Backsaw

Backsaws are made with a reinforced blade to ensure a high degree of rigidity for precision cutting of dovetails and the like.  Backsaws are also the kind of saws used in mitre boxes.

This saw carries a “Distton Canada” medallion.  Henry Disston was born in England but apprenticed in Philadelphia where he opened a saw shop in 1840.  He didn’t have an easy time initially:  his shop burned down three times.  In 1855, Disston became the first saw manufacturer to produce his own crucible steel. This was the factor that made Disston the most successful saw manufacturer in the U.S. The Morrill Tariff Act of 1861 greatly increased the cost of imported steel, making it impossible for other saw makers to compete with him.  The company supplied many steel products to the Union Army during the Civil War, and invested their substantial profits back into the factory.  The company became Henry Disston & Sons in 1871, and over the years absorbed many other smaller tool makers which made them able to offer a wide variety of hand tools under different brand names.  A common one was was “Keystone Tool for Saw Work” or a figure of a scale inside of a keystone outline (see illustration below).   

At its peak, Disston employed 8,000 workers and its facilities covered a 300 acre site in Northeast Philadelphia.

 

Sadly, the company’s fortunes declined as too much money was paid out in dividends to wealthy family members and too little reinvested in capital improvements.  Following World War II, the 19^th century machine tools in the factory could not compete economically with the new plants that had been built in Germany and Japan.  The company was bought out by H.K. Porter Co. of Pittsburgh in 1955, which sold off most of the assets and moved production to Danville Virginia where they continued to market saws with the Disston name, possibly until 1975 when they were bought by the Swedish saw company Sandvik. Today the company is called Disston Precision Inc. and is owned by  R.A.F. (Robert A. Fox) Industries of Jenkintown, Pennsylvania.