This old rusty and broken pruning rip saw was sent to me by a follower on Instagram. He was on a mission to clean the Swiss Alps from trash. They removed around two tons of trash in total. At the Albert-Heim-Hut, which was built in 1918, he found this old pruning saw. It must have been digged into the ground for decades. It was in a terrible condition to say the least. The handle was missing half of it and the wood was rotten. The blade looked very bad, it had very thick layers of rust and dirt on it.
Right when I saw this saw for the first time on a picture I knew this will be a very difficult project. It was very obvious that I need to replace the handle, the question was if I could possibly save the blade. Because otherwise there would be nothing left from the original saw after the restoration. After sandblasting it was very clear right away that the damage on the blade is beyond repair. Rust has eaten away a lot of material, some teeth were missing and there was heavy pitting all over the blade. I thought for a few days what I want to do with this project. Should I trash it and start something new, or should I keep going and replace what needs to be replaced, even though there would only two brass plates stay from the original saw. I also asked this question to my Patreon and channel members and the answer was a very clear „yes, keep going“. And that's what I did.
For the blade I choose a stainless high carbon steel (1.4116). As the original teeth had no offset, it was very easy to make a new one. Therefore was the blade tapered, I managed to achieve that with a file. For the hardening I wraped the blade in stainless steel foil, heat it up to 1050°C for a good 20 minutes and then quench in preheated (60°C) oil. I only made one tempering cycle right after the quench in a bakeoven for 2 hours at 250°C. I didn't want the blade to be too hard so it can still stay felxible.
I decided to make the handle out of smoked oak. It's a very common wood in Switzerland. That was my first time working with this type of wood and I loved it. Its hardness made it very nice to work with. The dark color fits perfectly with the brass.
I think this project is a very good example of the ship of Theseus. Even though there are just two parts left from the original saw, you could say this is a new saw and others might say it's still the old one just restored/repaired. For me this is clear, it still is the old saw. What happens if the handle of your saw breaks? You'll replace it and it's still your saw.
What happens if the blade breaks short after? You'll replace it and it's still your saw.
I hope you like my work and the video.
Huge thank you to all of my Patreon and PayPal supporters and specially to:
Tonya M Broerman
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웅록 윤
Time and costs of this project:
$5 steel for the blade 1.4116
$2 smoked oak (wood)
$50 dovetail mill for saw teeth
Thank you for watching :-)
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