Disston No. 7 Refurbish

This is number 2 of 2 posts about two saws I just refurbished. The other is a Carcase Saw. I've had this saw for a little while and wanted to fix it up. I wasn't sure it was a number 7 until I cleaned the plate, but I guess I'm getting ahead of myself. It was clear from the medallion that I had a Disston from 1896 to 1917, and the tote looked like the No. 7 design, but it was chipped in two places. The upper horn was missing a chunk, and one side of the lambs tongue was gone.

The tote after I removed it and cleaned it with denatured alcohol

So I pulled the saw apart and set the plate in vinegar to loosen the surface rust. You can read more about that process on the carcase saw refurbish. The tricky part of this refurbish was the tote. The chip at the upper horn left a lot of wood at upper part of the horn, and I wanted to keep as much as I could, so I clamped it up in a hand screw clamp and cut out the damage with my small backsaw. I used a small try square to keep thecuts straight. Then I used a chisel to square up the notch for the patch.

The try square held tight to the hand clamp acts as a cutting guide

For the lambs tongue, I used the chisel to flatten the area, and then glued in a small piece of quartersawn beech in both places, doing my best to align the grain. I set up a series of small bar clamps and rubber bands to hold the little patches in place. The rubber bands are great because you can wrap them around the patch to apply pressure from a variety of angles.

The rough cut horn patch

Once the glue dried on the patches, I cut them roughly to follow the shape I was looking for and then went to work with a chisel, and then some rasps and files to clean up the shape, trying not to remove any of the existing wood in the process.

The rough cut lambs tongue patch

The lambs tongue ready for sanding and toning

The horn patch ready for sanding and finish, note the contrast in color

Touching up the color of the patches was next, so I tried a darkening agent first; vinegar mixed with steel, which reacts with the tannins in the wood to darken the surface. Once that dried I touched it up with some sandpaper and  rubbed the entire with raw linseed oil. A short time later I wiped off the excess, and set it aside to dry. In hindsight, I wish I'd adjusted the color better before putting on the linseed oil, but I couldn't see how poorly the color matched until the oil was on there; that made the next step difficult. I tried some wood stain to darken up the patches some more, which I let set and then rubbed off. The linseed oil kept the stain from penetrating, and while the lambs tongue turned out nice, the horn patch is not dark enough.

Steel and vinegar solution after a few minutes

After the solution dries, a light sanding evens out the tone

While the linseed oil dried, I turned my attention back to the plate. My one piece of advice, don't go too heavy with the sandpaper grit, its hard to get the scratches out later. Okay, one more nugget; keep the sanding strokes long and straight, they show when you're done, and short, wavy strokes look wrong. After a dip in the vinegar and some cleaning and light sanding the plate looked pretty good, so I put some paste wax on it and set it aside.

The etch confirms its a no. 7, early 1900s

I put a few coats of shellac on the tote, sanding lightly between coats. When it was good and hard, I rubbed some paste wax with a fine steel wool to take down some of the sheen and add some protection. The saw bolts and medallion I cleaned just a little with a Scotch Bright pad; I like to see some of that old color on the brass. The fleck in this quarter-sawn beech is beautiful.

The finished tote. The lambs tongue looks like it grew there

The refurbished Disston No. 7

All in all this was a fun project, and the two saws that I ended up with look great and are ready to go back to work. I guess I'll have to put them in the next rotation for a little tune-up sharpening!