Old Saws for Wall Decor? Prep?

[Doug Hobkirk]

How to best treat blades on antique saws to be used as wall decorations?

• Remove rust? Paint over rust with "Rust Reformer"? I don't have the skill to paint landscapes.
• Any suggestions?
• Picture: I failed trying to load 2 pics from Google Photos - I have identical files except one is 1K wide and the other is 5K wide.

I have several saws that I want to sell. I doubt they are special, but I expect you will tell me if I'm wrong. (The teeth on the 42" saw seem unusual to me.) I've sold items on eBay and I've checked out "completed sales" on antique saws - "rusty" doesn't seem to be a selling advantage.

I've collected lots of stuff that I need to get gone, although I had enjoyed seeing them on the wall whenever I dropped the garage doors.


Thanks

PS - The meat cutting saw is for a different market, but it was already in the only group picture I have of the other 4 saws.

[Jim Koepke]

The teeth on the 42" saw seem unusual to me.

It is a crosscut saw with cutting teeth and raker teeth. The raker teeth help to remove the waste and keep the cutting teeth from being too full of cuttings to reach the bottom of the cut.

Your images may have to be reduced in file size before posting them here. My recollection is they have to be ~1.5mb or smaller. (that file size may be incorrect)

Some like to display saws as they are. That is all the history left on the saw. Cleaning often can change the metal surface or dull it if a mild acid is used to remove the rust.

They can always be cleaned tomorrow.

Once cleaned, they can not be uncleaned.

jtk

[Noah Magnuson]

If you were the end user of these saws for wall art or other purposes, I would tell you go ahead and de-rust and clean up the handles. Since you just want to sell them, I don't see any significant value change in cleaning them up and definitely not enough to justify the time and elbow grease.

There are several discussions on de-rusting and handle rehab if you want to bring them back to life just for the satisfaction. Google 'How to clean a vintage saw' or something similar and choose a method. I prefer scrape, sandpaper, etc over chemical or electrolysis.