Originally Posted by
george wilson
Kees,I may be wrong about the Cartwright saw. They and the White saws were not my favorite patterns,so they are not firmly remembered(Well,the White is,as ugly as it is,plus I had the picture). I'll have to check around and see if I have a picture of the Cartwrights-Actually,I do. There is a sample of each type backsaw we made laying in front of the big 16' bench full of backsaws.
As for the Dutch saws,we put 2 large,strong rivets through the part of the handle,where it extends onto the blade. A bit impossible for us to tell if they were forged from the solid or not,so rusty were the ones in the pictures we were given. It seems like forging them from the solid would have been the hard way to go. Riveting them seemed more practical. The extension could have been forge welded onto the blade. But,to forge weld onto a thin blade would have been asking the blade to melt,so I stuck with riveting. Also,forge welding carbon steel is difficult as it does start burning up at welding heat. Assuming those early saws had a decent amount of carbon in them-they may NOT have.
Edit: O.K.,here is a picture that includes the Cartwright. It is the 5th. saw from the left. Yes,it is a little different from your early Kenyon(which I was never shown when we were making saws. I think the museum did not have one.). The top edge of the handle is simpler on the Cartwright.
It's been seven years since we made these saws,so my memory isn't perfect.
You can click three times to enlarge this picture. The differences in the Cartwright vs. the early Kenyon becoome more easily seen after enlarging.