Farm Mechanics: Machinery and Its Use to Save Hand Labor on the Farm.

by Herbert A. Shearer

Setting a Circular Saw.—A good saw-set for a circular saw may be made out of an old worn-out flat file. Heat the file in the forge fire to draw the temper and anneal it by covering it with ashes. Smooth it on the grindstone. Put it in the vise and file a notch in one edge. The notch should be just wide enough to fit loosely over the point of a sawtooth. The notch should be just deep enough to reach down one-quarter of the length of the tooth.

Make a saw-set gauge out of a piece of flat iron or steel one inch wide and about four inches long. File a notch into and parallel to one edge at one corner, about one-sixteenth of an inch deep from the edge and about half an inch long measuring from the end. With the home-made saw-set bend the saw teeth outward until the points just miss the iron gauge in the corner notch. The edges of the gauge should be straight and parallel and the notch should be parallel with the edge. In use the edge of the gauge is laid against the side of the saw so the projecting tooth reaches into the notch. One-sixteenth of an inch may be too much set for a small saw but it won’t be too much for a 24-inch wood saw working in green cord wood.

Jointing a Circular Saw.—Run the saw at full speed. Lay a 14-inch file flat on the top of the saw table at right angles to the saw. Move the file slowly and carefully towards the saw until it ticks against the teeth. Hold the file firmly by both ends until each sawtooth ticks lightly against the file. A saw in good working order needs very little jointing, but it should have attention every time the saw is set and it should be done after setting and before filing.

Filing a Circular Saw.—The teeth of a crosscut circular saw point a little ahead. Sometimes they point so nearly straight out from the center that you have to look twice to determine which way the saw should run. There are plenty of rules for the pitch of sawteeth, but they are subject to many qualifications. What interests a farmer is a saw that will cut green poles and crooked limbs into stove lengths with the least possible delay. A saw 20 inches in diameter will cut a stick eight inches through without turning it to finish the cut. The front or cutting edges of the teeth of a 24-inch crosscut circular saw for wood sawing should line to a point a little back from the center. This may not sound definite enough for best results, so the more particular farmers may use a straight edge. Select a straight stick about half an inch square. Rest it on top of or against the back of the saw mandrel and shape the forward edges of the teeth on a line with the upper side or rear side of the straight edge. The teeth will stand at the proper pitch when the saw is new, if it was designed for sawing green wood. If it works right before being filed, then the width of the straight edge may be made to conform to the original pitch and kept for future use.

The gumming is done with the edge of the file while filing the front edges of the teeth. It is finished with the flat side of the file while filing the rear edges of the teeth. The depth, or length, of the teeth should be kept the same as the manufacturer designed them. A wood saw works best when the front edges of the teeth have but little bevel. The back edges should have more slant. The teeth should have three-cornered or diamond-shaped points. Needle points break off when they come against knots or cross-grained hardwood. Short teeth do no cutting. Single cut flat files are used for circular saws. The file should fit the saw. It should be about ¹⁄₈″ wider than the length of the front side of the teeth. The back edges require that the file shall have some play to show part of the tooth while the file is in motion. Large files are clumsy. The file should be carefully selected.

Figure 96.—How to Sharpen a Hoe. Grinding a hoe is difficult, but filing it sharp and straight at the cutting edge is easy. If the hoe chatters when held in the vise, spring a wooden block under the blade. Use false vise jaws to prevent dinging the shank.

How to Sharpen a Hoe.—It is quicker and more satisfactory to file a hoe sharp than to grind it on the grindstone. The shank of the hoe must be held firmly in the vise and there should be a solid block of wood under the blade of the hoe, a little back from the edge; to keep the file from chattering. A single cut flat file is the best to use. It should be long enough to be easily held in one position to make a smooth, even bevel at the same angle to the face of the blade all the way across. To make sure not to file a feather edge it is better to joint the hoe to begin with, then to stop filing just before reaching the edge. If the edge be left ¹⁄₆₄″ thick it will wear longer and work more easily after having been used an hour or two than it will if the edge be filed thin. This is especially noticeable when the ground contains small stones. Hoes are sharpened from the under side only. The inside of a hoe blade should be straight clear to the edge. Hoes should always have sharp corners. When working around valuable plants you want to know exactly where the corner of the hoe is when the blade is buried out of sight in the ground.

Shoeing Farm Horses.—Farmers have no time or inclination to make a business of shoeing horses, but there are occasions when it is necessary to pull a shoe or set a shoe and to do it quickly. Shoeing tools are not numerous or expensive. They consist first of a tool box, with a stiff iron handle made in the shape of a bale. The box contains a shoeing hammer, hoof rasp, hoof knife, or paring-knife, as it is usually called, and two sizes of horseshoe-nails. Sometimes a foot pedestal is used to set the horse’s front foot on when the horse wants to bear down too hard, but this pedestal is not necessary in the farm shop.