This thread is about my journey into hand saw restoration. I have a couple of LN joinery saws but was looking for something more aggressive to compliment what I already have. I live in an apartment and do not have much room for a lot of big tools so a smaller panel saw was ideal for me. I love looking at hand saw restoration threads and am constantly amazed at some of the saw makers on here and the beautiful handles they create for themselves and their lucky customers. I wanted to try making something a fraction as nice to learn how to do it and to have something made by me that I can hopefully use for years.

A little while later I was perusing my Grandpa's tool lair sifting through the rusty metal things, the old blacksmith forge, the old brace and bits, when I remembered that he used to have an old saw hanging on his wall that was about the size of what I was looking for. I looked around and found the saw and sure enough it was about a 16-19" small panel saw with about 10 TPI. It was in good enough shape to restore and put back to good use so I took it home excited to have the project I wanted, and more importantly something of my Grandpa's that I could put into my arsenal and use for many years to come (providing I didn't screw it up).

Disclaimer: This thread will have A LOT of pictures. The purpose is not only to chronicle my progress, but also to show others of how I did things so that maybe they can learn how to do it and how not to do it. This is all a learning experience for me and my first shot at doing something like this. It has been a blast and I hope to do more in the future. I took all photos with my phone so some are slightly blurry. I also noticed that there are far too many pictures with my ugly feet in the background. I realize that some people are going to be put off by the number of pictures, as well as my feet. I hope it doesn't drive too many people off lol. With a few apologies out of the way, let us dive into it.

Here is the saw as I received (yoinked) it:

1.jpg2.jpg3.jpg

As you can see it has a layer of rust, but still can be whipped into fighting shape. It was missing a saw nut and the handle had some cracks and a broken horn. I had already planned on making a handle from scratch so this was not a problem. The handle was a bit small for my hand, but I figured I could adjust the shape of the horns a little and it would really make a difference to how it feels.

The first order of business was to give it a soak in evaporust. I used a planter box lined with a trash bag. It worked out pretty well as you can see.

4.jpg

I did not get pictures of it, but after I let it soak over night, I took some abrasives to it to hopefully get to the etching to see what kind of saw I had. I was able to make out the etching and was puzzled as I had never heard of it before. So after a little internet searching, I realized that this one wasn't a run of the mill saw. It had an interesting background that I didn't expect.

5.jpg

It is my understanding that this saw was made for the "Buddy L" company as part of a tool chest collection made for kids. This threw me off because there is nothing about this saw that screams "kids toy". Come to find out, this saw was most likely made for the Buddy L company by Disston or one of the other major saw makers of the time. I know that complete sets are worth some money to collectors, but a lone piece like this isn't worth a lot. I thought it was cool that this saw was kind of unique in its history. This got me even more pumped up about the project.