Upcycle a Handsaw Into a Weather Station

We love to go to garage or yard sales and pick through the vast array of old, used and worn out items. Once in a while we'll find a gem in the midst of all that chaos; one that will spark an idea or bring to fruition an idea we've had for a long time. In the case of this handsaw weather station it is the latter.

We'd been toying with the idea of making a unique weather station for quite a while. It wasn't until we visited one particular barn sale this summer that we knew exactly what we wanted to do. Amy had found an old handsaw. The teeth were a bit worn out and some were even broken off, but the blade was long enough and wide enough to give us a perfect canvas to start with. And since one of my passions is woodworking it seemed like a perfect fit.

It wasn't until later that same day that everything came together. While visiting an estate sale we happened across an older weather station that had all the dials we were looking for already in it; a thermometer, hygrometer and barometer. That sealed the deal and we didn't waste any time figuring out how we wanted to mash this all together.

This project is unique to us, but hopefully it will inspire you to upcycle some old yard sale items into something new and useful for you.

Make sure you watch the video, as it shows a bit more of each of the steps.

Step 1: Cleaning Up the Saw

The first thing we did was take the handle off. For the saw we purchased this was extremely easy. Two bolt and nut combos were the only thing holding it on. Then we sanded the whole blade down with 220 grit sandpaper. We didn't go overboard, just enough to remove the rust and weathering.

Step 2: Removing and Prepping the Gauges

Next we took the already assemble weather station we had found at the other sale and popped all the gauges out. On the one we had it was just a matter of pulling out some pins that were lightly glued in and then prying the tabs open and pushing out the gauges. We also cut the outer tabs off so the gauges would lay flat in the saw blade.

Step 3: Tracing the Holes for the Gauges

Since the original pretty much had the gauges laid out how we wanted them, we just transferred the circles onto the blade. Simple enough.

Step 4: Cutting the Holes

There was probably a better way to cut out these holes, but I just reached for the angle grinder and had at it. It worked well since you won't see the butchering I did anyway. We cleaned it up a little bit with a file as well.

Step 5: Preventing Future Rust

After all of the holes were cut out we added one coat of a spray on clear coat to both the blade and the handle to prevent future rust and weathering.

Step 6: Reassembly and Prepping for Gauges

Once the clear coat dried, we reattached the handle and roughed up the edges around the holes. We roughed up the edges so the epoxy we used to attached the gauges would hold better.

Step 7: Inserting and Securing the Gauges

We used a standard 5-minute epoxy to attach all the gauges. We mixed it up, put it on the outer rim on the back of the gauges and then inserted them into the holes. All of them were either held down with a heavy object or clamped and left to cure for 5-10 minutes.

Step 8: Adding the Spacer Block

The only other thing to add was a spacer block on the back. This is to prevent the components (which were exposed on our gauges) from touching the wall. This was just a small block of hardwood that was also epoxied on. It is roughly the thickness of the back of the thickest gauge.

Step 9: All Done!

That's it. As far as upcycling projects go this was extremely quick to make. The whole thing took us about 30-45 minutes. It will most likely hang in my shop for the time being, but will hopefully make its way onto the front of our garage once we find our future home.

We hope you enjoyed this DIY project and the video that goes along with it. If you have any questions or comments please let us know, we'd be more than happy to help you out. Thanks for checking out this Instructable.