page_title: Hacksaw
section_title: Blades
hierarchical_section_title: Hacksaw / Design / Blades
caption_attribution_description: English: Barjan 075160 replaceable blade hacksaw.
context_page_description: A hacksaw is a fine-toothed saw, originally and mainly made for cutting metal. The equivalent saw for cutting wood is usually called bow saw.
  Most hacksaws are hand saws with a C-shaped walking frame that holds a blade under tension. Such hacksaws have a handle, usually a pistol grip, with pins for attaching a narrow disposable blade. The frames may also be adjustable to accommodate blades of different sizes. A screw or other mechanism is used to put the thin blade under tension.
  On hacksaws, as with most frame saws, the blade can be mounted with the teeth facing toward or away from the handle, resulting in cutting action on either the push or pull stroke. In normal use, cutting vertically downwards with work held in a bench vice, hacksaw blades are set to be facing forwards.
context_section_description: Standard hacksaw blade lengths are 10 to 12 in (250 to 300 mm). Blades can be as small as 6 in (150 mm). Powered hacksaws may use large blades in a range of sizes, or small machines may use the same hand blades.
  The pitch of the teeth can be from fourteen to thirty-two teeth per inch (TPI) for a hand blade, with as few as three TPI for a large power hacksaw blade. The blade chosen is based on the thickness of the material being cut, with a minimum of three teeth in the material. As hacksaw teeth are so small, they are set in a "wave" set. As for other saws they are set from side to side to provide a kerf or clearance when sawing, but the set of a hacksaw changes gradually from tooth to tooth in a smooth curve, rather than alternate teeth set left and right.
  Hacksaw blades are normally quite brittle, so care needs to be taken to prevent brittle fracture of the blade. Early blades were of carbon steel, now termed 'low alloy' blades, and were relatively soft and flexible. They avoided breakage, but also wore out rapidly. Except where cost is a particular concern, this type is now obsolete. 'Low alloy' blades are still the only type available for the Junior hacksaw, which limits the usefulness of this otherwise popular saw.
  For several decades now, hacksaw blades have used high speed steel for their teeth, giving greatly improved cutting and tooth life. These blades were first available in the 'All-hard' form which cut accurately but were extremely brittle. This limited their practical use to benchwork on a workpiece that was firmly clamped in a vice. A softer form of high speed steel blade was also available, which wore well and resisted breakage, but was less stiff and so less accurate for precise sawing. Since the 1980s, bi-metal blades have been used to give the advantages of both forms, without risk of breakage. A strip of high speed steel along the tooth edge is electron beam welded to a softer spine. As the price of these has dropped to be comparable with the older blades, their use is now almost universal.
  The most common blade is the 12 inch or 300 mm length. Hacksaw blades have a hole at each end for mounting them in the saw frame and the 12 inch / 300 mm dimension refers to the center to center distance between these mounting holes.
  The kerf produced by the blades is somewhat wider than the blade thickness due to the set of the teeth. It commonly varies between 0.030 and 0.063 inches / 0.75 and 1.6 mm depending on the pitch and set of the teeth.
caption: Small hacksaw (also known as junior hacksaw). The teeth of the hacksaw blade point forward, away from the handle.
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