A nice R Groves and sons, 28" Rip saw. The horns on the handle are shortend, but are quite rounded, implying that it was probably deliberate. The handle is also small and has to be held with a three finger grip. The tooth count is very low and erretic, I haven't decided what to do about that yet, but I have straightened the saw. It has a nib, is clearly stamped and has split nuts, but there are a lot of Groves and sons in the directory so not sure on age. Can someone explain what the USE and what the symbol is? I assume it's not a ladies brazier but could be a pair of specticles. If this is the case is this the start of the health and safty culture we live in. One point of interest is the stamp,(see the last pic where I've tried to make it clearer with a negative image) I have to say it's not much clearer in real life. There appears to be some additional stamping below the Sheffield, it looks like "WARRANTED", but it is a lot lighter than the main stamp. Also there is somthing else stamped between the sheffeild and the warranted and is overlapping the top edge of the warranted, and the last word is clearly steel. Any thoughts welcomed.
Hi Lui, I can't help you on any of the questions you ask, but if you go to page 2 of the topics, halfway down you will see an item by Joe which says a lot about Groves and with some variation of the steel quality markings but nothing that seems to fit yours. If you go to Ray's item no.8 you will see a link to a not altogther serious comment on the "USE" stamp. Hope it helps until some proper advice appears. Fred
I have an identical saw (largely used up and not as good as Lui's), also with the _very_ faint partially discernable WARRANTED and indistinct other text. Obviously Groves had a problem with their stamping.
Hi Peter, Thanks for your post, very interesting. I thought that mine might be a mistake and re-stamped, but your saw throws up other possibilities. It seems unlikly to me that two saws of the same type and with the same obliterated stamps would turn up after this amount of time on the same website, unless there were quite a few like it at the time. This may suggest that a significant batch of saws were stamped, either lightly or the stamps were removed and then stamped with the Groves stamp. I see no reason for having two weights of stamps on the same saw. The original saw blades could have been manufactured by another company and rebranded, or were a batch made by Groves that straddled a change over in the company and were updated in line with new stock. Can anyone tell me what the "glasses" mark is meant to be? All very interesting. cheers lui
Hi Lui, I don't think that I can help you with the overstamping, except that I did read somewhere, possibly on this site that taper grinding often removed part of the of the stamp, which is why so many stamps or parts of them are indistinct. Perhaps a heavy handed taper grinder obliterated the stamp necessitating a re-stamp. It would be much more advantageous to have the company name on the blade in readable letters than the type of steel that it was made of. Hence one distinct, one indistinct. Unlikely but you never know. As for your spectacles I attach some photos of the trade marks index from Whites 1879 which shows the stamp as a graphic mark as opposed to a partial stamp on a blade. It may be that it was some early ad.man's idea of an eyecatching design. If you look on the second photo you will see on the same page other graphic designs whose reasons have been lost in the history of time, or there was no reason except that it distinguished them from their rivals in the eyes of a largely illiterate population. (I have also found some spectacles for you in the same publication.) As to USE, I have no idea. Fred
Thanks Fred, I can now see (without my specs) that it is just a graphic logo and not trying to represent anything. I also agree with you that it may just be an issue of machine grinding on the heavy side, I hadn't thought of that. Is it your book that the referances are from? And is the advert for groves on page 18 of any interest? I do find it particularly interesting the choices of imagery for the trade marks, there are some odd one, but I suppose they did stand out from the crowd. cheers lui
The stamp on my Groves 22" crosscut is the same as yours, with "DOUBLE REFINED SPRING STEEL" and "WARRANTED" as the fine stamps below the main stamp. Handle is similar shape, but only 3 split-nuts (1/2" dia at nose and big 5/8" dia for medallion and lower split-nut) Medallion and big split-nuts suggest to me a saw from later in Groves' production
Kiwi, the saw I put up is the 4 screw model, so if the 3 screw model was also afflicted, then the QC problem went on for a long time. Unlikely the blades were re-struck after taper grinding especially for such a long period - a few maybe whilst they sorted out the problem. There was a good reason why they struck the blades before grinding; and adopted etching (done after grinding obviously) despite the costs attached.
Hi Kiwi & Peter, The number of nuts is often dependent on the length of the saw. 28" would often have 4 nuts while the 24" and smaller would have 3. The size of nuts does make a difference but I'm not sure if they got bigger or smaller over time. With three saws, all showing light and heavy stamping, this seems to suggest it might have been a common practice at groves. I'm not sure why you would lightly stamp the steel quality, as this must be a positive sales point. When you look at the groves dates, it hard to see how they are claiming 1770 for establist, but record may have been sketchy at the end of the 18th C. Only ever more questions! cheers lui
The lighter stamping of "warranted" "cast steel" etc , compared to the heavier stamping of the manufacturer's name and town, seems to be common practice on my old saws from all sorts of makers, including also stamping of backsaw backs. I think its just style.