Dwight, 

I'm curious to know if I can change a saw to cut from push stroke to pull
stroke by simply retoothing it in reverse.  I have a user made
arborist's saw …  …?

My two cents:  In general, if the saw steel is thick enough to work in an
arborists saw, then it shouldn’t matter a whole lot which way the teeth are cut.
Note that you might wind up seeing the steel exhibit some bending or
contortionist behavior before putting it to use.  This could happen if in
reshaping the piece of sheet steel you also cut across lines of stress hammered
into it to tension the saw when it was made.  Retensioning the ‘new' blade may
be needed.  Arborist shape blades on pole saws I’ve had tend to acquire bends in
them during use when the offending branch decides not to cooperate by coming
away cleanly, and but that usually hasn’t bothered the saw’s function very much.
If it does, a little reverse bending (with care) has resolved the problem, or
careful hammering in strategic spots might be needed if the bends start looking
like hills and valleys on a topographical map.

The second question has to do with the chuck on the MF No. 4.  How does it
work?  … …. Is there something missing on this drill?

Maybe.  I don’t have either a No. 4 or a 4D MF eggbeater drill, but none among
my modest group of four have a chuck like the one Randy Roeder shows for the MF
No. 4 either.  If you don’t have the link to his site, here it is:  oldtoolheaven.com/hand_drills/drill2.htm">http://oldtoolheaven.com/hand_dril
ls/drill2.htm

Another resource is George Langford’s site …
http://georgesbasement.com
.. and I don’t see a type study for the MF No. 4 listed there.

The majority of eggbeater chucks I’ve examined use an internally tapered shell
that screws down on the chuck mounting rod and some method of using the upper
end of that threaded rod to guide the jaws up along the shell’s internal taper
to clamp them on the drill bit shank.  .And then there are those other designs
that someone thought were a better way to accomplish the task, but didn’t find a
large contingent of buyers who agreed with them.

Where’s Randy or George?  Maybe they can shed some more light on this for you.

Charlie