Atkins Saw Restoration

After falling in love with old timey wooden saw totes after building my own, I went out and bought an old timey hand saw with some of the money I made selling buttons over at my etsy store. That's right, I'm putting the money right back into the wood shop.

This is how the E. C. Atkins looked when I got it

This was almost unavoidable I'm afraid; that's what I'm telling my wife in any case. After all of the research I did studying up on saw totes, restoring an old saw was the logical next step for me. Most of the information I found on designing and fabricating wooden totes is from the folks who do that while either making new saws in the old way, or restoring saws. And trust me, I thought about making a saw from scratch too! Maybe not this year though.

The tote is beautifully carved with a flower pattern

The fun part is, you can pick up an old saw for a pretty good price in some cases. And really, all that's missing is a little time and effort to clean the plate (the blade), clean and repair the tote, sharpen and maybe set the teeth, and then put it all back together. Here's how I did mine.

Surface rust and some slight pitting near the tote

First I took lots of photos for record, and so I could get the thing back together properly. I set the tote and the saw bolts aside and focused on the plate. The teeth are in good shape, and the are still pretty sharp and have a nice set to them so I leave them alone and go for the rust. It isn't too bad and the pitting is pretty limited. I start in the sink with really hot water and a scouring pad with some cleaning powder. It gets rid of a lot of the dirt and loose rust which made the next step easier. The hot water heats up the plate so when I dried it, the small amount of water that was left evaporated off pretty quick.

Next I sanded the plate. I set the plate on some newspapers and using glass cleaner as a lubricant, I sanded the plate in long straight strokes with 220 and then 300 grit paper. When I was done, I gave it another good scrubbing in the sink with hot water, dried it and polished it with some paste wax.

The etching on the plate shows pretty well

 The tote was tricky because of the raised flower figures. There was still some finish on it, especially along the edges and in the depressions so I tried some denatured alcohol to it with a rag, and that helped dissolve away what I think was some of the old shellac that had become embedded with dirt and grit. I worried off some paint splatter with a wooden stick to reduce the chances of marring the wood, and then did some very light sanding here and there with 300 grit paper.

Grimy finish, left, and discolored and chipped finish, right

After cleaning it up, i rubbed it with a little raw linseed oil and set it aside to work on the saw bolts. I don't know a lot about saw bolts, but these were heavy, nicely made, and no stripping or damage when I took them out. They look like they might be nickle plated brass. I made a custom screw driver with a wide, thin blade from an old putty knife by grinding it down on the bench grinder. I didn't want to strip out the slots in the saw bolts by using a screw driver that didn't really fit. I cleaned the bolts with a tooth brush and some scouring powder. Once they were set I went back to the tote and added a few coats of shellac to protect the wood.

The cleaned bolts and refinished tote

I tried to be careful not to clean anything so much that it looked like new. I love the age and the history you can see in an old tool and all I'm trying to do is clean off the stuff that causing damage, and add a little protection so the tool can keep on working. So if you look closely (click on any of the pictures to see a larger version) you can still see the old finish in places under the new shellac, dents, nicks and wear, and that's just how a saw this old should look.

The cleaned plate. I haven't touched the teeth.

I don't know a lot about this saw. What I do know is that its an E.C. Atkins & Co., Inc. of Indianapolis, Indiana, 26-inch 6 ppi, and it may be one of the Silver-Steel Perfection line, but I'm not sure. I also think the etch says that this is a no. 65. I may know more if I end up darkening up the etch so I can read it better. If anyone knows anything more about this saw, put it in a comment, I'd love to hear it.

This got me excited about cleaning up old tools, and I was especially interested in some of the techniques I learned for removing rust. This has made a huge difference in the performance (and appearance!) of some of my old tools. In fact, I have some tools that were in such bad shape that I replaced them over the years. So I pulled some of these rusty things out and cleaned them, and wow! I think I may sell some of the surplus over at the etsy store.