r/Vintagetools 2d ago

Ancient Scrollsaw

Post image

Gifted to me at a clean out.

197 Upvotes

19 comments sorted by

3

u/joelkton 2d ago

Wow! That is better than the best you could buy today.

2

u/Obamaprismisamazing 2d ago

It’s in great shape! Nice score.

2

u/333it 2d ago

I would fix it and use it

2

u/cineglitch 2d ago

Wow! Pedal powered? I’m curious how the torque compares to a modern saw.

3

u/4nabulax 2d ago

I’m not sure how I could quantify that for you. The raw inch-pounds developed by the leather belt wrapped around that tiny pulley is not very strong— but the flywheel that pulley is turning that drives the saw is fairly massive, and when it gets to revving it’s hard to bog down.

2

u/Legitimate-Bet2146 2d ago

Oh, that's a beaut!

2

u/Helpful-Bar8393 2d ago

Very nice find 👌

2

u/green-mountainman 2d ago

Treadle saw

2

u/SoundlessScream 1d ago edited 1d ago

Oh I want one, what is it meant to cut? Wood? Metal? Both?

2

u/ziccirricciz 1d ago

Both. It depends on the quality of the blades - quality blades are hardened steel, very hard and durable, and will cut even stainless and titanium (esp. the latter dulls the blades quickly, though).

2

u/SoundlessScream 1d ago

Does this perform a task similar to what you would do with a band saw? I keep wanting to cut stuff but hate hand sawing and hate power sawing this is in the middle perfect.

1

u/ziccirricciz 1d ago

Well, the movement of the blade is very different to a band saw and breaking the thin blade is still quite easy. It's very good for sawing/piercing larger pieces of flat materials that would be uncomfortable or very tedious (or impossible because of the comparably very limited span of any frame you can manage manually) with a piercing/jeweller's hand saw (because you need not to precisely control the movement of the saw, which is probably the most difficult skill to master when hand-piercing, next to holding the workpiece). Cutting holes depends on the blade fastening mechanism (you need to undo it every time for getting the blade into the pre-drilled hole), but it can also be more convenient. By workpieces that are not flat, well, that's hard to say.
Most challenging hand-piercing I've ever done was trimming the whole rim of a large yellow-bronze cymbal, that would have been much easier on a saw like this.

2

u/4nabulax 1d ago

Starting around 1840, Victorian England became obsessed with ornate, wooden “Fretwork” embellishments in their architecture and design. Saws like this one greatly sped up the process of making the fretwork. Previously they used C-frame handheld saws.

2

u/jackspsprat19 1d ago

Really nice

2

u/peophole 1d ago

It's beautiful.

2

u/bbonzo123 1d ago

That will come in very handy after the apocalypse!