MK: DIY Big Saw Restoration

My friend gave me this old saw to just use the steel for knifemaking, but I think that this blade is far from retirement.

Materials: saw :-)

Tools: WD-40, 120 & 240 sandpaper, anglegrinder with wire wheel, file, adjustable wrench.

First I straigtened the teeth by punching on them with hamer. Then I sprayed the whole blade with WD-40 and waited for a while, for it to dissolve the oxides. After few minutes I cleaned the surface with wire wheel and angle grinder, then 120 and later 240 grit sandpaper. I sanded the saw along the length of it, not perpendiculary, because that might cause excessive friction.

I secured the blade in vise with boards cut in shape of a blade. Then I used my biggest file and ran over all the teeth from above, making sure that i hit all of them. Next I filed the diagonal parts of teeth with a triangular file, until all marks from first filing (with the big file) were gone. Lastly I gave few strokes with flat file to the vertical parts of teeth.

For setting the teeth I used just big adjustable wrench. I know that probably not everyone will agree with me, but I think you really don´t need any special instruments for setting the teeth on big saws like this one.

I simply adjusted the wrench to little bit thicker than the thicknes of the blade and then I carefuly bend the teeth. You need to make sure, that you bend every other teeth to the same side. If you have little bit of skill and good eye to hand connection, this is going to be no problem for you, plus you saved several bucks on special tool.

After thee teeth were set I ran over every face of the teeth one more time.

Make sure, that after every use you clean the saw up thoroughly and apply some oil all over the blade to prevent it from rusting.