Friends,

Darren asked re his keenly priced Spear & Jackson 14" backsaw

> In searching through the archives I found a post by Pete Taran asking
> someone to not mess with their split-nutted Disston as odds are that
> it wouldn't end well. I suppose the same can be said for the S&J?

Hi Harrison,

Don't often get a chance to respond to you!  

I won't limit my comments to Disston and/or S&J.  Before I knew better I had a 
few experiences trying to remove and/or tighten old split nuts on old saws.  I 
don't do it any more.  I either pack the handle slot, or live with the handle 
being a little loose or put the saw in the till and reflect on how maybe the 
loose handle is the reason it was still there for me to find.

My experiences were as follows:

Old yellow metal bolts and split nuts are usually (if not invariably) seized 
into the wood of the handle.  I guess that as the handle has dried out it has 
shrunk. Or the handle was finished before assembly and the old finish coat has 
hold of the head or the nut or the shank or all three.

If the bolts and nuts aren't seized to the handle one or more will be corroded 
to each other

Split nut bolts are made out of soft and weak metal and the bolt shank is small 
in diameter compared to the bolt and nut head diameter (sometimes even a square 
section)ie extra weak.

That in turn leads to the discovery that there are as many nut and bolt sizes 
as there are saw makers, and few if any are interchangeable, even within 
different saws by the same maker.

My experiences have ended in frustration with one or more of the following: 
broken bolt shank or chipped handle (chip lifted out by nut or bolt head).

The one occasion I managed to get everything apart without tears I found it 
impossible to get everything back together with the bolt and nut sitting flush 
and flat. 

So, for what its worth my advice is that you leave the split nuts well alone, 
unless they are loose in the handle and the nuts are loose on the bolts.  If 
you decide to try and tighten them go gently, its easier to break the bolt 
shank or strip the thread than it is to draw in the handle cheeks.

My experiences wasn't expensive to gain, but it was immensely frustrating in 
the gaining and caused me considerable grief and regret.

YMMV, but as Mr Eastwood was wont to ask: "You feeling lucky?"

Regards,

Tony B
Hobart, Tasmania

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