Saw handle tightening – advice needed
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This week I picked up 3 old Spear and Jackson tenon saws from eBay. They’re 3 pretty similar back saws (two identical sized) and came as a job lot for which I paid £11.50 for. My intention was to clean them up, sharpen them, keep a couple and then sell on the third. The blades are in pretty good condition as are the handles. The problem is that the handle on all 3 of them were loose.
One of the three has one screw bolt and two rivett type bolts. I’ve managed to get that blade workably tight just by tightening up the screw. The other two are more of a problem as they are only fitted with these rivett bolts – these are brass fixings which pass through the handle of the saw and blade and have a round head at both sides. There is no obvious way of tightening these up as the don’t have slots for screwdrivers/split headed screwdrivers.
Unless anyone can suggest a way of tightening them up I guess my only option is to remove and replace these rivetts with something that I can adjust/tighten. I’ve managed to remove one of them by cutting it with a dremel wheel cutter – I cut a slot on one side for a screwdriver and a deeper cross on the other and then sheared off the top using a screwdriver on both sides simultaneously. It then punched out the remainder pretty cleanly. It works but isn’t pretty and I there’s a real risk of damaging the handle with the cutting tool.
Anybody have any ideas what might be a better solution. I have seen saw bolts/screws for sale (workshop heaven do them) so I could pick up some of those I guess. That might involve having to enlarge the holes in the handle and blade and possibly counter-sinking the handle. Are there any other alternatives that people here have used?
Any advice will be gratefully received.
Thanks
Jon
If they are rivets, wouldn’t a ball peen hammer tighten them up?
Thanks Dave,
are you suggesting holding one half against a hard object and hitting the other side to tighten it up, or are you talking about deforming the end of the rivett to force it tighter to the handle? I’m not sure that rivett is necessarily the right description. If you look at the front saw in this picture, you’ll see the two round headed brass fasteners I’m talking about. They’re the same on both sides of the saw handle. Even the back of the flat faced fastener on the front saw has a round faced rivett on the other side.
Cheers
Jon
Jon, be warned, I’m incredibly heavy handed when it comes to things like this. lol. If it were me, I would set one end of the rivet on an anvil and hammer the other to tighten it. That picture looks to be this type of rivet http://www.leevalley.com/en/hardware/page.aspx?p=40386&cat=3,41306,41327 It does not appear to be the type of rivet where you deform the head to tighten. Maybe use a socket of the same diameter to use as a punch.
Hey Jon,
I used those for my saw restorations:
http://www.fine-tools.com/fuchs.htm (scroll to the bottom of that page).
They do look a lot better than on the picture and they work fine. It’s not 100 % vintage but practical and good looking.
One has to use the right screwdriver since the screwheads are quite soft.
Florian
Remove the existing ones, by any means that doesn’t damage the saw, and replace them with proper saw bolts. It’ll make maintaining the saw much more straightforward because you’ll be able to remove the handle easily if you need to hammer out a kink or clean the plate.
I’ve drilled out bolts like that before but using a dremel to create a groove so you can unscrew them (as you’ve done) is much tidier. I’ve never had a saw with brass fittings like that – only regular steel.
George.
@Florian. Thanks for the link. I’ve found similar at Workshop heaven and at Flinn-Garlick saws here in the UK. I’ll pick some up and give them a go. Thanks for the tip re the soft heads. I hate it when you mash a screw slot because the metal is too soft (or you are using the wrong sized screwdriver which is more my style!!).
@George. I’ll do that. The first one I tried came out relatively easily with minimal marking to the handle i.e. nothing that wouldn’t sand out relatively easily. They didn’t unscrew, rather the head on one side sheared off, making it possible to knock the stub through to the other side and out. Where in the UK have you managed to source saw bolts from?
The challenge I have with these saw bolts is that the hole remaining after removing the original rivet is only 4mm, so it looks like I will need to drill both the handle and the saw blade to make them wide enough to take a 1/4″ bolt. Don’t have a pillar drill so will probably have to make myself a jig to ensure the hole is straight and accurate.
Thanks for the advice.
Jon
I also had to drill through the plates. One of them cost me 3 bits and I was only enlarging the holes and not drilling new ones. What kind of bit do you use for drilling through the saw plates?
Florian
I’m going to try and use a HSS bit which should do the job I think. I don’t know what size I need yet so I’ll purchase one when I’ve got the saw bolts in my hands and can measure them. I’m lucky in that I have a really good hardware store right next to where I work. I’ve bought HSS bits there in the past and they’ve been very good. I think they are DeWalt.
I just bought two new Spear and Jackson 9500R 22″ saws from the Amazon Jungle; one of them has this same problem. Whatever the solution turned out to be, I imagine that hundreds (or perhaps thousands?) of people would be interested, especially if it ended up costing less than the saw.
(edited tenses to reflect the age of the original post)
From what read in Paul’s book tapping them with a hammer will tighten the rivets. Just don’t hit too hard so you dent the rivets……give it a try there’s nothing to lose?
Chris.
That did the trick! After posting above I also found a recent posting from Paul where he describes using a hammer in a vice and a second hammer to gently tap the rivets until tight. He mentions it is not ideal, but is expedient without requiring additional hardware and tools.
The saws cut very well right out of the package but the set may be a bit too much, so it is time to clean, sharpen, remove set, and add set back (the latter of which I’m a bit uncertain about).
-Brian
I clome across this fairly frequently. The fix I use is to put each rivet – one by one = between the jaws of a biggish metalworking vise, and tighten it up hard. It’s worked every time so far. Obviously, more force needed with steel rvets; less with brass.
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