How To Sharpen A Hacksaw At Home

How to sharpen a hacksaw on wood and spread the teeth At a certain point you need to sharpen a hacksaw on wood. To get your instrument back to its former performance, you need to follow a few simple tips.

Do-it-yourself saw sharpening

The saw is prepared for sharpening by fixing it in a vice, the jaws of which should ideally be made of wood so as not to damage the saw surface. Step-by-step instructions for sharpening a hacksaw with your own hands are as follows:

1. The hacksaw is fixed as close as possible with the teeth to the jaws of the vice, but so that their distribution is not disturbed when the wrench is clamped at an angle of 90 ° to the surface of the workbench.
2. The file is taken in the working hand with the handle, with the other hand it holds the tip from the back. This will distribute the effort evenly.
3. Sharpening of a conventional hand saw is performed at an angle of 15-30 ° to the tooth. If the wear is not too strong, the “native” sharpening angle will be clearly visible.
4. The angle of the file to the blade should be about 30-45 °. To do this, you need to become so that the working hand is lower than the auxiliary one.
5. The file should only move away from itself, with the same effort and number of movements for each tooth. For a sharp file, 3-5 strokes are usually sufficient to straighten a single tooth.
6. Thus, one side of the canvas is passed, after which it is turned over, fixed in the same way, and the actions are repeated for the second side.

If, when performing sharpening work, apply an uneven force or make a different number of movements with a file, this can lead to displacement of the teeth in relation to each other, distortion of their size and shape. Ultimately, such a hacksaw will require professional resharpening, or even completely unsuitable for further use.

General requirements for sharpening

Sharpening a hacksaw is a rather painstaking process in which accuracy is important. To make it easier, use only good files and needle files that are sharp enough. If the saw has to be sharpened frequently, the best solution is to have a separate set of tools for the job. Before sharpening, it will not hurt to look at the teeth of the hacksaw. If their shade is darker than the canvas, then they are hardened. Sharpening such a hacksaw on wood will not work.

When sharpening at home, remove the metal evenly. An equal number of file passes are made for each individual tooth, regardless of how worn it was before the correction. In this case, you must not change the sharpening angle set by the inclination of the file, or rotate it around its axis. The movements should be performed strictly from oneself, since it is with this technology that the effectiveness of removing the metal of the hacksaw is achieved, and the employee can confidently control the tool in his hands.

In order to avoid additional difficulties during sharpening, the saw blade should be firmly fixed in a vice. It is desirable to have source of direct light, which will allow you not to peer at the results of the work.

Tooth setting

It all starts with checking the distance between the teeth. It is designed to prevent the saw from wedging in the cut. It should be adjusted to the type of wood with which you most often have to work. If you have to work with hard wood, the teeth are set apart at a distance 1.5-2 times greater than the thickness of the blade. For soft wood, the teeth of the hacksaw should be separated by a distance of 2-3 times.

One of the key considerations when routing is maintaining uniformity. If the saw teeth are bent at different distances from the center, it will lead to permanent wedges and a deterioration in the quality of the cut and the speed of cutting wood. Therefore, it is recommended to use a device for setting the teeth, which is called “setting”. Thanks to the stop, it is impossible to bend the tooth to a greater distance with its help than provided by the standard.

The teeth are divided into two groups through one and are bent sequentially along the entire length of the cutting side of the blade. First, this procedure is carried out for one group, in which the set teeth must be bent in a certain direction, then it is repeated for the opposite direction.

Requirements for wiring a hacksaw

The spreading width of the tops of the teeth corresponds to the kerf. Experimentally, it was found that the best width of the setting exceeds the thickness of the blade by one and a half to two times for hard varieties of wood and two to three. For softer ones. Considering the most popular thickness of a saw blade for wood, one millimeter, we get a divorce value of up to half a millimeter for hard varieties and up to a millimeter for soft ones.

Saw teeth in various shapes

When setting, it is also very important that all teeth are bent at equal angles. Teeth set wider than the rest will increase pulling resistance and wear out quickly. The teeth that are already set apart will not participate in the sawing process, and their tops will slow down the broach and reduce its uniformity, making it difficult to work.

Leveling Height

With different heights of cutting teeth, the efficiency of woodworking is greatly reduced. The higher ones take on a greater load and are subject to accelerated wear, while the lower ones do not participate in cutting. The broach becomes uneven, jerky. Both the accuracy of the cut and the quality of the cut surface are reduced.
Alignment of the height of the teeth should be carried out before sharpening the blade. The height is checked as follows: the canvas is pressed against a sheet of paper lying on the table. The profile is printed on the sheet, and from the print you can determine the height of a particular tooth. To align teeth of different heights, the blade must be clamped in a locksmith vice. The teeth protruding above others must be filed down.

Tool for equalizing the height of the teeth

General requirements for sharpening

Two rectangular isosceles triangles and a steel plate 20 × 3 mm are attached on a wood base of 2 × 5 cm in size from a bar with a thickness of 2 cm or more. A support plate-support made of plywood or OSB with a thickness of one and a half centimeters with dimensions of 15 × 40 cm is attached to the triangles and the same clamp plate is fixed to it from below on hinges. The plates are tightened with screws or studs with wing nuts. If installation at an angle of 45 ° is required, the plates are fixed to the hypotenuses of the support triangles, and if 90 °, then to the legs.

Hacksaw sharpening rules

To sharpen the saw, you will also need several files that differ in section and pitch of the notch. All of them must be serviceable, without knocked down or clogged with dust notch lines. To sharpen a saw on wood, the file must be moved smoothly, with constant pressure and at a constant angle. The working movement of the file is carried out “from itself”. On itself, it should be easily extended, practically without touching the metal surface.

The grandfather’s way of sharpening

The method of sharpening hand saws with your own hands has not undergone much change since the time of our ancestors.

Below you can see how it was done “on the knees” with the help of a file and pliers:

Requirements for setting the teeth of the hacksaw

Bending the cutters through one on both sides of the blade, observe a certain value, which can be set on a home-made device.

The width of the set depends on the type of wood.

Soft and damp wood requires a higher incline angle than dry wood.

Typically, hand tools work effectively with an average of 0.2-0.3 mm.

In this case, the total value should not exceed the width of the web.

In addition, the bend pattern is the same on each side.

The hacksaw set is checked visually or with a vernier caliper.

Pay attention to the size of the tooth. The height of the incisor is especially important.

Checking the height of the hacksaw teeth

Check the height of the teeth before sharpening the tool.

To do this, lay a sheet of plain paper on a hard and even surface, and press the cutters tightly until a clear print is obtained.

If there are teeth protruding from the common row, traces from them will be reflected in the print.

If there are higher teeth, they are carefully cut with a flat file to the general level.

Saw set

Sharpening a hacksaw for wood begins with a procedure such as setting teeth. The setting of the hacksaw teeth is performed for such purposes as ensuring the free movement of the blade without jamming. The setting is the bending of the teeth in different directions, alternately, by one amount. This leads to the fact that the kerf width increases, which means that during the sawing process the chip removal process is accelerated.

The amount of tooth spread depends on the thickness of the blade, and is usually 1.5-2 mm. To bend the teeth by the same amount, you will need to use a special device. This device is a metal plate with a special slot. The blade is clamped in a vise so that the links protrude slightly. After that, the process of bending the teeth is carried out. Sharpened teeth must also be bent to the same distance.

Purpose and device of the saw

The hand saw is used for sawing various wood materials. It is a blade with teeth at the bottom. On the one hand, the tool is equipped with a handle with which the master holds it during sawing work. The convenience and comfort of working with the saw depends on the quality of the handle.

The number of manufacturers of hacksaws for wood is quite large, but they all differ not only in names, but also in quality. All of them are intended for sawing wood, chipboard, logs, laminate and tree trunks. Hacksaws are subdivided into such types as: classic, circular, bow, as well as with a back and a reward. The thickness of the blade plays an important role when choosing a tool. After all, a thin blade can break during sawing wood, and it is quite difficult for a thick one to work.

How to sharpen a hacksaw on wood yourself

For sawing building materials from wood, as well as trees, a tool such as a hand saw is used. Despite the fact that electric and even gasoline saws, jigsaws and circular saws have long been developed, a hand saw for wood remains an indispensable assistant in the arsenal of every master. With the active use of this tool, it becomes necessary to sharpen the teeth. How to sharpen a hacksaw on wood yourself at home, we will consider in the material.