Disston D20 Circa 1911

[BrianBDH]

I stopped by the flea market in Siler City again and picked up this saw for a song.

After some work to clean the blade and see the etch, I can see part of the large "D", but I am stuggling to see the number inside. I am reasonably sure I can see a "zero" and research at Vintagesaw.com leads me to believe this is a D20 and dates around 1911. If anybody has an tricks for getting the etch to "pop", please let me know.

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It matches this saw.
http://www.vintagesaws.com/cgi-bin/frameset.cgi?left=main&right=/museum/museum.html

It has the notch in the handle (unfortunately, it also has a broken horn) which is supposed to indicate circa 1911.

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The medallion matches the 1896-1917 picture at the disstonianinstitute.com

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So, I am pretty stoked to have a saw that is probably 100 years old! I'm not sure what use I have for a 10 PPI saw, but I intend to use it. It needs a few strokes with a file, but I'll take care of that when I have some time.

Brian

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[junquecol]

Old hand saws and hand planes are a very slippery slope. I know!

 

[Mark Gottesman]

It's your saw. If you can sharpen it, you can recut it to another tooth pattern. For instance, you could remove every other tooth and make it a 5PPI Rip.


You could try Cold bluing to color the etch and then polish it back with 600 grit. Do it it with a hard backed sanding block and put the plate on a fully supported surface like a pad of news paper. Use WD40 or simple-Green as a sanding lube. Good Luck.