My saw’s all have black handles (black). Really, there is not time
on my bench to fuss about changing blades and apart from that I have
no conscience at all about breaking blades.
It is mostly the person driving the saw not the frame.
Hint, if you do not have brand X lubrication for the saw blades use
"lipbalm".
Back to the saws frames, when those are to be ordered next could you
please ask for handles that are coloured. It will just save time and
sell more saw frames.
Agree with you here. Why always black? So many useful tools are in
eye blinding colors, jewelry tools should be the same. Imagine file
handles color coded to their cut. Grabbing that #2 or #4 would be so
much easier. For now, I use colored rubber bands. Kind of like wine
glass jewelry.
Like you, I keep several saw frames, each strung with a different
blade. (Wish ALL the frames were NC saws, sigh) To identify the
blade sizes, I wrap a bit of masking tape on the frame top, which is
most visible to me, and write the blade size in large characters.
Both sides of the frame are labeled. Works for me.
Colored handles would be more quickly visible, but then I’d have to
remember which color designated which size blade, so I would still
be labeling the saw frame!!
What would be more helpful would be if saw blade sizes were
color-coded. I know. Not likely to get coordination among all the
makers, but one can wish.
Judy in Kansas, who needs to do some serious weeding and mulching.
The original KC saw handles were colored. (Red) All we ever heard
was that they should be clear lacquered wood instead. Eventually, we
gave in and gave people the “wood” handles they wanted. (The red
ones were the exact same piece of wood, just painted red.)
Speaking as a production guy for the moment, I can guarantee that
the the reason they’re pretty much all black is just inventory
management. Our handles have a lead time of 2-3 months, on
quantities of many thousands. There’s no way that we want to ride
herd on supplies of six different colors, and I can promise you
absolutely that the tool dealers don’t want to fuss with it either.
Imagine having to tell customer that you can’t sell them a saw
because you don’t have it in blue, but you do have it in hot pink.
Not something I picture them being too keen on.
For that sort of thing (not that we don’t want to sell you many
different saw frames) but for that, you get to exercise some of that
famous jeweller-ly creativity, and color them yourself. (If you were really gung-ho, you could take one apart, take it to an anodizer,
and have them strip the frame and re-color it. But that would be Waaaaaaaay beyond any sort of sensible answer.)
Personally, I use spraypaint to ID tag the handles of my hammers, or
other things that are likely to end up out at school.
(Anybody sees hammers with two red stripes surrounding a silver
stripe, they’re mine, damnit!) (all of your hammers are belong to
us.) Even my fretz hammers, and that felt almost sacrilegious. For
those, I painted them on by hand, with a brush. Thought about gold
leafing, but that seemed a bit over the top.
Imagine file handles color coded to their cut. Grabbing that #2 or
#4 would be so much easier. For now, I use colored rubber bands.
Kind of like wine glass jewelry.
While on the subject of saw frames, I wonder if there is a reason
why all the saws have the wing nuts on the left side. They frequently
hit my knuckles on a long stroke or when holding a 3D piece.
Could they be made with the wing nuts on the other side? Or is that
impractical? Just wondering.
Marking of tools, just for personal studios, can be done quickly
with electrical tape, which comes in black, white, red, orange,
yellow, green, and blue (I think that’s it). That is enough of a
range for lots of different saw blade sizes, if marking sawframes or
saw blade containers. Just wrap and they’re ready. I’ve used this
kind of tape to color code many different tools. For example, I have
lots of hex wrenches for different tools (Fretz mallet, Bonny Doon
anticlastic ring former, gravers block, etc.), which I tape and add
a bit of color matched tape on the tool itself. Pliers are color
coded for shape; handles are wrapped. Helps to find (and store)
these tools on my benches.
For teaching, I mark every tool of mine that I need to bring with me
with paint, or if not paint, then electrically engraved with my
initials. Most of the time, this has worked!
Personally, I use spraypaint to ID tag the handles of my hammers, or
other things that are likely to end up out at school.
Try using strips of colored electrical tape; it’s not as messy,
permanent, or time-consuming as painting. That’s how most of us
Event riders mark our buckets, tubs, and other items (even bridles)
so they don’t get mixed in with other people’s at our barn or at a
competition. We try to use ones that match our cross country colors
(finding hunter green and burgundy is hard though).
While on the subject of saw frames, I wonder if there is a reason
why all the saws have the wing nuts on the left side. They
frequently hit my knuckles on a long stroke or when holding a 3D
piece. Could they be made with the wing nuts on the other side? Or
is that impractical? Just wondering.
We, here at Knew Concepts have made it a point to make all of our
products easily “switchable” to the other hand. It has been so
ingrained into our philosophy that we have stopped mentioning it,
and just assumed that everyone knew about it.
In the case of the saws, rather than flipping the screws around,
simply “remove and replace” the entire clamp mechanism at the top
and bottom, and voila. you have just changed the orientation of the
clamps.
Just another example of a company thinking about how our tools are
used.
Personally, I use spraypaint to ID tag the handles of my hammers,
or other things that are likely to end up out at school.
I use automotive touchup paint to mark tools. It comes in a million
colors, is really durable, and each bottle comes with it’s own brush
(like nail polish).