Hand Saw Restoration

I picked up this 8 tpi, 16″ blade cross-cut Warranted Superior saw for $3 at a garage sale last weekend. It needed a fair amount of work. You can see how rusty the blade was, but I got it fairly clean with a citric acid bath, followed by sandpaper and steel wool. The handle was very dry and a bit dirty. I scraped all of the old finish off, sanded, and applied a couple coats of boiled linseed oil. Not sure what wood it is, but it had a reddish hue in spots after scraping. Looks stunning after oiling. I also cleaned up all the saw nuts and that made a nice difference, too.

The teeth needed some work. When I was jointing them to get them all to the same height, I realized they needed more work than I though. So I completely removed the teeth and filed new 8 tpi teeth (first time ever). It’s two days later and my fingers are still buzzing. This is only the second time I’ve tried sharpening a cross-cut saw. I re-watched Andy Lovelock’s excellent video tutorial on “Sharpening Western Saws” and took notes before attempting this. I filed with 14° rake and 20° fleam (I sound like a pro, don’t I?) using a little wooden guide to help with the angles. The teeth aren’t perfect by any means, but I got a very nice cut in both pine and maple.

Just below the teeth, the blade is about 0.040″ thick. I set the teeth to about 0.048″. This 0.040″ plate seems thick for a short 16″ saw. Anybody know what this saw was probably used for? I’m guessing it’s a panel saw, but I would have thought the blade would be thinner.