kennedy hacksaw

[Eric ArthrellParticipant @ericarthrell78468]

Hello fellow swarf makers.

Just acquired a kennedy 60 hacksaw with a Lothian motor "1970 ish would have liked a 90 but quite rare so the 60 will do" waiting on delivery should be ideal for my requirements and a good addition to my small work shops.

Regards Eric

[Eric ArthrellParticipant @ericarthrell78468]

[Martin King 2Participant @martinking2]

Found my Kennedy at an auction described as a 'firewood kindling cutter', got it for £7 + commission!

Cleaned it up and it is one of my most used tools. Odd thing was, about a week before I bought a brand new WARCO bandsaw which now gets zero use!

Funny old world!

Cheers, Martin

[Engine BuilderParticipant @enginebuilder]

"Found my Kennedy at an auction described as a 'firewood kindling cutter', got it for £7 + commission!"

A bit like describing a lathe as a pencil sharpener.

[Eric ArthrellParticipant @ericarthrell78468]

You did really well to get it at that price.

I paid £82 for mine, might seem a lot but I like old machine tools , lets face it you have to pay £1+ for a box of matches and God knows how much for a night out.

If they are still going strong after 50+ years then it good enough for me,

[Martin King 2Participant @martinking2]

Eric, £82 is not dear IMHO, I have turned down £130 for mine as I will probably never find another. I get a kick out of drinking a cuppa while watching it do its thing on a big chunk of material, a bit like watching a shaper.

Cheers,

Martin

[Martin King 2Participant @martinking2]

Posted by Engine Builder on 08/06/2017 08:56:04:

"Found my Kennedy at an auction described as a 'firewood kindling cutter', got it for £7 + commission!"

A bit like describing a lathe as a pencil sharpener.

The best auction mis description I ever had was a lot consisting of a cased microscope and "wooden cased sectioned central heating valves", got it for £70 +comm.

The microscope was a nice Zeiss which gave me a decent profit on the lot but the 'central heating valves' were a beautiful and very rare velvet lined mahogany cased set of Victorian sectioned experimental Artillery Fuze heads from about the Boer war era. They went bonkers when I took them to the Armoury at Lulworth Camp to find out about them, sent photos to the War Museum; got an old retired armourer to come in and look at them, he said he'd never seen the like etc etc.

Finally made nearly £900 on EBay and the buyer drove from Yorkshire to me in Dorset as he would not trust them to any form of courier, did not even stop for a cup of tea, straight back home! Said he would have been happy to bid a lot moe for them.

Mind youI have known of Yorkshire men who get nosebleeds if they come further south than Leeds!

[RobboParticipant @robbo]

""Mind youI have known of Yorkshire men who get nosebleeds if they come further south than Leeds! ""

You mean there IS something South of Leeds – are there Dragons?

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

…You mean there IS something South of Leeds – are there Dragons?

​I believe there is a place called Mercia that has Dragons, with some scattered tribes & mountains… I also understand that there is some marshy place called Wessex further down than that, some big wig local tribal chief called 'Arthur' I hear… we're ok 'up ere in t' north', ave 'ad many a good rave up in our nearest local long house in a place called 'Jorvick'… don't like the idea of having to leave our shields & spears outside though'…

George.

[Eric ArthrellParticipant @ericarthrell78468]

Thank you for your replies.

My best deal was an AVO mk 5? valve tester paid £10 used it for a few years sold it for £500, mind you I do miss it find it hard to let things go .

I don't like buying new like to feel the vibes of old tools etc

possible hoarder in the making ?

[Eric ArthrellParticipant @ericarthrell78468]

Well hack saw arrived quite good condition for 50years old?.

Need to drill and tap stripped motor hold down bolt holes to 6mm

the oil damper operates on the same principle as a toilet flush system ie a thin diaphragm .

I cut a thin plastic disc from a marg tub and placed it between the metal washer and the holed damper block and it now works a treat .

Well pleased.

Eric

[Martin King 2Participant @martinking2]

Eric, Pleased that you gota 'good'un'! Have lots of fun with it.

Martin

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

I bought one of these,brand new for about 120 pounds many years ago and without a doubt it was the biggest piece of crap I have ever owned. OK it worked as stated but so slow it was painful to watch. As soon as Graham Engineering started selling the 150 pound 6″x 4″ I was there.
That machine, in its day probably did more work than the lathe and mill at the time. I well remember 5 gallon drums with the top cut off filled with swarf from the saw.
IIRC I sold the Kennedy for about ninety pounds to some unsuspecting punter.

Somewhere there ought to be a shelf with examples of the crap we used to sell before we started moaning about imports

Things like the Winfield lathe, the Poole lathe and let us not forget the Sooper Adapt

[David Standing 1Participant @davidstanding1]

Posted by John Stevenson on 13/06/2017 08:24:42:

Things like the Winfield lathe, the Poole lathe and let us not forget the Sooper Adapt

John

Is that a modified version of the Super Adept? .

[David Standing 1Participant @davidstanding1]

But seriously, I have a Kennedy, and it is fine in a home workshop, but would be out of its depth in a commercial environment.

[roy entwistleParticipant @royentwistle24699]

There where plenty of them and Manchester and Rapidor used in industry.

Roy

[Clive IndiaParticipant @cliveindia]

I did own one for a while but went for a bandsaw instead. OK for what I wanted to do at the time in the space I had to do it in.

I did change the belt system from flat to V though.

Popular item, sought-after. It was not difficult to sell, but I had grown out of it.

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

At the time mine was in a home workshop environment nothing commercial at that time. It’s output was pathetic, I could actually saw faster by hand

OK some say you can be doing something else whist it’s cutting but I was always waiting for the next piece.

[Eric ArthrellParticipant @ericarthrell78468]

High output or industrial use not really practicable .

But for an old retired fabricator welder who spent his working life chasing time it's relaxing.

to sit on the bench listening to the beat of the little saw whilst drinking a cup of coffee is shear bliss. I do understand that if you have a lot of cutting to do it will most likely be the wrong tool for your needs and a little band saw will knock it out of the park.. but I love it . Eric

[Martin King 2Participant @martinking2]

Eric, +1

Martin

[richardandtracyParticipant @richardandtracy]

Eric, just like a shaper, fascinating to watch, but not very quick.

Regards,

Richard.

[brickyParticipant @bricky]

I was given one and used it for some years but could not leave it for long as the belt slipped.The motor and the saw were original with the belt driven off the motor shaft with aslight crown I presume this was a sleave but I never looked.I gave it to a friend who used the motor in a box on which was mounted his tracked traction engine which drove the tracks for exhibitions,so it lives on in part.

Frank

[Eric ArthrellParticipant @ericarthrell78468]

​Yeah a lot of the old machines have been replaced by faster and more accurate machines and so they should be it is the only way forward .

I just think it is not a bad thing to keep your eye on the past so the old skills are not completely forgotten .

look at the colonial gun smith on youtube as an example .

I will do what I do best and Shut up now about the kennedy hacksaw

Eric

[Clive FosterParticipant @clivefoster55965]

Posted by John Stevenson on 13/06/2017 09:42:04:
I could actually saw faster by hand

No surprise there. A Kennedy uses standard hand hacksaw blades and runs them pretty close to the conservative long life speed. Can't be exact because optimum speed varies for different types and tooth counts. Abuse the blades by cutting a bit fast or, better, use one of the excellent and sadly missed Keranous variable pitch type and you will be faster by hand. For a few. Have a race with 20 or so to do of a sensible solid section say 1" x 1" steel or alloy and the Kennedy will do more than ordinary guy on the hand saw. More accurately too. Neck'n neck after about 5 for me! Really helps if you set the dashpot correctly. Which 90% of users don't. Certainly the one at t'firm never was.

Got one of the early Graham Engineering 6" x 4" POS bandsaws too. Took ages to get it working sort of. After a few more fixit iterations its sort of OK but still can't be trusted to cut straight or not throw a blade. Sits in the corner on its Clive made properly safe stand for very occasional use. Manchester Rapidor does the stock cutting now and a 14" throat Startrite the clever stuff these days. Both proper machines that do what it says on the tin. As did the Kennedy in our little departmental (mostly) trials preparation workshop back at Fort Halstead.

Big issue with the Graham, Alpine branded, saw, like all the original low end imports, is that parts were intrinsically not made well enough or accurately enough to work properly. Low quality engineering for that bit too cheap selling price but not so bad that the customer "up with that will not put" has created a false market in both price and quality standards. Nowadays I have the gear to properly sort the Alpine saw by re-making the whole blade guide system, including re-machining the body, and wheel tilt mechanism so it really works properly. But the game isn't worth the candle having got most of the way there by sporadic efforts over the years. When originally purchased I, like most others couldn't have done that. Maybe £20 on the selling price to do it right at the factory. Graham, Clarke et al did know these saws were not really fit for purpose without a good deal of user re-furbishment when they bought them in showing considerable contempt for their customers. Most especially as there were some good version of near industrial quality around at the time. I was shown one some months prior to getting the Graham one. Rather beyond my wallet, possibly double Mr Grahams price, but certainly around. Showed the owner of the good one mine when asking about blade supplies and he was not impressed and, correctly, predicted the cheapy ones would soon drive out the good versions.

Had a Pools Special myself. No frills, low end machine but more than decent at the actual metal cutting business. Better than a pre series 7 Myford for sure. Cack handed, too fast, direct drive carriage feed certain to drive you nuts until you got your brain re-programmed. As ever at low end its how good you can make it for what the customer can afford using the facilities available. My Pools cut well and accurately so no skimping on the fundamentals. Which didn't stop me swopping it out for a Southbend 9 when one surfaced at the right price. Feed dials, small but still dials. Heaven. Then.

Clive.

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Clive, not far wrong but early on recognised the main faults which were the guide wheels and alignment and cured that by replacing the badly cast and machined guides with custom made steel units with adjustable eccentric bearings and a sub plate for these that could move about 8mm in all directions to guarantee that you could align them.

Decent bearings on the idler wheel and a new box section stand bit built in neat cooling and this thing ran foe ages and in fact it only got replaced in a now fully commercial environment when the 6 x 4 became its limitation and moved on to a 18 x 12

Because of the impending downside the 18 x 12 has to go and will be replaced by another 6 x 4 so life goes full circle

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