A while back I purchased some antique saws that needed new plates. So I got the plates and just started cutting the notches on one plate with a hacksaw to get the tooth spacing. I am amazed (concerned) at how the saw plate is chewing up the hacksaw blade, and am worried about using my saw files on this sheet of steel. I had read that 1095 steel was the way to go for saw plates, so I bought,

0.025" Blue Tempered Spring Steel Sheet 1095 from OnlineMetals dot com. I removed the bluing with acid for aesthetics.

I used the Paul Sellers suggestion of filing down the first bit of teeth on the hacksaw so the blade can glide into the cut, and I also did as he suggested and gently hammered out the waviness of the hacksaw blade. I also made the quick and dirty spacing jib in this video by James Wright (https://youtu.be/Q3JYn2AOID4), seen below.
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The hacksaw blade, 24T from Greatneck. It was new when I started. Hope you can see the teeth are being demolished.
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The teeth cut so far. It's a little more ragged than I would like, but not bad, considering the difficulty I'm having getting the hacksaw going. The jig spacing is 13tpi. I think this jig/method is pretty slick.
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So, the new saw plate is playing holy havoc with the hacksaw blade, and compared to what I see in the instructional videos by Sellers and Wright, I am having a hard time getting the hacksaw to start the cut, or get the cut going. Watching them, it's like the blade is a hot knife through butter on the saw plates. A couple strokes, boom, down to depth, done. I am struggling to get the hacksaw going, even with the toe end teeth filed down. I am doing at least twice as many strokes to get down to depth of a couple mm.

So, uh, what am I doing wrong here? Wrong replacement steel? Wrong hacksaw? Wrong everything?

Happy to be educated,
Matt