Since there don’t seem to be any HASLER LONDON backsaws posted here . . . . . . Recently arrived is a 15 ½” sash-saw, London pattern beech handle 1" thick with 2x (approx) 9/16” fastenings, slightly tapered brass back (23 - 21.5mm), stout plate of (approx) 21-gauge/0.8mm. It's a weighty saw - 2 lbs 1 1/8 oz (just under 1 kg). Dreadful things seem to have occurred to the saw quite early in its long life - its fastenings were replaced by copper rivets & roves, splitting the handle completely through both cheeks. On the plus side, the plate lost remarkably little depth. Stamps are approx 14mm & 13mm long respectively. The mid-tan patina to the back (such of it as survived vendor's abrasion) suggests a bronze-ish, high-tin brass, possibly stored in a dry-ish shed for a very long time. Have thus ordered 9/16” bronze fastenings from Isaac Smith of Blackburn tools. Edit: rebuilt Edit: Blackburn saw-screws cold-patinated nicely: 90 seconds in 10% solution of haematite
. . . approx 1810 location of Hasler's saw-making/retail premises from Horwood's survey of 1799: Wm Hasler (c1774-1839) - whose father Francis (1747-1807) was yet another Old Street saw-maker - was apprenticed to John Moorman in 1789; likely until 1796 or so. In 1802 the famous Moorman iron-founding, blacksmith, & saw-making concern was in the hands of Thomas & John Moorman. Wm Hasler appears in Trade Directories at 120 then 118 Old St. between approx. 1807-1840. Pubs are on the plan because their locations are known, & because: pubs. Hawksmoor’s astonishing, obelisk-spire’d, Parish church of St. Luke’s, Old Street is still - today - very much physically there, tho’ the area was heavily Blitz’d in WW2. Edit: corrected Wm Hasler's DoB/Death Edit: . . . all roads go via Barley . . . a) recently found that a Francis Hasler is recorded at least twice as a father in the baptismal records of St. Peter’s Sheffield; 1777 (described as a saw-plater), then 1781 (saw-maker); b) then re-read Simon Barley’s unpublished thesis, to see the same records quoted.