The prototypes
are certainly clumsy but surely the idea has merit. I suspect that I personally have well over
two thousand hours on hand saws and do appreciate the natural dynamics of
proper and efficient sawing.
I think that
the back stroke spring is a mistake, but the forward stroke could well use an
assist in reversing and rebounding. It
should speed up the sawing process itself by simply providing superior
continuity.
This has to
be turned into something way more elegant and it will need design effort.
Recoil
Saw bounces its way through wood
By Ben
Coxworth
16:36 December 15, 2010
The working prototypes of John Zimmerman's recoil panel and
hack saws
Using a
hand saw is nobody’s idea of a good time, but one inventor is trying to at
least make it a little easier. John Zimmerman, a software developer by trade,
has created what he calls the Recoil Saw. Essentially, it’s just a saw –
various types of saws, actually – with one or more spring-loaded impact bars
attached to the blade. At the end of each stroke, the spring compresses as the
bar hits the material being sawed, then releases that energy back into the
following return stroke. The idea is that users can pretty much just bounce
their way through cutting jobs, as opposed to having to purposefully stop and
start between every stroke. Zimmerman, who admits he’s probably not the most
unbiased tester, said that he has found it cuts twice as fast as a regular saw.
“I came
up the the idea while working on a separate invention that required
cutting many pieces off of metal bars, with a hack saw and miter box,” he told
Gizmag. “I live in an apartment so using a power saw was not really an option.
I wanted a less exhausting way to cut, and the idea for the Recoil Saw came to me after countless tiring
cuts.”
Zimmerman
has created working prototypes of recoil panel and hack saws, and he has also
sketched out designs for a pruning saw and a file. While the bar/spring
mechanism on his prototypes might look a little cumbersome, his sketches
feature a much more compact mechanism that combines the bar and spring in one
simple unit.
“At this
time, I am looking to find hand tool manufacturers interested in licensing the
recoil saw, which is still patent pending,” he told us. “Of course, to me it
seems like a great idea, who wouldn't enjoy spending less time sawing?”
Below are two videos that he
shot; one of his recoil hack saw cutting through a board, and one of a regular
saw doing the same job. Of course, it's not exactly a scientific testing method
as its impossible to confirm that the same amount of force was being applied to
both saws, but it’s still an interesting comparison.
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