Buck saw blade storage

[Nomad]

I bought a couple of 24" saw blades with the intention of making a buck saw. Unfortunately, they didn't come with some nifty plastic blade guard. What methods are there for storing the blade when a buck saw is disassembled? Some sort of groove in the horizontal member?

 

[WULF]

Imnot that familiar with these but Perhaps a 'kydex' guard with do the job.

 

[mountainm]

One of those plastic binder spines would do the job?

 

[SimonM]

Coil them inside a billy can or wrap them in hessian sacking.

 

[Chiseller]

Wear them in a custom leather belt

 

[Outdoordude]

You can make it so the bow saw uprights fold down and cover the bade when being transported.

 

[Johnnyboy1971]

Normally the blade is stored in the two uprights. They fold around to cover the blade within a groove in them.

 

[bigroomboy]

as above re: uprights but I didnt have a router to do that so I wet formed an old leather belt from a charity shop as a blade guard or make a kydex one or cheaper using some tubing cut down its length. My experience is buck saw blades wont coil in a billy you need to cut up bandsaw blades to do that.

 

[Shovel]

Have you tried making one of PVC? You could just fit everything inside it.

 

[richardww]

i always use electric trunking, i just plug the ends

 

[Jared]

Use the holes and bolt/pin them to something flat.

Duct tape on the other side maybe.

 

[jackcbr]

I cut a slit in the cross bar on mine and that houses 2 blades while in transit

****warning shameless self promotion****

Here's my blog on it

 

[Colin.W]

I dont know how flexible your blade is. The blade I have is part of a broken band saw blade which rolls up into quite a tight coil which fits into an old chain lube (Hot grease for motorcycle chain) tin

 

[Nomad]

I had a look at the binder strip thingies in the local Ryman's, and wasn't too keen. Would need two to cover the blade, and the edges where the blade would pass through are tight together, so pushing it in cutting tips first would be a fiddle. I considered something where the blade is slid in lengthwise (rounding off the corners to make an easier start, and to get it into the second binder strip when it reaches that), but still wasn't keen. They're not that wide - about 12-15mm - and I didn't feel that they could be trusted to secure the blade.

Routing out some sort of channel on the uprights is a possibility (apart from having to set up a router). At the moment, a groove in the top of the horizontal member is more appealing. My current design has this a bit longer than the blade, so I could do a cut, and then fill the ends to stop the blade sliding out. I'm still musing on blade retainers at the bottoms of the uprights, since the blade wouldn't be able to reach those.

 

[Johnnyboy1971]

http://paulkirtley.co.uk/2011/how-t...ing_wp_cron=1357342012.1326010227203369140625

Have a read here and see if this helps.

 

[santaman2000]

In the Boy Scouts we were always taught to cut an old garden hose to the length of the blade. Then slit one side of it and slip the blade into it. Always worked for me.

 

[Squidders]

Normally the blade is stored in the two uprights. They fold around to cover the blade within a groove in them.

Same here and it works perfectly.

 

[Irish_Rover]

i always use electric trunking, i just plug the ends

Plus, using a heat gun to soften it, you can flatten and friction fit stuff i there too (I did this because i couldnt get proper ends for the trunking)

 

[Nomad]

I've come up with a design that uses grooves, so I think I'll be going with that. A couple more questions...

What are the best woods to use for the frame? I'm no wood expert, and I keep thinking of ash, but the local timber place has white oak for quite a bit less (they have it in stock, whereas the ash has to be cut and dressed from a larger piece). It seems to me that the main forces to consider are flexing of the uprights due to the tensions in the blade and cord, and lengthwise compression of the crossbar. I don't know how strong these forces are, other than a vague recollection of the tension in a bow saw I used in the scouts many years ago. Would oak be fine for this?

How solid and structurally stable are typical buck saws? I've never used one, so don't know what they feel like. Is there likely to be any wobble, such that they have to be handled with a bit of care? Or can a fairly basic (ie, imprecise) assembly be used to beast into decent sized logs without worrying about things like the blade going twisty, the bits parallelogramming, etc? I've seen some that just have sqaure notches in the uprights, others with round pegs and round holes, and some that use mortice and tenon. I'd have thought the latter would be best, but is there much difference in practice?

 

[Fraxinus]

I made mine from ash as it was left over from a job. The blade storage at the bottom of the pic is from 2 slices of cedar stitched together with fishing line, it holds both blades (one for green and one for dry wood). I stub tenoned the cross brace and used bolts and wingnuts to fasten the blade as they were on hand.

If the blade is sufficiently taught it will track fairly true but the more you practice the better it behaves, don't white knuckle when you grip it and let the saw do the work.
Oak will do okay (you could try asking a local joinery company for some offcuts of ash with a donation to the tea fund! )

Rob.