I’ve been working this area’s flea markets for the past 12 years and haven’t seen a single “dovetail” saw- thicker back saws, 10-16 inches long, sure – but not the open-handled thinner-bladed dovetail saw. My persistence has finally paid off and now I have not one, but two.
This was the first time for this vendor, and he had a lot of tools – mostly newer mechanic’s and metalworking tools. He had a pair of unused-looking 14” Jorgensen clamps for $20 each (passed on those) but when a shopper asked him about his price on a maple miter box and he said “I don’t really know what it’s worth, I’m a machinist by trade” I started looking more closely. Here’s what I found.
dtsaws01s.JPG
I saw the old one first and grabbed it, did a cursory look-over to make sure it wasn’t completely screwed up, then walked around looking for more. About 5 feet down the table I saw the LV back saw with the $25 price and I almost passed on it because my flea market mode is normally limited to $5 a tool. Then my reasoning brain kicked in and forced me to pick it up for a look. It’s the LV dovetail saw with 20 PPI rip teeth, and aside from some greasy fingerprints on the blade it’s virtually unused.
There was no price on the old saw so after confirming there was nothing else I wanted from him, I held it up and asked the vendor for a price. Three dollars, he said, but then he looked down and saw the LV saw in my other hand and continued “but with the other saw, you can have them both for $25.” The money flew from my wallet, believe me.
dtsaws02.jpg
The LV saw is basically store- fresh. Apparently it cuts slowly but smoothly, so it will be good for boxes and such. The old saw took a little cleaning to figure out what it was because the side with the maker’s name has some pitting – naturally right where the name is. With magnification and some research, it turns out to be marked
dtsaws04.jpg
4
W.B. Sears
Middletown
NY
Warranted Spring Steel
From what I could glean from the internet and the DAT, W.B. Sears was one of the brands of the Monhagen Saw Works, who also produced Wheeler, Madden and Bakewell, WM and Clemson, and several other brands of saws from 1853 until the early 20th century. W.B. Sears saws cost a bit less than WM&B/ WM&C saws in the Monhagen catalogs from the mid-1800s, so they were more of a bargain brand.
dtsaws03.jpg
Those same catalogs show the #4 as a backsaw with a closed handle and states it has three bolts – one of them a medallion, but this is the smallest size (8 inches), so maybe they didn’t mention one less bolt, or maybe the dovetail version just wasn’t listed. There is at least one other open-handled W.B. Sears backsaw visible online, but it has a medallion for the larger bolt and its handle is fancier –by having a small “pip” in the valley of the deep vee where the top and bottom horns join the handle.
dtsaws06.JPG
This saw has a beech handle with a relatively simple outline that appears to have been varnished (polished) on the edges only. There are two plain-headed bolts with split nuts on the reverse, and the heads are two sizes: the smaller is 7/16” and the larger is 1/2”. The larger bolt is a slightly different shade of brass than the smaller one – likely from different casting sessions. I believe them to be original, as the fit to the handle is perfect, and the file marks on the heads are in line from one to the next and there are some distinctive grooves in the center that carry over from one to the other as well. The nuts have been turned in their lifetimes to take up slack as the handle has dried out and shrunk.
dtsaws05.JPG
The only decorative touch to the handle is a simple gouge mark on the bevel where the spine mortise begins. I like the fact that the gauge marks were left on the top of the handle where it was marked for that mortise. Because it is a simpler handle than the one online and it has no medallion, I am guessing this is from the later years of production – just assuming that they would have gotten more cost-conscious as time went by and fewer cuts and no medallion would have been cheaper.
Condition-wise, the saw is OK for its age. One side (right side) of the blade is just age-darkened with no pitting, the imprint side has moderate diffuse pitting over much of the blade, so it can be used but may have a weak tooth now and again due to a pit. The biggest problem is that it appears this saw was laying flat in the bottom of a toolbox for a long time, left side up, and heavier tools were dropped on it. This dinged up the handle a little, but bowed the spine to the side about 1/16” in the center and bent the blade so the toe of the tooth line is about 3/16” out of plane with the rest of the blade. Trust me it isn’t a matter of resetting the spine, this thing is just bent – so I’ll try tillering it back to flat using George’s boiling water method and see if I can’t get it into useable condition. If not, well I have a nice tool for the ‘museum cabinet’.
Hope you liked this little hunting story,
Karl
Reply With Quote
