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135731 | Gregory Isola <gregoryi@u...> | 2004‑08‑10 | Taintor's Positive #7? Good user? |
Fellow BAG Michael Suwczinzky and I hit the local flea last Sunday morning, and I grabbed a rather glitzy sawset. Fully nickel-plated, it says TAINTOR'S POSITIVE No 7 in big fancy letters on the handle, and it has (count 'em) five patent dates on it, ranging from 1891 to 1907. (Yes, I'll be spending some time with the DATAMP.) A knurled setscrew locks a ten-sided anvil in position for setting. I've never set a saw in my life, so I'm hoping I've got a decent user here. Anyone? Greg Isola Alameda, CA who was kicking himself for passing on that #5C (corrugated jack, Jeff), but felt better when he got home, wiped off the nice (no handle) 1/8-inch sash mortise chisel he got for a buck, and saw the TH WITHERBY stamp |
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135733 | Norm Wood <nbwood@l...> | 2004‑08‑10 | Re: Taintor's Positive #7? Good user? |
On 10 Aug., Gregory Isola wrote: > Fellow BAG Michael Suwczinzky and I hit the local flea last Sunday morning, > and I grabbed a rather glitzy sawset. Fully nickel-plated, it says TAINTOR'S > POSITIVE No 7 in big fancy letters on the handle, and it has (count 'em) > five patent dates on it, ranging from 1891 to 1907. (Yes, I'll be spending > some time with the DATAMP.) A knurled setscrew locks a ten-sided anvil in > position for setting. I've never set a saw in my life, so I'm hoping I've > got a decent user here. Anyone? Greg, I have a Taintor's Positive #7 that I've used for setting the teeth on a couple of backsaws, and it's worked well. The only problem I've had is that the rivets on which the upper and lower handles pivot have worn and so there's a bit of slop in the alignment of the hammer (?) as it comes down onto the sawtooth. I have to be a bit careful. Plus the return spring is missing. I think I have (somewhere) a copy of instructions for use. I'll see if I can find it and send it along. There's a washer that can be placed under the anvil to fine-tune the amount of set. On mine, I found it under the knurled screw. My missing spring leads to a Galoot-ish question. Has anyone ever tried fabricating simple wound wire springs? I'm guessing it would require some process of anneal, shape, then heat treat. But IIRC from machine design (oh so long ago), ordinary steel wire isn't suitable. As usual, it would probably be simpler to just find another saw set, but... Norm in Fort Collins, Colorado |
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135785 | Norm Wood <nbwood@l...> | 2004‑08‑11 | Re: Taintor's Positive #7? Good user? |
Galoots, I guess it's typically bad form to reply to one's own posting, but I wanted to give credit where credit is due, and part of this might be of general interest. On 10 August, Greg asked about a Taintor's Positive sawset, and I replied > > Greg, ... > I think I have (somewhere) a copy of instructions for use. I'll see > if I can find it and send it along. There's a washer that can be Actually, what I had weren't instructions, but copies of articles from 1892 and 1894 volumes of "The Manufacturer and Builder" describing the Taintor's sawsets. The articles are actually in Cornell's "Making of America" (MOA) electronic library, and links were provided by Darrell LaRue in an OldTools message (#91367) from 2001 which I'd found in the archive. So thanks to Darrell and Chris (and of course the folks at Cornell). Since I hadn't seen the MOA mentioned here since I started with OldTools, I thought that I would. It seems to be a unique resource, one of those that could occupy hours of more or less productive reading :) The library includes scans of about 900,000 pages of journals and monographs from the 19th and early 20th centuries which have been text-indexed and are searchable. The main webpage is at http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/moa/ If anyone chances to look at the second Taintor's reference (which is from 1894) in Darrell's message, there's an interesting story about the discovery of an unknown trace gas (argon) in the atmosphere by Rayleigh and Ramsey. Norm Fort Collins, Colorado |
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