Razor saws - improved version

G’day Orchidians. A little while ago I wrote about making very
straight cuts in thin metal sheet, 0.5 - 2mm using the little,
backed, fine toothed saws sold by hobby/modeller’s shops as Razor
Saws. Well, I had occasion to buy another one yesterday, and
although the price has risen here (so has that of everything
else; a litter of gasoline is $1.23NZ!) they are still remarkably
cheap for what they are. The one I got yesterday has 42 teeth
per inch and guess where it was made? Why, the ‘good ole US of
A’! Made by ‘Proedge’, Maple Grange Rd, Vernon, NJ. I was
singing it’s praises in my pervious post, and so an Orchidian
person wrote me personally to tell me that they work even better
if the direction of cut is reversed - that is, the teeth are made
to cut on the pull stroke instead of the normal way, which is on
the push, or forward stroke. (Damned if I can remember his name;
sorry!) So I removed the proto handle, and slotted a new one made
from a piece of 20mm wooden dowel so the saw would slide into it,
teeth pointing towards the handle. I then used tungsten carbide
drills to drill both the dowel, the mild steel backing, and the
hardened steel blade, and used self tapping screws to fasten the
thing together. Epoxy would probably have done OK, I reckon. My
correspondent was right; it is easier to cut thin sheet sterling
with these blades (can’t afford gold) using the pull stroke,
giving a dead straight cut to provide a narrow strip of metal
which only needs the slight burr removing, and a quick edge rub
on 250 grit paper. The only thing is that one must keep the saw
at an angle of only 5 - 10 degrees to the plane of the metal. It
is the only way I know to achieve a straight cut in thin sheet
metal. (Without a guillotine and even that bends the edges a
bit) I have never been able to make a dead straight cut with a
jeweller’s saw frame! So there you are, just the odd 0.05? worth
Cheers, – John Burgess; @John_Burgess2 of Mapua, Nelson,
New Zealand

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