Old hacsaw blades

I have just had a good sort out and found that I had ten or so blunt saw blades - I cried and chucked them in the bin. In the past, I have flattened tube and silver soldered a bit of blade into the tube to make workshop knives. Power hacsaw blades make good scrapers etc

What do you do with them ?

Put them in the 'I'll be glad of that when my last new one gets blunt' pile. So when the sharp one gets blunt, I have a good dozen other blunt ones to replace it with. I must face the tears and put a few in the bin.

A few go into my bodge repaired stanley padsaw holder, others get used wrapped in a rag for plasterboard etc. the really crummy "I can't believe I bought these' ones do get binned, but I can't bring myself to bin Starrett or similar decent ones.

Neil

I remember my Dad grinding an excellent kitchen knife from a power hacksaw blade. He left the remains of the teeth on the sharp edge [pointing forward in the "hacksaw" direction] ... it was razor sharp, and excellent for slicing tomatoes.

MichaelG.

I made a couple of gasket scrapers by grinding one end square then bevel like a wood chisel then sharpen it , Once sharp I hone the flat side so there is no burr and this takes the edge off a little so it does not chop onto the gasket face,

We used to make special knives for trimming the lead tape we used to mask jobs when I was in the Electroplating Industry.The most common was to grind at 45deg then sharpen so it was like a large craft knife , others were just like a normal knife but because they flex they were used to strip off the plastic wrap we used to mask large items .
We just wrapped the end up with insulation tape (also used as masking tape ) to make a handle but these days I use heat shrink tube .

Ian

Decades ago we used to make them into a suitable blade for undercutting the insulation between commutator segments, after skimming the copper when the brushes had worn grooves into it.

I guess there is not much call for that these days though!

Edited By V8Eng on 10/11/2013 21:24:48

If you make a knife and grind the bevel on one side only it will cut right alongside a straight edge. I have left and right hand versions (somewhere) as marking out knives for woodwork.

i save all mine.

i grind off the teeth etc and use as loco leaf springs. they are more flexible than spring steel and work perfectly as leaf springs. never use tufnol strip, just eclipse blades! in fact on one of my locos with outside frames and springs above the running boards (an old GWR design) you can just see 'eclipse' in the paint if you look very closely!

cheers,

julian

.

Dad's was made from a machine hacksaw blade, of about 10tpi

Rigid, High Speed Steel. Not much like a "Kitchen Devil" really.

MichaelG.

I use any good bits in my Shaper Slitting Saw:

Paul

I have used worn hacksaw blades as parting tools successfully in the past

also used them for packing for the toolpost not needed now

as I have QCTP

Best Wishes Martin

Paul,

That's brilliant. I would never have thought of that in a month of Sundays.

The last blade I hand ground the teeth off the blade, then ground a fine taper on the blade & am using it as an insulation knife for cutting polystyrene insulation. The slight wave from hand grinding (rather than straight) cuts the insulation much more easily.

Regards,

Richard

Some little chisels for carving the rose in a lute soundboard and a thin parting tool holder, I think this was a Len Mason design - also good for piston ring grooves.

cheers,

Rod

I have used these old saw blades for a number if things,
Tidied up and mounted parting off tool
Grandson No2 and self were making some Sterling hot air engines and we were looking at how to cut
the vanes, all the tooling was far to big, thought one of these old blades. once cut, sharpeded and mounted done the job,
Bob.

I made a hacksaw sharpening jig by clamping the hacksaw blade in a slit cut in a piece of gas pipe which had a lathe centre support on one end. This assembly was mounted in the lathe with the screw pitch set to the teeth pitch. A dremel was mounted on the topslide with a thin grinding disc and the teeth were sharpened by powering the dremel while the sawblade was rotated at the screw pitch. It worked really well, the saw blades were nice and sharp , really good for brass.

Alan