How to polish a saw plate

[Timberwolf]

Quote:

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we will have world filled with shiny saws .

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And not "JUST" saws...it works quite well on other steel and cast iron tools also..I just polished a couple of steel squares...but you could polish calipers, hammer heads...even brass...

[Christian Castillo]

Very true, another member at sawmillcreek reported using this technique on his holdfasts, planes, and many other tools and said he may have to turn the lights down in his shop because everything is shining.

[Heavansabove]

I have used foil for years to clean the bbq, don't know why I did not think of saws... I could not find my tube of Autosol (cheapest I have found is at ships chandlers), so tried Brasso - in a tube - not the same as the old stuff, and it worked fine on a saw recently refurbished, probably finishing with 400 W&D, and made it much shinier. It even removed the [fine] W&D scratches. The Brasso may be more abrasive than Autosol, certainly was cutting metal (no rust on the saw.

On a somewhat rusty (pretty hard rust) Taylor Bros, I still had to scrape (I use a carbide scraper) and go through the W&D grits with WD40 (I use this because I have a 4 litre container) to 240 before the polish had any real effect. So the effort is still needed, but a better final result.

On a couple of (cleaned 5+ years ago) thumb hole D-8s, the foil + Brasso paste really brought up the etch, I guess I should try and find the Autosol, or buy some, for a comparison.

Great transfer of idea to new use.

[TobyC]

Christian Castillo said:

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I'm really glad to see that you're getting good results, I hope everyone else will figure out how to get this to work for them and, hopefully, we will have world filled with shiny saws .

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+1

And maybe people will stop using grinders and other abusive methods!

Toby

[HomerLee]

Thanks for the post on this; got me interested in old saws. Then just yesterday I was killing time at a thrift store while the wife was shopping and I wandered over to the hardware area and there was a Disston 26" D-8 with skewback and thumbhole handle for which I paid $3.79. Didn't know what I had at the moment but got home and saw it was similar to the one pictured on this thread. I looked up the dating information and the medallion indicates it was made between 1941-1947. Had a lot of black on the metal that looked almost like tar but seemed to be corrosion. So this morning I got out a can of Flitz and a ball of aluminum and in no time I could clearly read the etching on the saw; it wasn't hurt at all and is very prominate. But there are tiny black specs all over the metal. Will continued rubbing remove them or should I use a product like EvapoRust? It seems that removing the handle will make cleaning easier. The handle has almost all the original finish with no cracks or defects.

[TobyC]

Remove the handle.

Show pics of what you have.

It may never look "brand new" if that's what you're going for. Only you can say when it's "good enough".

Toby

[Timberwolf]

Those black "specks" may be imbedded rust pockets..If that is the case, I would leave them alone...They wont hurt the performance of the saw unless they are on the tooth line...You can take a sharp pointed piece of steel and jab the specks to see if that is what they are..if it's rust, it should come out of the pocket.

[Daryl Weir]

Hey Christian,

Good for you as it looks like you found a good way to polish a blade up!

Now I fully expect for more polished saws to show up on eBay.

[TobyC]

Daryl Weir said:

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Hey Christian,

Good for you as it looks like you found a good way to polish a blade up!

Now I fully expect for more polished saws to show up on eBay.

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We're all going to have to wear sunglasses to go saw shopping!!!

We'll look like this...

Toby

[cputnam]

Probably will work on other tools too. I will soon try it on a Chinese vegetable knife I have.