Gang Saw Thin Rasp

Intro: Gang Saw Thin Rasp

One of my favourite tools is my Japanese Shinto rasp. It is a precision piece of kit and it is one of the best rasps I have ever had but it is some times just a little too big, and other times a lot too big. This little tool make it into the spaces where the bigger rasp will not go. It could be thought of as a manual dado blade. This version permanently sticks them together with spacers and accurate width. You can shortcut this instructable by grabbing a handful of hacksaw blades and taping them together for a quick and dirty solution.

STEP 1: Get Some Cheap Blades

I bought a pack of a dozen hack saw blades from a two dollar store. For this one I snapped three of them in half to give me 6 blades 150 mm long.

STEP 2: Glue Them Together

Now I glued in some thick art paper as spacers. This allowed me to use fewer blades for a thicker cut. Using thicker, thinner or even no spacers will give slightly different results. The spacers were also needed here because I had all the rounded ends together so I could have a smooth end. this made the tooth direction and set run in opposite directions resulting in the blades not interlocking when put together without spacers.

Then I glued them all together. To do this I just held them flat and together with some spring clamps and wicked in the superglue. Doing it on piece of loose plastic will stop it marking or sticking to your desktop. The piece of plastic in picture 2 was a short bit of packing tape I had recently ripped of the top off a box.

A bit of electrical tape on the end covers the sharp bits.

This one is a handy size for cleaning out slots for ukulele nuts and other tight places the big rasp will not go.

More aggressive and durable than a bit of sandpaper glued to a stick.

This one would require more patience than I possess if used to make a finger or box joint but if you bought blades with a lower tooth count and built a frame saw to hold them it might prove more practical.

Comments

[egallet]

I could have used this idea yesterday! Good idea. I bet you could stack up jig saw blades in a similar matter for use on holes to shape.

[oragamiunicorn]

Good idea.

At the stage that the blades are spaced apart, clamped together and glued, why not put two holes through and bolt together . It would be stronger than glue alone I'd have thought. I can imagine that from time to time the bolt would get in the way, in which case you could just take them out (it would all still be glued so you're no worse off). Also those bolts could be used to attach a handle.

If the bolts don't fit the use, then a second suggestion would be to glue a piece of wood with the same width as the saw on the opposite side to the teeth, this would add strength and could be used as a handle

[titchtheclown]

At the moment the glue seems plenty strong enough, particularly because of the large surface area. Also because these are cheap blades they are quite brittle and might snap if drilled. Using bolts through the existing holes on the full length blades is a great way to keep them alligned while gluing.

A handle might be a good idea if using it for any length of time but for the moment it is small to get into tight spaces and do small jobs. This means I use it fairly often but not for very long. To do big jobs I use my big rasps.