Kennedy Hexacut 90 Power Hacksaw

I have been looking for one of these that I could afford for some time, as although on a good day I can cut through a 2" bar with a hacksaw, doing so would leave me completely paralysed for several hours afterwards. This one came up on eBay, and it appears to have been almost unused (it still had a Reyrolle plug), but has had a nasty bash at some point. The pivot pin and operating rod for the latch were both bent, the latch button was missing, and both the blade lifting handle and the power trip lever had been snapped off. Fixing the trip lever was a first priority so that it will turn itself off if I have an episode of paralysis.

There seems to be very little information on the "90" model on the web, so I thought I would post some pictures of the machine and the parts I made to repair it. The saw still needs a lot of cleaning, but apart from a little surface rust everything seems fine, and it can start work as soon as I make a space for it (I can see why the "60" is more popular). There is a publicity drawing of one on lathes.co.uk that appears to show a similar round motor to mine, as well as a round knob as the release button and some kind of sleeve or roller on the trip lever.

These are the parts I made, together with the original parts they replaced. The machine ball was easiest, as I only had to tap it out, but until I make a rotary broach, the pivot pin will have to make do with a hex head.

I couldn't work out how to spin rivet over the end of the trip lever to retain the delrin roller, so I made a separate cap and secured it with Loctite. I will probably remake this lever later as I gave it too much offset and it has to be installed at an angle to avoid hitting the belt guard when lifted.

Here are a few pictures of the complete machine with the parts fitted. The motor is a mid-1970s Brook Crompton Parkinson, not Hoover or Lemac, and I have only found one picture of another Hexacut with this make of motor, so I don't know if it is original.

One oddity of the design is that the MEM NVR switch (which makes it really hard to set the depth stop) is upside down in order to be operated by the trip lever.

I had to fit a Kennedy blade

Thanks for putting up with me rambling on, hopefully the pictures will help anybody else with the same bits missing.

Brian

Looks the same as mine except my power cut off parts were entirely missing.

If you cut off anything heavy I find the piece not held in the jaws pivots down before being cut right through and so the saw keeps on cutting at 90 deg to where it was. The allen bolt and hole on yours is probably a support for the far side to prevent that happening.

The only possible downside is needing a step-down transformer, as I see it. Certainly the right sort of price for a machine in need of repair. Even fitting a 240V motor should not incur too much cost or effort.

I think the hole and screw are for the length stop (which I haven't made yet, I'm not sure whether to order some 7/16" bar or go down a size for an easier fit). I have already found the drooping problem on some ali box section, luckily only a trimmed end was lost, and from then on I supported the overhang. When I finally work out where it will go I will have to rig up some supports both sides, as it is also hard to get long pieces level.

Fortunately, my son already had a site transformer (on special at Screwfix last year, a 110V Rage cut-off saw and transformer was less than a 240V model, and he thought the transformer would be handy anyway). Trouble is, I cannot safely use the circular saw as my episodes of paralysis begin without warning, hence my desire for a hacksaw.

Brian

I had one of these in my workshop for a couple of years and I was very glad to see the back of it when I replaced it with a bandsaw. Mine was painfully slow with limited capacity and sometimes it just wouldn't cut at all unless you hung weights on the bow to increase downforce. Really only useful if you have a lot of patience and small amounts to cut !

Something wrong there. Possibly the damper setting or something wrong with the innards.

Hexacut saws aren't speed demons but, set right, they get the job done about as fast as a guy with a hacksaw. Which, frankly, is what they were made to do.

Logical when you think about it because they use hand hacksaw blades designed to run at hand saw speeds so anything much faster will probably burn the blade out. Effective coolant being pretty much impractical.

We used to use Keranous (spelling?) progressive teeth blades in ours at work until the stock ran out. Rather faster than ordinary eclipse blades and longer lasting. Especially on tube where the fine tooth section would get the first part of the stroke stabilised and cutting before the coarser teeth engaged for serious metal shifting. i always felt the Keranous blades were better quality than Eclipse and seemed to last longer. Whish I'd bought a box or three back in the day but they were expensive.

Getting back to Brians saw I'd say that a support outboard of the blade is pretty much essential for use on a workshop bench. Looking at **LINK** its pretty clear that suitable work supports were considered desirable for longer / heavier jobs. On site you'd likely be mostly cutting pipe and tube so standing and holding would have been quite practical. Over the years I cut more sections of speedframe inch square tube than can conveniently counted to length on ours doing just that.

Clive

Which way do these saws cut, on the forward or back stroke?

The instructions say the saw should cut in the forward direction, but this is a bit ambiguous. I assumed they mean on the push stroke and have set the blade accordingly, so that, like a manual hacksaw, the tensioning screw is at the leading end.

I haven't been mobile enough to use it much so far, but with the dashpot set for a slow descent it cuts 1" x 1" x 1/8" aluminium box in under 20 seconds, and 1 1/4" dia mild steel bar in about a minute, which is fast enough for my needs.

Brian

Brian

Sounds pretty similar to the performance of the one we had. But it was 30 odd years ago that I last drove it.

Clive

Brian, thanks for the info, I purchased one of these saws brand new about 30 years ago, if memory serves me correctly it came from the old Reeves and was eye wateringly expensive, it was used to cut 5/8 dia stainless tube to length, I remember that I stuck rubber sheet onto the jaws because the tube couldn’t be marked, after machining it was sent away to be polished. I never really liked the saw but never had time to investigate it, the work increased and the job got subbed out and the saw got slung under the bench, and has sat there unused since. I will dig it out and see if I can get it going. I am pretty sure that it took a lot longer than yours to cut also I cannot remember any blade tensioning device, just two clamps and the blade wobbled around as it cut.