Finding Exactly What You're Looking For.
I've been slowly working my way through the winter season by rehabbing a Stanley Miter box. The clean up of the rust and the repainting was fairly easy to finish off, though a bit time consuming in a pleasant way. But now I was headed into the weeds of fabricating the parts that were missing, wrong, or FUBAR.
The last thing I finished, even back before I took off for Nicaragua, was cleaning up the rust on the saw plate and I wanted to get the saw finished before I moved back to the rest of the work. My issue was the handle that had made it onto the saw.
Somewhere along the line something bad must have happened to the handle. Some kind of rot or other abuse because the saw plate itself is dead straight and beautiful. I guess necessity is the mother of invention and someone took a panel saw handle, modified the living snot out of it, and cobbed it onto the saw plate. An interesting solution but just not right for the saw at all.
I spent some time searching the interwebs for a good picture of the four hole miter saw handle that I could get to scale and recreate the saw. I asked some friends and acquaintances if they had a handle I could trace, borrow, or even get a good, heads on picture of. I scoured the Disstonian Institute website. Then this morning I had a little epiphany and changed my search parameters and found exactly what I'm looking for.
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| Picture from the Disstonian Institute Website |
Their site also has some interesting items for sale, including a kit to make a stair saw. If you've read my blog for a while you know I love using a stair saw to make the sidewalls of my dados and thanks to these guys and a little of your own elbow grease you can build a new stair saw for about the same cost as I've paid for vintage stair saws I had to go to the work of cleaning up afterwards. I'm thinking I might pick up their 8" Deluxe Stair Saw Kit to give a try. Who couldn't use one more stair saw?
I'm happy they were there for me though. I really needed this template. Thanks to them I think I see some sawdust coming up this weekend. That makes me happy to think about.
Ratione et Passionis
Oldwolf
Do you have your process for cleaning the saw plate somewhere? I've tried several variants from the web, but I've been unsuccessful getting my plates as clean and shiny as yours looks in the picture above.
ReplyDeleteMy process is pretty simple. I use product called Simple Green, a abrasive ScotchBrite pad, like you'd use to was your pots and pans and a little piece of pine scrap to wrap the pad around. I spray down the plate liberally, let it soak for a few minutes, then start scrubbing with the pad,
DeleteI can go through a couple pads on a saw plate this size, but I just keep scrubbing until I'm happy. I did document the process here,
http://insidetheworkshop.blogspot.com/2013/02/clean-up-saw-plate.html
hope this helps
D
great job on the restoration . Why didn't you keep the original handle? that thing was awesome. :) bet that guy had some wrist issues after using that thing.
ReplyDeleteI thought maybe he used it hanging upside down from the rafters . . .
Delete;-)