I know this is a bit run of the mill for Backsaw ... but ... I have a question about Disston #7s. A friend of the family we were visiting said "so - you're interested in saws" ... A visit to the shed revealed some ok 60s/70s saws and one nice old one. It was well in rust - a bit like the first picture - but taking it home I got it looking first-stage reasonable after only an hour or two. Enough to understand what it was and take it back to explain to him. I first thought it might be an english saw, from the handle - but of course it is a #7. I had mentally summarised #7s as - offset handle, kick-down base to the handle, sometimes with a rib in the square coirner, and a lambs tongue. I'm trying to see where the smoothly curved and rejoined handle fits in ... maybe for ripsaws? I could see the lambs tongue not being used in that case ... like the D16s ... but the english had them a plenty ... so .... ? I've added some other examples of #7s ... Thanks, Paul
Hi Paul, I doubt that I can be of much help as I have looked at the Disstonian Institute website re no.7 and D7. saws and stylistically the handle patterns are as clear as mud. The catalogue drawings seems to show all the saws up to 1928 (well, from 1876 onwards) as having lamb's tongues, but the dated photo's tell a different story. Perhaps you can make something out of it that I can't. All I know is that I frequently do double takes when looking at No. 7's on Ebay, as I look at the handles first and to me lamb's tongues = (at first glance), English. As I don't normally "do" Disston's unless there is something extraordinary about them, I am equally as frequently disappointed. Just an aside to finish, Are you saying that the saw in your first photopraph is , or is not an English saw. I would bet an awful lot of someone else's money that it is English Fred
Thanks Fred - I have been just as puzzled. The first picture is the back of the H Holmer saw that you helped me with. I put it in because it is still in rust on that side, and I hadn't taken any pictures of the #7 before I started cleaning it up. Thanks, Paul
I'll try to clear this up the best that I can. No.7s made up until around 1874 had this style handle, whether it was crosscut or rip. After that, up until 1928, rip saws 28" and longer had this style handle. Everything 26" and shorter used this style handle, whether crosscut or rip (panel saw handles were smaller with three screws) In 1928 the No.7 became the D-7 and they all used this ugly thing. Most images from here. Toby
Disston 7 For what it's worth, I was told a few years ago by one of Sheffield's last remaining actual makers of saws that in its very last gasp years, Disston (by then bought up by goodness knows whom) had at least some of its saws made in Sheffield.