Beautiful... and probably exactly what my wife wants, too.

Hi, a few months ago I saw a beautiful saw restored by Daryl Weir in a post here, he did mention he used no sandpaper or machines, with those two hints I set off to see if I could find a way to replicate his results. My saw plate polishing method is performed with the following steps, although step 1 may be omitted if the saw plate has light rust/tarnishing and the rust issue isn't severe as step 2 can actually cut through a lot of rust on its own. I just jumped straight to step 2 because my saw didn't have a lot of rusty build-up.

Disclaimer: Wear gloves, the ball of foil will chew up your skin.

1. Use a razor blade or something similar to scrape off as much rust as you can off the saw plate.

2. Use a high quality metal polish ( Autosol, Flitz etc. ) and dab it onto the saw plate, no need to waste a lot, you can literally just bang the tube of polish against the plate in key areas so that you will have enough polish to do the job. Now get some Aluminum foil, crumple it up into a ball and begin scrubbing the plate until you literally clean the polish off the plate. You will understand what I mean as you keep scrubbing, eventually the aluminum foil will clean up the plate and take all the polish off as if it is wiping it clean. If there are some areas that could use more polishing, just dab some more metal polish on and keep working until you are satisfied.

That is it, this method is incredibly clean since you do not have dirty mineral spirits or water and steel sloshing around and staining everything near it. The saw plate will literally clean itself and if you are careful, you many not even dirty your hands. The foil is too soft to abrade the saw plate, but is hard enough to scrub away the rust. The polish will then brighten and clean the plate making it very smooth and reflective, perfect qualities for a hand saw. I love this method because you do not introduce new abrasion marks into an old tool and I feel it achieves results faster, cleaner all while retaining the marks of age and history, I'm done going through a grit progression of sand paper, I'll save grit progression for sharpening.

Excuse the quality of the pictures, I took them about an hour and a half ago outside. It took me 20 minutes to finish the one side of this saw, I'm going to polish up the side with the etch tomorrow, it's late and dark but if you see how the plates shine in the day light, its really something.


IMG_2555 by Christian Castillo1, on Flickr


IMG_2556 by Christian Castillo1, on Flickr


IMG_2558 by Christian Castillo1, on Flickr

Great pictorial and terrific work. Nice save of a great old saw plate. No. 7's are my favorite saws.

By the way, nice hewing axe!

Steve

I hope to start making a new workbench soon. I got Chris Shwarz book and was planning on making a Roubo then I watched some of Paul Sellers videos. His bench confuses me. I don't see how you would edge plane a long board. I also don't get the purpose of the apron. Maybe it is just to add rigidity. It doesn't seem to have dog holes and it does not seem optimal for clamping to. Overall, I am not sure it is that much of an upgrade from my current bench (4x4 legs, 2x4 stringers and particle board top) that I built before I knew anything. Any help understanding the theory of this workbench would be appreciated. Thanks.

As one of the prople who's been asking around for blades, this is great.

Now we just need someone to put together a resource site with plans for a couple of different styles.

Where do I want the holes drilled? I have no idea.

Great job and lathe! Metal Lathe and Mill are on my list

Digging it!

I'm very sorry about what you're going through. I have stage 4 melanoma that I've been fighting now for almost 2 years. It'll be 2 years in March since I was diagnosed. My outlook isn't as grim as yours though. So far it hasn't spread beyond my left leg and there are some new treatments that are nearing release for it. I haven't had to have the same talk with my Dr. or family that you have.
It looks like you're taking things far better than I would even though I've had plenty of time to think about it.
Keep positive and keep turning. I firmly believe continuing to learn and having goals helps.
If there's anything I can do for you let me know.
Rodney

Actually, looks like I will be hitting 4 studs, so 16 screws total....

I've been using handtools more and I'd like to build a tool box for better storage and easier access. I've seen handplanes stored a lot of diffrent ways, (flat-blade down, on their side and vertically). How do you store yours and why?