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My daughter is learning to paint and she wants some old saw blades to paint on. Do any of you have several old saw blades that you don't want any more that she can paint on? She's trying to develop small part time business to help with family expenses for her and her husband.
I told her I would ask here in case anyone would donate the blades if they were going to throw then out anyway. :)
If that doesn't work out, you can usually find dirt cheap blades at fleamarkets. Boxes of them can be had for a few dollars...
So, my mother does this. I have to admit in public that my mother has painted many otherwise useful items because they were gotten for cheap. Tinware, cast iron pots and pans, old jars, saws, washboards, etc.
Tell your daughter to take the mindset that anything is game, not necessarily just saw blades, but baking pans, cupcake pans, pots, used candle jars.
Auctions, flea markets and thrift stores are where my mother gets her stuff. Sometimes you take a box that has three things in it that you want to paint along with 10 other things, whatever it takes to keep materials down. My mother has been doing this for a long time, maybe 25 years, and probably comes away with about $20 an hour for her efforts. She has learned to see any old item that needs minimal cleaning as an opportunity to make a few bucks and she paints FAST and accurate. It probably took her a year or two in the beginning before she realized what made money and what made work without making much money.
My wife is an artist and does several of these for her customers. The small saw blades are a great start, but the money is in the larger two-man crosscut saws or larger sawmill blades. There are several around here that hang prominently above garage doors and such. She gets most of them from auctions, garage sales, old barns, and sometimes calling local lumber yards or sawyers.
Dennis, I'll look and see what I have. I know my Dad sent several blades with the RAS he gave me that I wouldn't even think of putting on a saw!! I'll PM you with what I find. Jim.
Lots of great ideas and pointers here. Thank You.!
Jim, Much appreciate it.
If you start doing the larger blades and sell them, make sure you absolve yourself of hanging them for the customer (I give them some helpful hints but I will not hang them. We had one guy who hung a 54" painted blade on the gable end above his garage door on a 16P nail even though I told him he needed to lag it into structure. He is lucky it didn't kill someone when it fell, but he did show me the pictures of it standing straight up buried 5" into his asphalt driveway.
A google search of sawmill saw blades shows several hits that are not to far from you.
I'm curious if anyone dulls the teeth to try to remove liability for someone getting cut by a sharp blade? Of course, if you do try to dull the teeth and someone still gets hurt then a lawyer is going to say you knew there was an issue because you tried to dull the teeth.