How to sharpen a wood hacksaw at home

Arm yourself with a pair of pliers and a file to get the hacksaw back in working order quickly. Workflow:

• First we need to look at the cutting edge. The saw’s teeth are all facing in opposite directions. If one of the teeth is bent, we put it back in place with the pliers.
• Now you can sharpen the hacksaw with a file. Insert the tool in a slant away from you (about 45-50 degrees).
• Find the first tooth that points outward.
• Slide the file over it away from yourself a few times. Resharpen the tooth on both sides to make it look like a shark’s tooth. This is how it should look:
• The next tooth, pointing inward, is skipped.
• Grind the third tooth following the example of the first one. Finish every tooth (one through one) to the end of the hacksaw.
• Turn the hacksaw on the other side and set it again at an angle away from you.
• Sharpen all teeth facing outward.

It is important not to bend the tooth flanks as the file is being filed. They are positioned at angles that are optimal according to the manufacturer. Changing them without a good reason is not recommended.

Why sharpen and when

Constant use causes the teeth to lose their sharpness and the cutting edges to wear out, thus reducing the quality of the cut and increasing the time required to complete the task.

Buying a new one will not fix the situation for long, and it will take no more than half an hour to restore the old strip.

A timely hacksaw sharpening will restore the cutting capacity of your cutters and you will always have a good tool on hand.

The sharpness of the cutting edges should be corrected at the first signs of wear, which can affect localized areas and the entire working surface.

The dimensions of the cutters’ bore also change, and this leads to jamming during the work.

How to sharpen a wood saw: simple step-by-step instructions | (Photo Video)

A sharpened wood hacksaw will cut by itself. any professional carpenter or joiner will attest to this. If you do not agree with this, it is time to sharpen the tool.

Sharpening a hand wood hacksaw includes setting the saw’s teeth. There are special appliances for this, as well as handy tools.

How to sharpen a hand wood hacksaw and set the teeth

Sooner or later any cutting tool blade gets out of order and becomes blunt. It is not necessary to change the entire tool in this case. Correct sharpening is enough. You can do it with the help of those devices, which are already available in the house (most often). Of course, it will not work if you do not have the right technology to perform all the actions. In this article, the master plumber will tell you how to sharpen a hand hacksaw for wood and set the teeth.

To ensure high quality of cut you need to understand the mechanism of influence of the teeth edges of the hacksaw on the material to be cut. Unlike steel and plastic wood. the material is not homogeneous, precisely because of this quality and were developed several types of saws, different profile of the teeth, the angle of their sharpening and the degree of separation. All varieties of wood hacksaws, their characteristics and technical data are specified in GOST 26215-84.

Basic types of wood saw teeth: 1. for cross sawing Type 1; 2. for cross sawing Type 2; 3. for longitudinal sawing Type 1; 4. for longitudinal sawing Type 2; 5. for universal sawing

Three types of sabre saws available: cross, rip, and universal. The main difference lies in the cutting principle: When wood is sawn crosswise, the teeth encounter fragments with different densities. On the one hand, this circumstance plays to the advantage: the generated chips are smaller and easily removed from the contact zone, which allows the presence of the sharpening on both sides of the tooth for sawing, both in the forward and reverse direction of feed. Cross-cutting, on the other hand, is partly impact cutting and therefore requires blunter bevel angles.

Sawing wood along the fiber can be characterized as repetitive micro planing cycles. In this case the force on the tooth is uniform, so the teeth are asymmetrical with the tip pointing in the cutting direction. In this case, the edge formed at the top of the tooth is directed strictly perpendicular to the plane of the leaf. Sawing lengthwise produces elongated chips that are difficult to remove from the contact area. Also during longitudinal cutting there is a greater release of moisture, resins and sticky substances, which in combination with the first factor does not allow sawing in both directions. Chips are removed with a straight cutter infeed: Perpendicular cutting edge direction causes swarf to be ejected in the sawing direction. Reverse motion removes residual chips and cleans the edges.

All types of hacksaw teeth are set and alternately sloped in different directions from the longitudinal axis of the blade. Due to that in the longitudinal profile of the toothing row a sort of a dovetail is formed. two sets of cutting wedges formed by the tips of the cutting edges of the teeth. Accordingly, the hacksaw forms two grooves at the bottom of the kerf, which ensures evenly stepped removal and efficient chip evacuation.

Qualified technicians know the following signs that indicate a saw is about to fail:

• The hacksaw begins to sound differently when cutting wood;
• Visually it becomes noticeable that the tips of the teeth are rounded, lost sharpness;
• The color of the teeth changes;
• The effort while sawing increases;
• The saw’s direction is poorly maintained;
• Frequent jamming of teeth in wood.

Tooth setting should always be done before you sharpen the teeth. When setting, the teeth should be offset to the left and right at a specific angle from the plane of the hacksaw. Too small a tooth pitch will cause the teeth to be set in the wood. too large an angle makes the kerf too wide, increases the amount of waste and requires too much muscle energy to pull the hacksaw. The purpose of sharpening is to restore the next tooth geometry:

Hardened teeth cannot be sharpened. They are black with a bluish cast.

To do the sharpening with minimal loss of time and quality, you need to use such special devices and tools, such as:

• Workbench;
• Locksmith’s vise;
• Pliers;
• A sharpening stone; ;
• A protractor and a caliper;
• Hammer;
• It is possible to use a tool, which allows you to fix the hacksaw blade with an angle of 90 or 45 degrees.

It is necessary to use the following files:

Sharpening a hacksaw for wood, and use a simple vise, which is rather uncomfortable and long, as well as the vise multi-coordinate type, because their bed rotates and is fixed at the necessary angles to ensure the movement of the tool strictly in the horizontal plane. It is advisable to arrange additional lighting of the work area with electric lights. Files/nad files should be moved smoothly and without jerks throughout the sharpening process, a constant pressure must be maintained and the movement must not deviate from a constant angle. The sharpening process goes only with file movements “from yourself”. The file/sand file must be returned in the air, and there must be no contact with the hacksaw.

Hacksaws are used for many purposes. Wood is sawn lengthwise or crosswise. Accordingly, the teeth will also be different.

Sharpening a hacksaw blade is somewhat of an art, which requires attention, good judgement and steadiness of hand. This case is not difficult to learn, the main thing when working to adhere to the following rules:

• A reliable fixation. The blade must be firmly fixed in a special fixture made of wood, which should also be stably installed in a well-lit workplace, as shown in the video on sharpening wood hacksaw. Sharpening teeth on your knees or on stools does not give a positive result!
• Use a quality tool. it is necessary to use one’s own file with a nail file or a fine-cut file to clean the sharpened tooth edges. Of course it is important that the file is sharp and new. You can also use a used one, but it must be cleaned with a steel brush and be rubbed with charcoal to keep the file from becoming blunt and clogged.
• Removing the metal layer. When sharpening a tooth, the file should engage in the metal of the tooth and remove the proper layer of metal, depending on the amount of pressure it exerts. And if it suddenly slips on a tooth without stripping the metal, it means the file is worn out or the file’s teeth are overhardened. If this is the case, the file should be resharpened with a different file. If even after a file change it slips on the tooth, another hacksaw should be used.
• Tooth pressure. The handle of the file is clamped with the right hand and the end of the file is held with the left hand and the file is guided to the teeth of the saw. the file should be pressed evenly, smoothly, and of course, to one side. the file should not touch the teeth when returning to its initial position.
• Proper Handling of the File. Try to grind metal of about equal thickness on all tooth flanks, using the file an equal amount of times, and applying equal pressure to keep the pitch, height, and value of the tooth angles after sharpening.
• Deburring. Burrs are formed on the tooth flanks of the hacksaw on the exit side, they make the teeth less sharp and if you do not remove them, they will break off while the saw is in operation and then the teeth will become significantly dull. To get rid of burrs, the tooth flanks are refinished with a file with a velvet file and also removed from the side edges of the blade with a wet burr.
• Checking the quality of your work. After sharpening the teeth, be sure to check their sharpness. Look at the razor blade tip and needle point: they will not shine in the light if they are sharpened. And if they are blunt, then the edge of the blade and the tip of the needle appear, of course, rounded surfaces that reflect light and shine well. Checking the sharpening quality of the hacksaw teeth is based on this. For this purpose, it is placed in front of the eyes, looking along the blade at its teeth. If their cutting tops and edges are not shiny, it indicates that the teeth of the saw are sharpened. And if suddenly some of the teeth shine (it happens often), it is necessary to sharpen them with a file with a velvet notch, that is to remove burrs and check again the light reflection over their tops and edges.

When sharpening a certain type of wood hacksaw, it is worth paying attention to certain features of this procedure. Let’s understand how to sharpen a wood hacksaw of each variety.

For sharpening the teeth of cross hacksaws use a triangular file with a rather fine notch and an angle of close to 60 degrees. To sharpen the teeth, clamp the hacksaw into a special device that allows its blade to be set at an angle of 45-50 degrees to the surface of the work table. Hold the file parallel to the work table at an angle of 60 to 75 degrees and sharpen the left edge of the file on the first tooth.

How To Sharpen A Crosscut Hand Saw

Sharpening saw teeth in several steps. Run the file over the left edges of the odd teeth on the far side first, setting your hands in the same motion. Then use the file to run along the right edges of the same odd teeth, thus completing the sharpening of the cutting edges with the sharp tips.

After you sharpen the odd teeth on your saw blade, flip the hacksaw blade over in the sharpener to sharpen the even teeth that are in the far row. When sharpening crosscut saw teeth make sure each tooth has sharp cutting edges at 60-75 degree angles, that is, a sharp tip and a short cutting edge.

To sharpen the teeth of longitudinal saws with an angle of less than 60 degrees use files with coarser or rhombic files with a fine notch, and files with a triangular angle of 60 degrees at the apex are not suitable for sharpening.

To sharpen the teeth of a longitudinal hacksaw blade, it is set vertically in the clamping device, after which the device is mounted on the work table. In the following we will tell you about two ways of sharpening the teeth of a longitudinal saw, which differ from each other by the sharpening angle:

• The first method is straight, when a file or file at an angle of 90 degrees is directed horizontally to the blade and a small layer of metal is removed from the back and front faces of the tooth to sharpen the cutting edge. All teeth in the far row are sharpened this way. Then the blade is turned over in the clamping device and the teeth of the other row are sharpened in the far row. Many modern carpenters and hobbyists use this method when sharpening the teeth of such longitudinal saws.
• The second method is oblique and differs from the first only in the direction of the tool itself in relation to the hacksaw blade. with an angle of sharpening within 80 degrees. The back and front faces of the teeth are also sharpened, first one row and then the other. With this method of sharpening the teeth, you get the side edges, which are used in sharpening the archer saw.

If you have decided to buy a mixed cut wood hacksaw, you need to know how to properly sharpen it. To restore the quality of the cutting teeth, they are sharpened using coarse-cut files or fine-cut diamond files. As with the sharpening of the slit saw, there are two known ways of sharpening. Slant and straight, and they differ in the angle of sharpening (90 and 75-80 degrees).

While bending you should not forget about equal bending of all teeth under the same angle to avoid the increase of broach resistance and high metal wear. You should start by bending back the tines in the middle. If you try to unbend them at the very base, you can damage the blade. The teeth are deflected from the blade one by one, that is, each even tooth to the left, each odd tooth to the right. Only an experienced carpenter can visually and without using tools determine the set. This skill comes only after many dozens of hacksaw prongs have been deburred.

If this is not possible, special tools can be helpful. The most readily available option is an ordinary flat plate of steel. A slit is made in it, into which the hacksaw blade should enter almost without a gap. The process of bending is done as follows:

• The hacksaw is clamped so that the teeth are slightly visible above the clamp;
• Each prong is clamped into the notch of the reaming and bent toward the middle;
• The setting angle should be checked at all times;
• Each even-numbered tooth in a row is bent to the left, then each odd-numbered tooth to the right or in reverse order.

If the height of the teeth varies, the wood will not be sawn effectively, because the higher teeth will wear more because of the higher load, and the lower ones will not participate at all. Pulling of the blade will be uneven, twitchy. To the accuracy of sawing and the quality of the surfaces of cuts will also be a complaint. The teeth should be aligned in height before sharpening. The height is checked as follows:

• The teeth are pressed against the paper, which lies on a flat surface;
• The blade is imprinted on it;
• The height of the teeth is determined by the profile of the impression.

To align the teeth with a difference in height, the blade must be clamped in a locksmith’s vise and the excess metal ground off. If the teeth have a big difference in height, it is necessary to choose an average value and try to adjust as many of them as possible to it.

In the story. Sharpening a hand saw with an angle grinder in five minutes

It can be said that to process (set and sharpen the teeth) such a simple tool like a hacksaw at home is not so difficult. Observing the general rules, having certain practical skills and the simplest devices, it is quite possible to give the tool with their own hands a second life and avoid additional costs, buying a new carpentry saw.

Tools

Wood. it is a fantastic material, because after simple manipulations it can take any shape, which is limited only by human imagination. And just one of the tools, which is designed for this case, is a wood hacksaw. It is no less popular than electric and gasoline chain saws, jigsaws and pruning saws that we all know. In the arsenal of home tools should be such a hacksaw, and it is useful for every man to know how to sharpen a wood hacksaw with his own hands.

Purpose of a hacksaw for metal

There are many kinds and forms of metal saws. Metal hacksaws can be two-handed or one-handed. Two-handed saws with the advent and spread of gas and electric saws are used quite rarely today, but one-handed saws are available in almost every home.

The single-handed saw blade is made as a knife with many teeth. It is rigid, resilient and strong enough to hold its shape without any tensioning devices. This type of metal saw has a handle that can be held with one hand when sawing the material. Moving the saw back and forth over the material to be sawn leads the teeth deeper and deeper into it. With each movement, the teeth of a hacksaw cut several millimeters through the material.

Wood saw is used for sawing wood, boards, logs, chipboard and other wood materials, installing wooden structures and joinery work, trimming tree branches and other work that involves cutting different types of wood. You may also need a wood saw if you plan to work with laminate.

Teeth of such hacksaw blades come in three types large, small and medium, and are measured by the number of cutters that come to one inch. The more teeth per inch, the better the cut. The number of teeth per inch on a wood saw blade is indicated by the TPI marking. Keep in mind that for quick and rough cuts you need a hacksaw with a long blade and a big toothed blade. And if cut quality is very important to you, then it is better to get a hacksaw with a fine tooth.

Saws with large teeth (3-6 teeth per inch) and a tooth spacing of about 4-8 millimeters are best for cutting logs and thick boards, while a hacksaw with a tooth spacing of up to 3-3.5 millimeters is best for cutting medium-sized boards. Small wood is easiest to work with with a hacksaw with a 2 to 2.5 millimeter tooth gap.

If a hacksaw is straight, it is a cross-cutting saw, whereas if you cut wood longitudinally, a saw with forward sloping teeth is better suited for such work. And it’s best to have more than one hacksaw, not just one, for different types of woodworking.

Need to sharpen your hacksaw

Any cutting tool will work well under one condition if it is sharp. A hacksaw is not an exception in this case. In a hand saw, the cutting element is the teeth, which are cut on the blade in the form of wedges. it is these teeth that get blunt during work, i.e. there is a rounding of cutting lateral and front edges, it makes the hacksaw run heavy, and therefore it needs to be pressed hard.

Sawing with a blunt hacksaw. It’s a pain in the ass. It takes a lot of time and effort and is difficult to make right-angled cuts with this saw. Improperly sharpened saw moves away from kerf and jams in the kerf. You can tell how sharp the saw is by the sound and shine of the cutting edges. To restore the cutting ability of the teeth, the wood hacksaw is sharpened, giving them sharpness while maintaining their parameters: the size of the angles, height and pitch.

Keep in mind, however, that not all hacksaws can be sharpened. Hacksaws with hardened teeth are not subject to sharpening. To identify a “hardened” tooth, take a closer look at its color. If the tooth is hardened, it will be black with a bluish cast. To sharpen the teeth that are not hardened, a fine-toothed file should be used.

Hacksaw Tooth Sharpening

Before you sharpen a wood hacksaw, you should check the tooth set. To move the saw freely in the material and to avoid jamming the tool in the kerf, the teeth are bent as they get deeper, i.e. they are alternately bent by the same amount in different directions. As a result, the kerf width becomes larger than the thickness of the toothed hacksaw blade, and on both sides there are free gaps.

This will cause the saw to move back and forth, almost without its blade making contact with the kerf surface, the cutting edges will gradually remove material layer by layer. When setting the saw, it should be remembered that the wider the teeth are set, the wider the cut will be and consequently the less chance of the hacksaw jamming. However, an excessively high tooth pitch causes a too wide rip cut and requires a great deal of effort to advance the hacksaw in the wood.

The sink for wood hacksaws should be approx. 1.5 to 2 times the thickness of the saw blade, which is normally 1.5. 2 millimeters. That’s why it is accepted to bend saw teeth by 0.25-0.5 mm on each side if you plan to saw dry hardwood with this hacksaw, and by about 0.51 mm for wet or softwood.

To bend back the saw’s teeth to the same size, you use a special device called a setting, which is a metal plate with a slot cut into it that is wider than the thickness of the hacksaw blade. The deburring design often lets you choose the amount of tooth set to one side using the adjustment screw, so the teeth have the same amount of set.

To set the set, the saw blade is usually clamped in a vice so that the teeth protrude only slightly, and the device is clamped to the worktable. Bend the tines alternately in opposite directions along the cutter bar, which is at about half their height. Remember not to bend the whole tine back, because if you do, it will break at the base.

After such manipulations it is recommended to check the correctness of making the setting, because it can happen that some of the teeth when bending to the side are more protruding than the others, they will slow down when sawing, reduce the quality of the cut and quickly become blunt. Look along the mowing line of the teeth in the light, and if you see that any tooth is too much or not enough bent to the side, it needs to be corrected.

Rules of wood hacksaw sharpening

Sharpening the blade of a hacksaw is, in a sense, an art that requires attention, a good eye and faithful hands. This case is not difficult to learn, the main thing in the work to adhere to the following rules:

• A secure fit. The blade should be firmly fixed in a special device made of wood, which should also be stably installed in a well-lit workplace, as shown in the video on sharpening wood hacksaw. Tooth sharpening on your lap or on stools does not give a positive result!
• Using a quality tool. Use your own file with further cleaning of the sharpened tooth edges with a nail file or a fine velvet file. Of course it is important that the file is sharp and new. Used can also be used, but it must be cleaned with a steel brush and be rubbed with charcoal, so that the file does not blunt or clog.
• Removing the metal layer. When sharpening a tooth the file has to engage in its metal and remove the necessary layer of metal, depending on the power of pressure. And if it suddenly slips on a tooth without removing metal, it means that the file is worn out or the teeth of the hacksaw are overhardened. If this is the case, another file should be sharpened. If the file slips on the tooth after changing it, use another hacksaw.
• Pressure on the teeth. clamp the file handle with the right hand, hold the end of the file with the left hand and guide the file to the saw teeth. the file has to apply pressure evenly on the tooth, smoothly and, of course, in one direction. The file must not touch the teeth when returning to its initial position.
• Proper Handling of a File. Try to grind the metal from the tooth flanks of about the same thickness by driving the file the same number of times with the same pressure, allowing to keep the pitch, height and size of the angles of the teeth after sharpening.
• Deburr removal. Burrs are formed on the tooth edges of hacksaw teeth on the exit side, they reduce the sharpness of the tooth, and if you do not remove them, during the operation of the saw, they will break off, and after that the teeth are significantly blunt. To get rid of burrs, finish the teeth with a file with a velvet file and remove them from the side edges with a wet burr.
• Checking the quality of the work. Once you sharpen the teeth, be sure to check their sharpness. Look at the edge of the razor blade and the point of the needle: they do not shine in the light if they are sharpened. And if they are blunted, of course rounded surfaces appear on the edge of the blade and on the tip of the needle, reflecting light and well shiny. Checking the sharpening quality of hacksaw teeth is based on this. For such a purpose, it is placed in front of the eyes, looking along the blade of its teeth. If their cutting tops and edges do not shine, it indicates that the teeth of the saw are sharpened. And if suddenly some of the teeth shine (it happens often), it is necessary to sharpen them with a file with a velvet notch, that is to remove burrs and check again the reflection of light over their tops and edges.

Hacksaw sharpening with your own hands

When sharpening a certain type of wood hacksaw, it is worth paying attention to certain features of this procedure. Let’s understand how to sharpen a wood hacksaw of each variety.

Crosscut saws

To sharpen the teeth of crosscut hacksaws use a three-edged file with a fairly fine notch and an angle of close to 60 degrees. To sharpen the teeth clamp the hacksaw into a special device that allows you to set its blade at an angle of 45-50 degrees to the surface of the work table. Lead your file at an angle of 60-75 degrees to the blade parallel to the work table and sharpen the left edge in the first tooth this way.

In several steps the teeth of the saw are sharpened. First, run the file over the left edges of the odd teeth that are in the far row, setting your hands to the same motion. Next, the file runs along the right edges of the same odd teeth, thereby completing the sharpening of the cutting edges with sharp tips.

After sharpening the odd teeth on your saw blade, flip the hacksaw blade over in the sharpener to sharpen the even teeth that are on the far row. when sharpening crosscut saw teeth make sure each tooth has sharp cutting edges at an angle of 60-75 degrees, i.e. a sharp top and a short cutting edge.

Longitudinal saws

Files with coarser or diamond-shaped files with fine cuts are used for sharpening longitudinal saw teeth with an angle of less than 60 degrees. Files with triangular shapes with an angle of 60 degrees on top are not good for sharpening. To sharpen the teeth of a longitudinal hacksaw blade, it is set in the clamping device vertically, after that the device is fixed on the work table. Here are two ways to sharpen the saw teeth that differ in the sharpening angle.

The first method is straight, when the file or file is moved horizontally at 90 degrees to the blade, and a thin layer of metal is removed from the back and front edges of the tooth to sharpen the cutting edge. This way all teeth of the far row are sharpened. Then the blade is inverted in the clamping device and the teeth of the other row are sharpened. Many modern carpenters and hobbyists use this method when sharpening the teeth of such longitudinal saws.

The second way is oblique and differs from the first one only by the direction of the tool itself in relation to the hacksaw blade. sharpening angle in the range of 80 degrees. Also the back and front faces of the teeth are sharpened, first one row and then the other. With this method of sharpening the teeth, you will get the side edges that are used when sharpening the archer saw.

Saws for mixed sawing

If you have decided to buy a wood hacksaw of mixed sawing, you should know how to sharpen it properly. To restore the quality of the cutting teeth, they are sharpened using coarse-cut files or fine-cut rhombic files. Just as with the sharpening of a longitudinal saw, two methods are known. Angle of sharpening: 90 and 75-80 degree angles of sharpening are different between straight and diagonal.

Saw hacksaw sharpening attachments

The hacksaw blade for sharpening the teeth is installed in a special clamping device, which is then fixed on the work table. Let’s look at the scheme of the clamping device, which is used when sharpening the teeth of wood hacksaws and makes it possible to set them at an angle of about 45-90 degrees in relation to your work table.

Such a device consists of a base made of plywood with dimensions of 550 x 200 millimeters and a thickness of about 20 millimeters. On the basis of the installation of two guiding rectangular triangles (with equal cathetuses), which are made of steel strip with a section of 20×30 millimeters. To install at the base of the device guide triangles, provided 4 studs, which are screwed on the PVA glue.

Further, to the guiding triangles with bolts with wing nuts set supporting and clamping bars that are interconnected using loops (size 400 by 150 millimeters), made of plywood, whose thickness is 15 millimeters. For sharpening the saw is placed with the teeth up between the slats.

Before you start sharpening your own wood hacksaw, set its blade in such a way that the teeth protrude over the clamping strip by about 15-20 millimeters. Such a clamping device makes it possible to set the hacksaw to be sharpened at an angle of 45 degrees and 90 degrees. When sharpening teeth of mixed and longitudinal saws set at an angle of 90 degrees, and when sharpening the teeth of transverse tools at an angle of 45 degrees. If the attachment is set in the position of the slats at an angle of 90 degrees, it is used to level the height of the tines, as well as to set them apart.

Let’s also look at the clamping device for sharpening large-sized hacksaws and two-handled saws. This device consists of two cross bars about 550 millimeters long and a section of 40×30 millimeters, two stands about 1100 millimeters long and 60×40 millimeters in section, as well as two clamping bars of 450×150 millimeters, made of 15 millimeters thick plywood. The rung and the uprights are screwed together.

Assemble the device as follows: screw the lower crossbar to the posts at a small height from the floor, then put the right leg on it, and then mark the place of the second crossbar so that the knee of the right leg rests against the second crossbar.

This ensures the rigidity of the stand, which is leaning against the workbench or table. To sharpen the wood hacksaw is set between the clamping bars up with the teeth and then clamped with bolts with wing nuts. After sharpening one side without taking the saw out of the clamps, turn the device over and also continue sharpening the other side.

Now you know how to sharpen a wood hacksaw at home. Follow the instructions carefully and adhere to the rules described above, and do not forget to monitor the hacksaw and determine when it has blunted. Before you sharpen your hacksaw, be sure to determine what material you will normally work with, and have the teeth of the hacksaw blade set and aligned.

Tools

Wood. fantastic material, because it can, after simple manipulation, take on any appearance that is limited solely by a person’s imagination. And just one of the tools that are designed for this task is a wood hacksaw. It is no less popular than the electric and gasoline chain saws, electric jigsaws and sabre saws we all know. In the arsenal of home tools should be such a hacksaw, and it is useful for every man to know how to sharpen a wood hacksaw with his own hands.

Purpose of metal hacksaws

There are a great many types and forms of metal hacksaws. Metal saw blades come in two-handed and one-handed designs. Two-handed saws with the advent and spread of benzos and electric saws are used quite rarely today, but one-handed saws are in almost every home.

The blade of a one-handed saw is in the form of a knife with many teeth. It has enough stiffness, elasticity and strength to keep its shape without different tensioning devices. Such a metal hacksaw has a handle that can be held with one hand when sawing material. Moving the saw back and forth over the object to be sawed brings the teeth deeper and deeper into it. With each movement, the teeth of the hacksaw cut through the material by several millimeters.

A wood saw is used for cutting wood, boards, logs, particle board and other wood materials, installing woodwork and joinery, trimming branches in trees, and other work that involves cutting different types of wood. You may also need a wood saw if you plan to work with laminate.

The teeth of these hacksaw blades come in three varieties, large, small and medium, and are measured by the number of cutters per inch. The more cutters per inch, the better the cut. The number of teeth per inch on the wood saw blade is indicated by the TPI marking. Remember that for a quick and rough cut you need a long blade hacksaw with a large tooth. And if the quality of the cut is very important to you, then it is better to take a hacksaw with a fine tooth.

Saws with large teeth (3 to 6 teeth per inch) and a tooth pitch of about 4 to 8 millimeters are best for cutting logs and thicker boards, while a hacksaw with a tooth pitch of up to 3 to 3.5 millimeters is good for cutting medium-sized boards. When working with small wooden products, it is easier to work with a saw with 2-2.5 millimeters spacing between cutters.

If your hacksaw is straight-toothed, it is a cross-cutting wood saw, but if you cut wood lengthwise, a hacksaw with forward tilted teeth is a good choice. And it is better to have several hacksaws, rather than one hacksaw, for different types of woodwork.

Need to sharpen a hacksaw

Any cutting tool will work well, but only if it is sharp. A hacksaw in this case is no exception. In a hand saw, the cutting element is the teeth that are cut into wedges on the blade. It is these teeth that get blunted during operation, that is, the cutting side and front edges get rounded, it makes the hacksaw run heavy, and so it needs to be pressed hard.

Sawing with a blunt hacksaw. one torture. It takes a lot of effort and time, it is difficult to make a right angle cut with this saw. Incorrectly sharpened saw moves away from the kerf to the side, it gets jammed and wedges in the kerf. You can tell how sharp a saw is by the sound and shine of its cutting edges. To restore cutting ability of teeth, wood hacksaw is sharpened, giving them sharpness while retaining their parameters: size of angles, height and pitch.

But remember that not all hacksaws can be sharpened. Hacksaws with hardened teeth cannot be sharpened. To identify a hardened tooth, you have to look closely at its color. If the tooth is hardened, it has a black color with a distinctive bluish cast. To sharpen the teeth that are not hardened, use a file with a fine notch.

Hacksaw Tooth Sharpening

Before sharpening the wood hacksaw, check the tooth set. To move the saw freely in the material and to avoid jamming of the tool in the kerf, its teeth are set as deepening, i.e. they are alternately bent to the same value in different directions. The resulting kerf width is greater than the thickness of the toothed hacksaw blade, and there are gaps on both sides.

That will cause the saw to move back and forth, virtually never touching the kerf, and the cutting edges will gradually remove material layer by layer. When setting up the saw, remember that the wider the tooth pitch, the wider the kerf will be, and consequently the less chance of the hacksaw jamming. But a too wide tooth pitch causes a too wide rip cut and requires a great deal of effort to advance the hacksaw in the wood.

Set value for wood hacksaw should be approx. 1.5 to 2 times the thickness of the saw blade, which is usually 1.5. 2 millimeters. That’s why it’s a common practice to bend saw teeth by 0.25-0.5 mm on each side if such saw has to saw dry hardwood, and by about 0.51 mm for wet or softwood.

In order to bend back the saw’s teeth to the same value, a special device called a setting is used, which is a metal plate with a slot cut into it, which is wider than the thickness of the hacksaw blade. the setting design often makes it possible to adjust the amount of set to one side using the adjustment screw, which ensures the same amount of set to one side.

To set the sawblade, it is usual to clamp it in a vice so that the teeth protrude only slightly and the saw blade is clamped to the work table. Bend the teeth one after the other to opposite sides of the cutter bar, which is about half their height. Remember not to bend the tooth all the way back, otherwise it will break at the base.

After such manipulations it is recommended to check the correctness of making adjustments, because it may happen that some teeth during bending on the side protrude more than the others, they will slow down during sawing, reduce the quality of a kerf and will quickly become blunt. Look at the mower line of the teeth in the light and if you see that some tooth is too much or not enough bent aside, it should be corrected.

Rules of wood hacksaw sharpening

Sharpening a hacksaw blade is, in a sense, an art that requires attention, a good eye, and correct hands. It is not difficult to learn how to do this job, the main thing is to adhere to the following rules when working:

• Firmly clamped. The blade should be firmly fixed in a special fixture made of wood, which should also be stably installed in a well-lit workplace, as shown in the video on sharpening wood hacksaw. sharpening teeth on laps or on stools does not work!
• Using a quality tool. Use your own personal file with a nail file or fine velvet file to fine-tune the sharpened tooth edges. Of course, the file has to be sharp and new. It is also possible to use a used one, but it should be cleaned with a steel brush and be rubbed with charcoal, so that the file does not get blunted and clogged.
• Removing a layer of metal. file when sharpening a tooth should grip into its metal and remove the desired layer of metal, depending on the amount of pressure. And if it suddenly slips on a tooth without removing metal it means that the file is worn out or the teeth of the hacksaw are overhardened. If this is the case, use another file to resharpen the file. If it still slips on the tooth after a file change, another file should be used.
• Tooth pressure. clamp the file handle with your right hand, hold the end of the file with your left hand and guide the file onto the saw teeth. The pressure of the file should be equal, smooth and of course to one side. The file should not touch the teeth when it returns to its initial position.
• Proper handling of the file. try to mill metal of about the same thickness on all tooth flanks, going over the file an equal amount of times with the same pressure, to keep the pitch, height, and angles of the teeth after sharpening.
• Deburring. Burrs are formed on the tooth edges of the hacksaw teeth on the exit side, they reduce the sharpness of the tooth, and if you do not remove them, they will break off while the saw is working, and after that the teeth become significantly dull. To get rid of burrs, file teeth with a velvet file and use a wet burr on the side edges to sharpen them.
• Checking the quality of the work. After sharpening the teeth, it is absolutely necessary to check their sharpness. Look at the edge of a razor blade and the tip of a needle: they do not shine in the light if they are sharpened. And if they are blunt, then on the edge of the blade and on the tip of the needle, rounded surfaces appear, reflecting the light and well shining. Checking the sharpening quality of hacksaw teeth is based on this. For this purpose, it is placed in front of the eyes, examining along the blade its teeth. If their cutting tops and edges are not shiny, it indicates that the saw’s teeth are sharpened. And if suddenly some of the teeth are shiny (it happens often), it is necessary to sharpen them with a file with a velvet notch, that is to remove burrs and check again the reflection of light over their tops and edges.

Sharpening hacksaw with your own hands

When sharpening a certain type of wood hacksaw it is worth paying attention to some peculiarities of this procedure. Let’s understand how to sharpen a wood hacksaw of each variety.

Crosscut saws

To sharpen the teeth of crosscut saws, use a three-edged file with a fairly fine notch and an angle of close to 60 degrees. To sharpen the teeth clamp the hacksaw in a special device that allows its blade to set at an angle of 45-50 degrees to the surface of the working table. Lead your file at an angle of 60-75 degrees to the blade parallel to the work table and sharpen the left edge in the first tooth in this way.

Sharpening saw teeth in several steps. Start with the file on the left hand side of the odd teeth in the far row, setting your hands in the same motion. Then use a file to run along the right sides of the same odd teeth, thus completing the sharpening of the cutting edges with the sharp tips.

After you sharpen the odd-numbered teeth on your saw blade, flip the hacksaw blade over in the sharpening tool to sharpen the even-numbered teeth that are on the far side. When sharpening crosscut saw teeth it is necessary to make sure that each tooth has sharp cutting edges with an angle of 60-75 degrees, i.e. a sharp tip and a short cutting edge.

Longitudinal saws

For sharpening saw teeth with angle less than 60 degrees use files with coarser or diamond-shaped files with fine cuts, and files with triangular angle of 60 degrees at the top are not suitable for sharpening. To sharpen the teeth of the longitudinal saw blade, it is set in the clamping device vertically, then the device is fixed on the working table. In the following we will tell you about two ways of sharpening the teeth of longitudinal saw blades that differ from each other in the angle of sharpening.

The first method is straight, with the file or file held horizontally at 90 degrees to the blade, and a thin layer of metal is removed from the back and front edges of the tooth to sharpen the cutting edge. In this way all teeth of the far row are sharpened. After that, in the clamping device, the blade is turned over and the teeth of the other row are sharpened in the far row. Many modern woodworkers and hobbyists use this method when sharpening the teeth of such longitudinal saws.

The second way is oblique and differs from the first one only by the direction of the tool itself in relation to the hacksaw blade. Angle of sharpening within 80 degrees. Then the back and the front teeth are also sharpened, first in one row and then in the other. With this method of sharpening the teeth, you get the side edges that are used when sharpening a bow saw.

Saws for mixed sawing

If you have decided to buy a wood hacksaw for mixed sawing, you should know how to properly sharpen it. To regain cutting edge quality, the teeth are resharpened using coarse-cut file or a fine-cut diamond file. As with the sharpening of the slitting saw, two ways are known. oblique and straight and they differ from each other by the size of the sharpening angle (90 and 75-80 degrees).

Fixtures for hacksaw sharpening

The hacksaw blade for sharpening the teeth is installed in a special clamping device that is then mounted on the work table. Let’s look at the scheme of the clamping device, which is used when sharpening the teeth of wood hacksaw and makes it possible to set them at an angle of about 45-90 degrees in relation to your work table.

Such a device consists of a base made of plywood with dimensions of 550×200 millimeters and a thickness of approximately 20 millimeters. Two guiding rectangular triangles (with equal cathetuses), made of steel strip with a section of 20×30 millimeters, are mounted on the base. To install in the base of the device guide triangles, there are 4 studs, which are screwed on PVA glue.

Further, to the guiding triangles by means of bolts with wing nuts the support and clamping bars are mounted, which are interconnected by means of hinges (size 400 by 150 millimeters), made of plywood, which thickness is 15 millimeters. To sharpen the saw blade, place it with its teeth up between the slats.

Before you start sharpening your own wood hacksaw, set its blade in such a way that the teeth protrude over the clamping strip by about 15-20 millimeters. Such clamping device makes it possible to install the hacksaws to be sharpened at an angle of 45 degrees and 90 degrees. When sharpening teeth of mixed and longitudinal saws set at an angle of 90 degrees, and when sharpening teeth of cross tools at an angle of 45 degrees. If the device is set at 90 degrees, it is used to level the height of the teeth, as well as to set them apart.

Let’s also look at the clamping device for sharpening large-sized hacksaws and two-handled saws. This tool is made up of two cross bars about 550 millimeters long and 40 by 30 millimeters in section, two uprights about 1100 millimeters long and 60 by 40 millimeters in section, and two clamping bars about 450 by 150 millimeters in section, made of 15 millimeters thick plywood. The crossbar and uprights are screwed together.

The device is assembled in the following sequence: screw the bottom crossbar to the uprights from the floor at a small height, then place the right leg on it, and after that mark the place of the second crossbar so that the right leg knee rests on the second crossbar.

This gives the uprights rigidity when leaning against a workbench or table. To sharpen the wood hacksaw, place the teeth up between the clamping bars and then clamp them with wing nut bolts. After sharpening on one side, without taking the saw out of the clamps, turn the device over and also continue sharpening on the other side.

Now you know how to sharpen a wood hacksaw at home. Carefully follow the instructions and rules above, and don’t forget to keep an eye on your hacksaw and see when it has dulled. Before sharpening your hacksaw, be sure to determine what material you will normally be working with and perform a tooth setting and alignment procedure on the hacksaw blade.

Basic Rules

When sharpening a wood saw with your own hands requires concentration, a good eye and skills of working with a file. Despite the apparent complexity of the process, if you follow the recommendations, this manipulation can be done quite simply, although not quickly. To sharpen a hacksaw at home, you need to spend an hour or two of time, you can cope even faster if you have a hand.

Hacksaws are also sharpened with the angle grinder, but many craftsmen treat this method negatively. Firstly, it is not safe, and secondly, it is more likely to damage the cutters than sharpen them.

Preparing

The blade should be firmly clamped in a vice. On a lap or stool you can also sharpen, but it is inconvenient to hold a hacksaw that way. The place where sharpening is carried out must be well lit, for safety purposes gloves must be worn. Nothing extraneous, like a TV set, should not distract from the work.

To restore the performance of joinery and locksmith tools, only a high-quality file should be used. Usually take a three-sided, but for the small teeth of a garden hacksaw there is a special four-sided file.

Be sure to file or file with a fine velvet chamfer on the edge of the cutter. If a used file has to be used, it is cleaned beforehand with a steel brush.

Remove a small layer of coating from the cutters. the file should not slip while working on them, but should grip them well. If this is not the case, the file is not suitable for sharpening, or the cutters are overhardened. Use a different tool for sharpening. If a second attempt is unsuccessful, it is advisable to change the file.

Sharpening

To sharpen a wood file correctly, its handle is clamped with the right hand, and the left hand holds the end. The tool is pointed at the teeth of the blade at an angle (as the bevel goes). The pressure should be equal, smooth and only in a certain direction (usually away from yourself).

If possible, it is desirable to make sure that the removed metal layer is of the same thickness. To do this, it is recommended to move the tool an equal number of times and with equal pressure. This maintains the height, pitch and angles of the teeth after sharpening.

Burrs on the tooth flanks should be removed using a wet burr file or a file with velvet grit. If left in place, they will reduce tooth sharpness and chipping when you cut wood materials, which will affect the quality of your work.

When sharpening is finished, check the sharpness of the teeth by sawing a piece of wood. If there is no shine on the saw blade, it means the work has been done effectively and the hacksaw is ready for use.

Tooth setting

Tooth deburring is necessary so that the hand saw does not get jammed while cutting, so that it runs smoothly and easily. After using the hacksaw for an extended period of time, it may be necessary to create a fillet before sharpening it. The essence of the process is to bend the teeth evenly in different directions. After this procedure, free gaps should form on both sides of the blade. Movement of the sharp-cutting tool in the cut will be much more efficient.

The greater the bend of the cutters, the lower the risk of the saw jamming during operation. But here you should not overdo it, otherwise it will be very problematic to make the sawing.

Please note! The standard setting is no more than 2 mm. If the hacksaw is intended for sawing dry wood, the tines are bent 0.3-0.5 mm. For sawing raw wood materials dilute by 0.5-1 mm.

For the convenience of bending it is recommended to use the set. special devices. Hacksaw is well clamped in a vise, the device is mounted on the work surface. The main thing is that the teeth must not protrude fully, otherwise they will break.

For longitudinal and all-purpose sawing

For longitudinal sawing it is better to use files with a drachial notch or diamond-shaped files with a personal notch. To sharpen the cutters in longitudinal wood saws, the tool must be positioned vertically in the clamping device and securely clamped to the work surface. There are two types of sharpening.

Straight. A nail file, file at 90 degrees should be directed horizontally to the tool to be sharpened and remove a small layer of coating from the front and back edge of the cutter to qualitatively sharpen the cutting edge. All other cutters in the back row will be sharpened in the same way. When finished, turn the blade in the clamping device and make processing of the teeth that are in the back row.

Oblique. The only difference of this method is the direction of the file in respect to the saw blade. Sharpening angle. 80 degrees. First sharpen the back and front edges of cutters of one row, and then of the second row.

To sharpen a universal hacksaw you will need a coarse-cut file or a roughened diamond file with a personal notch. Universal hacksaws can be sharpened using one of the same technologies as for longitudinal tools, choosing either oblique or straight sharpening.

Despite the widespread use of circular saws, sabre saws and electric jigsaws, the traditional wood hacksaw remains in every household’s workshop. For small amounts of work or in hard-to-reach places where you can’t reach with an electric tool, the hand-held circular saw still comes in handy. To make the tool work with sufficient productivity, accuracy and quality it needs to be sharpened in time.

Sharpen, not blunt your hacksaw: instructions for sharpening a wood hacksaw

Despite the abundance of chainsaws, circular saws, grinders and other automatic cutting tools, the ordinary hand saw is still popular. While in production and lumbering it has long been superseded by more advanced saws, the good old toothed blade is still in garages and summer cottages. Wood hacksaws last for decades if they are sharpened properly and in time. Even people who work regularly with their hands make mistakes in this process.