Hammond Glider Saws- My Incomplete Guide.

[crzypete]

Hey Junkies, Many of you know my rather intense obsession with the Hammond Glider saw (I've owned 16 different ones). I have been thinking sometime about putting together a little Hammond Guide to help share some of the knowledge I have learned through the years.

I have decided to do this as a locked thread, with a post dedicated to each saw model. I expect to gain more information from other readers, and will be happy to add addendum's or edit the thread. So feel free to post comments outside of this thread.

For those of you who have not yet encountered the Hammond, here's a bit of background.

The Saws were originally intended for the print trade, to cut type. Toward that end, they are graduated in pica. 6 Pica= approx 1 inch. They were used to cut and trim type for an older technique of printing called letterpress. The way the saw is intended to be set-up is with a 6-7" saw blade for cutting, and 3 High Speed Steel trimmers which poked through the blade and would do a precision trim. These trimmers are not pertinent to the woodworkers use of the saw, and I would recommend removing them.

The saws were very meticulously designed and manufactured. Hammond seemed to be constantly trying to improve on their saws with each successive model. Even the early models were extremely tight with multiple systems to account for wear of parts so that accuracy could be maintained through many years of service. The earliest patent number I have found dates to 1924.

The heart of the Hammond Glider Saw is the sliding table. Hammond made a couple of lesser models, The Ben Franklin, and the Mercury which featured crosscutting via a fence that rides in a slot- more like a traditional table saw miter-gage system. I will cover these saws for a post, but they are certainly less sexy that the gliders which I have more knowledge of and find more pertinent. Hammond used a number of designs through the years and I will cover them on a saw by saw basis. For the most part the sliding table will cut almost 19" at full blade height, a substantial amount for such a small machine.

The largest blade that can be fit onto a glider is 7 1/4" blade. Even at this size blade some of the saws require slight modification. A 7 1/4" blades protrudes about 1 3/4" from the table. Here's the cool part though. Unlike a conventional saw, the hammond has it's blade mounted to a face plate, this allows trimming at full blade height- over 4". This is an extremely useful feature as you can band saw close, then dial in a big chunk of wood on the hammond.



It seems the biggest publication on the hammond was an article by Fine Woodworking. In my mind this article was a poor interpretation of the saw. It advised the conversion of the saw into a 10 blade with conventional arbor, and poorly converted it into a rip saw as well. The hammond is uniquely designed to crosscut and is a great addition to a more conventional saw, I don't think I could operate without both. I don't like the FWW article and advise against the conversion of the hammond into a poor compromise between what it is and what it shouldn't be.

I guess that is it for now. From what I have already written, I am going to need to snap some photos and back up my text with some images. More to come.

Pete

[crzypete]

The hammond came numerous accessories and attachments. These beautiful cast iron pieces help the saw optimize its performance. The two basic items which were meant to be on the saw everyday were the finger and the clamp.

finger


clamp


The finger is indexed to the fence and moves along incrementally so you can dial in a cut. The bronze thumb button is a quick release that will let you slide it anywhere along the scale, or simply remove it.

The clamp is slightly spring-loaded, and will hold the smallest sliver of work- less than 1/8" when used in combination with the finger. The clamps L shaper foot hooks over the finger for tight wor.

the last accessory which is always attached to the saw is called the batter gauge. It seems it was an option on later model saws. I find it a very useful accessory. It flips up from below the table to the right of the blade, and allows multiple cut-offs of small increments.

batter gauge


Most of the rest of the accessories were supplied on a board. As they would be added to the saw as needed.

here is a complete hammond board


The top two accessories are the most useful to the modern day woodworker. The top right is the "extension finger" a distorted finger which adds about 40 pica (6 2/3") to the fence. It clips on top of the scale.

On the top left is the "Miter Vise" which is used in conjunction with the "finger" and allows very tight miter work to be done.

On the middle left is the "Trimmer Tool Grinder" this would be used in conjunction with a grinding wheel mounted to the other end of the saw arbor and would be used to sharpen the cutters that poked through the blade.

Lastly on the bottom left is a precision "Trimmer Setting Gauge" This is heavily overbuilt chunk of cast iron that is used to precisely set both the saw blade and the trimmers. It has a step on the right most face of the block allowing the slight difference to be set between these two cutters.

The rest of the items on the tool board are wrenches and a saw blade, pretty standard stuff. This leads us to the final hammond accessory, the equivalent of hammond nirvana: the "Any Angle Miter Vise". This slick device allows the cutting of very acute angles, and provides some very cool stops and clamps to facilitate repeatability and safety. Although it sounds like a great accessory, I have found its usefulness to be less than perfect for woodworking. It starts at 20 degrees, and I find this to be less than adequate for most woodworking operations.



Most of the accessories had serial numbers unique to their saws stamped on them. If you want to get insane about collecting you can make sure all your numbers match up. This is probably a road not many of us should go down

[crzypete]

Due to a request and the rarity of the accessory, i am writing up a dedicated post to the Any-Angle Miter Gage. It is a kinda rare accessory, I bought mine on eBay because I had to have it.

Now having owned it I have found its usefulness to be less than perfect for woodworking. Although it can cut a very acute angle, it doesn't start until 20º, kinda misses a lot of the angles I need to cut. The rest of it is kinda cool and well done, lets take a look....

Mine actually came with the original box


with the original tag and serial number. I have no idea what model D is, perhaps the model of the any angle. If the serial number is in line with the saw ones, this thing is quite old.


It fits kinda neatly in the box in fact, it even screws to the bottom. Unfortunately the accessories kinda roll around. I heard one theory that this may have been what was in the forbidden suitcase in the movie Pulp fiction.


The plate on the gage


It mounts the saw via that strange tapped hole by the fence. Of my two saws, only one has that hole- My two primary saws are very late model and I theorize they may have started to leave it off at some point- of course the higher serial number saw is the one that has it, so maybe that is not the best theory.


It mounts with the finger scale and it tilts out with the little lever to the left of the name plate.


One of the stops has serrated teeth which mesh into the brass pica ruler on the fence of the any-angle. here is a pic of the teeth.


and installed. Those damn picas again. FYI, i am not planning on retrofitting the Any-Angle- I'd rather build a whole new system. I do like the fact that is has a stop though.


Next up is a clamp. I believe this is supposed to clamp your workpiece, but it could also double as a stop that was not beholden to the fixed pica scale.


The last little odd feature is a cam type clamp to grab workpieces near the blade. This thing is pretty cool, especially for grabbing small things like, hmm I don't know.....maybe type or printing borders?


there is a second foot for the clamp to get to smaller pieces. The round bar has a cam on the end which bears down against the foot to clamp it- it also tends to gouge the foot. As you can see it has not really been gouged that much- most likely because it has not been used that much.


And finally a pic of a very acute angle. If you need to cut something like this, it could be the bomb, but for my everyday angles, it seems to be a bust. It is still kinda nice to have in the drawer though!

[crzypete]

In my travels i have found a number of different Hammond models. I am going to cover a number of them in the following posts. As an overview, here is a list and some notes.

G22 An early version of the G2 benchtop
G2- A benchtop glider.
G3- An all cast floorstanding glider.

G4- A new incarnation of the floorstanding glider. The earlier G4's had cast iron bases, while the later ones went to the more modern sheet metal weldament.
G4B, G40B, G44B- just like the G4, but with steel insert ways. the two higher numbers had an extended finger scale.

BGR 78- The last incarnation of a benchtop glider
G100, G140- The last incarnation of the floorstanding glider. The G140 had an extended finger scale

Ben Franklin and Mercury- Two saws that did not feature the rolling table- they used a t-slot system.

Serial Numbers- here are ranges that I have noted. As far as I can tell they are chronological. Any one who can extend the dates, please PM me.

G22 203
G2 865-979
G3 501-1485

G4 1548-4141
G4B 4788-8199

G100 8837-13677

[crzypete]

I believe the G2 was made at the same time as the floorstanding G3. The saw pictured for this thread is serial number 979. I also own G3, serial number 892- so this is good evidence towards this end.

The blade raises and lowers via a handcrank, just like a standard saw. I do not believe the raising and lowering knob on this example to be original. The base is a generous piece of cast iron.


the side view. You can see the odd table shape. The table is actually four sections. The paint is definitely not original- I repainted it. The cast iron styling is quite cool.


From behind, I don;t believe it to be the original motor either. The clamp is pretty much the same as all of the more modern saws.


Coming back around the front. The chip drawer is missing on this saw- you can see where it would be on the side. The finger is a unique configuration on this and the G3, it is actually locked onto the fingerscale- that is the two odd notches on the fingerscale. i will cover the weird fingerscale better on the G3 which I have in house and can photograph easily.


A front on view. How Cute!


Unfortunately, I have not seen too many examples of this saw, so not much to say. The ways are cast iron and probably tended to wear, but it does feature all of the standard hammond wear take-up adjustments.

On edit, There is currently a fine example of a G2 with an original base on eBay. I poached the pics and here they are.

[crzypete]

I am amazing myself by actually writing more to this thread. I am selling my oldest saw- a G3 serial number 892, and took some time to photograph it.

The G3 is an all cast iron base saw. This cast iron base carried over into the early G4's. What is unique about the G3 is its blade raising mechanism which is a dovetailed way which raises the blade and motor in a vertical line.

The ball bearing retention system is also unique on this saw. It uses hardened steel shares which are bolted to the castings and have aged white well despite the age of the saw.

The finger is a bit unique in that it has tabs which prevent it from being removed except in the extreme left position.

The clamp and miter vise are remarkably similar to the future incarnations.

The batter gage is missing on my saw and rode in a groove on the top.

The chip bucket is accessed through a door.

The top is planed rather than ground and has a resulting pattern. It is divided into four areas rather than the more modern three, and has a serial number and model number stamped in the left front corner of the right front section

Pictures (***as a note, I have done one of my inch conversions to the pictured saw, so the ruler leadscrew and brass button on the finger are not original****)