I still don't know if I should be happy or sad.
I got her from ebay seller outoofeurope. I think half of my salary goes to him.
The saw was the best surprise ever. Really thin steel, lovely signatures, and just an homogeneously thin layer of rust on top. Not bad at all for 15 euros included shipping.
But there was a bit of stress on the blade. If you look carefully, you can see a scar going towards the cross cut side. Roughly 90 degrees to the new scar. I think this was the previous owner, who had broke the saw and welded it back again. That's a good sign. If you go by all the trouble of fixing something, it means it is worth it.
It also missed the tip of the cross cut and that tooth at the end of the rip side.
Well, the thing is, I was ripping something while thinking about going to ecuador next year to get some shrimps, and suddenly: BAM.
I cried.
No, seriously. I really hope you never experience it, but breaking a saw like that is like killing by mistake a small guinea pig. You just feel guilty. The doctor recommended whisky.
She has been hanging there for a few months, until I decided to take it to the welder.
The boyfriend of Sara, an iranian girl from the office, is a goldsmith. He has plenty of funny (and expensive) tools for jewellery. He said, I can try it but I don't promise anything, ok? I said, go for it.
I forgot to say, once the saw broke, it didn't fit together anymore. Like if the crack had liberated some stress and the metal had just expanded. So I had to file it a bit to be able to put the two sides of the crack in the same plane.
We first tried to weld it without adding metal to it. That is, just melting both sides of the crack and hoping they remain together. While this gave a really nice and flat joint, it broke at the first try. So my friend suggested adding metal (stainless steel) in both sides. This for sure will hold but it can bent the saw and create more stress on her. I said, "got verdome, go for it". Worst case scenario the 215mm saw will become a 150mm small ryoba. He didn't have more time that day so I left the saw at his place. It came back today.
And there she is, half alive, half bent. I will take to the anvil tomorrow morning — Julia is working, so I can hammer — and will see if I can bring her back to life.
Also, after welding, may need to be annealed to deep blue (at weld) to match surrounding steel.
ReplyDeleteDo you know what material they use to weld? My friend used stainless steel (he's a jeweller and that was what he had) and the annealing didn't seem to affect it.
ReplyDeleteIt was not the most successful welding, so I may end up making a dozuki out of if.
I've had success using a spot welder and piano strings (unwound).
ReplyDeleteThe spot welder I have is 15amp; I've welded 0.035" thick saws (Timber saws, or Yama Nokogiri in western Japan) needing teeth replaced. I don't offer or advertise this, because I want to see if they break in use. They survived setting and fileing, and two seasons of trimming limbs though.
I used a file to make the joint (grinding leaves impurities) then lay the wire over it, and squished the weld wire leaving about one third projecting from the blade surface. Then the other side the same, Then ground near flat, then annealed to blue with hot copper soldering iron. Then sen flat.
15 amps is too much for thinner steel, so looking for that rare 15 amp reostat. Or a 7 amp and 11 amp spot welders. Then more experimenting.