeth out. I followed his advise and it worked very well:thumbsup:, except I figured that I wanted to try cutting before swiping with the stone to see how much off it was - exactly one swipe off:laughing: If I'd followed his advise to begin with, no adjustments would have been needed!

So, it tracks straight, but how is the cut? - It's a beast - literally and figuratively. I knew from reading others info on saw filing that such a low rake angle (4 degrees) it would be tougher getting the cut started and it was, but you get the feel for it real quick. Just as Billy said it would, it does about shake your arm off - you'll look like Popeye if you spend an hour or two a day with it - but it does cut quickly, even through the old oak boards I was cutting. 

The only problem is after all the rusting over the years the blade is thin and tended to bend easily when cutting the old oak if the stroke wasn't perfect (mine seldom are), but I got much better with it after only a couple of minutes. Maybe I've discovered a good training technique:laughing:

This afternoon I had a little more time so I jumped right in sharpening the saw shown in post #8. It's an 8 tpi and I rip filed it as well (also with a 4 degree rake), looking for a saw that would give a quick cut, but wouldn't shake my arm off. 

After filing and one light swipe with the oil stone, it really cuts well - straight, quick, and really leaves a surface that is better than I expected after re-sawing with a hand saw. The blade on this one is thicker than the 5 tpi saw and may very well be the one I go to for most of the re-sawing/ripping I do.

Now I've only got 4 more saws to go and it's time to start in on the CC saws. It'll probably be a week from now until I get to it, but I'll post here with any lessons learned/problems encountered.

Thanks for following along, and big thanks to Alex (amckenzie4) and Billy (Billy De) for their advise and tips offered along the way.:thumbsup:


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