There was a suggestion to use a high quality coarse blade, like a Starret.
I'll give that a try. If I can do 1 square inch in 2 minutes, or even in
5 minutes, that will be great!


If you're using a Starret blade you might have trouble with the cut. A
Starrett blade, though, should be fine.

I'm not nitpicking here - there's a story involved.

Douglas R. Starrett was my father in law. He was quite a guy. Began working
for the company in the toolmaking program in 1941 and, except for the WW2
years, was there until he died in 2001.

He was up at the house one day, and I kidded him about the guys in the shop not
being able to spell the company's name correctly. I showed him a carbon steel
hacksaw blade marked "Starret". He was immediately all over me, wanting to
know where I had gotten it, what the package had said, and so on. He relaxed
only when I explained that it had been in my grandfather's tool chest and
probably dated from the 1950s or earlier. He said with evident relief that
there had been some counterfeit blades on the market then which they thought
had originated in Mexico. He said that the US on the blade was also a
giveaway, as the Starrett company always used the full "USA".

Then there was the time I saw a spray can of WD-40 on his kitchen counter.
Starrett makes a competitor to it, M-1, which is a bit heavier and has greases
and waxes in it that make it a lubricant and long-term rust preventative, but
it is used for many of the same purposes. When I asked him why the WD-40, he
replied that he had gotten it for his mother, who was in her 90s at the time.
I was confused, and asked him why he would buy it instead of M-1 and just what
the hell his mother would need it for anyway. He laughed and replied that the
DMSO in the WD-40 seemed to help with her arthritis. First time I ever heard
that one.

John Martin