The prototypesare certainly clumsy but surely the idea has merit. I suspect that I personally have well overtwo thousand hours on hand saws and do appreciate the natural dynamics ofproper and efficient sawing.
I think thatthe back stroke spring is a mistake, but the forward stroke could well use anassist in reversing and rebounding. Itshould speed up the sawing process itself by simply providing superiorcontinuity.
This has tobe turned into something way more elegant and it will need design effort.
RecoilSaw bounces its way through wood
By BenCoxworth
16:36 December 15, 2010
The working prototypes of John Zimmerman's recoil panel andhack saws
Using ahand saw is nobody’s idea of a good time, but one inventor is trying to atleast 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 barsattached to the blade. At the end of each stroke, the spring compresses as thebar hits the material being sawed, then releases that energy back into thefollowing return stroke. The idea is that users can pretty much just bouncetheir way through cutting jobs, as opposed to having to purposefully stop andstart between every stroke. Zimmerman, who admits he’s probably not the mostunbiased tester, said that he has found it cuts twice as fast as a regular saw.
“I cameup the the idea while working on a separate invention that requiredcutting many pieces off of metal bars, with a hack saw and miter box,” he toldGizmag. “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 tiringcuts.”
Zimmermanhas created working prototypes of recoil panel and hack saws, and he has alsosketched out designs for a pruning saw and a file. While the bar/springmechanism on his prototypes might look a little cumbersome, his sketchesfeature a much more compact mechanism that combines the bar and spring in onesimple unit.
“At thistime, I am looking to find hand tool manufacturers interested in licensing therecoil saw, which is still patent pending,” he told us. “Of course, to me itseems like a great idea, who wouldn't enjoy spending less time sawing?”
Below are two videos that heshot; one of his recoil hack saw cutting through a board, and one of a regularsaw doing the same job. Of course, it's not exactly a scientific testing methodas its impossible to confirm that the same amount of force was being applied toboth saws, but it’s still an interesting comparison.
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