05-08-2013, 01:53 AM
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
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
