I bought this backsaw at a garage sale for a few dollars. It wasn’t broken or anything, but I had often fancied the idea of making a new saw handle.

I based it heavily on the profile from the original handle. This made me more confident that the geometry would be right – the angle of the handle, space for the bolts. This one, however, was done without any power tools.

I cut the basic profile with a coping saw, refined it with a rasp. Once the profile was perfect, I marked the same distance in from the edge around the sides to serve as a guide for rounding them over with rasp and file. With the edges perfectly rounded and shaped, came all the sanding to get rid of the scratches.

So much sanding. The most effective tool here is abranet, as it’s flexible and was amenable to being pulled around all the curves.