Recently I bought a Knew Concepts 5" fret saw to use for sawing out the waste on dovetails. The saw is an excellent quality tool but in reviewing the comments about the saw on the web, I noticed that a significant number of people were replacing the handle.
I didn't have anything against the stock handle but I wanted to see what would be involved in replacing the handle with a shop made handle. In this posting, I'm not going to show how to turn a handle - if you can't do that, you probably won't be replacing the handle unless you buy one already turned.
Here's what the stock saw and handle look like.
Knew00.jpg
The handle is held on to the frame with a rolled pin (also known as a "spring pin") pushed into the handle and through a tang of the frame (the hole for that is pre-drilled). If you look at the opposite side of the ferrule from where the rolled pin went in, you may see a bulge in the ferrule where the pin pushed the ferrule out.
Knew01.jpg
I took the saw to my grinder and ground the bulge out, exposing the rolled pin.
Knew02.jpg
Then I drove the pin out with a 1/8" pin punch.
Knew03.jpg
Here's what the parts look like after removing the handle.
Knew04.jpg
Continued on next post.