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Peerless-Racine hacksaw out of stroage

magneticanomaly

Titanium
Joined
Mar 22, 2007
Location
On Elk Mountain, West Virginia, USA
I rescued a Peerless-Racine power hacksaw from the scrapyard, shortly before I moved to my present location 30-some years ago. Building a little shed space last Summer combined with needing to cut some 2" shafting for a customer a few weeks ago, combined to motivate me to take it out of storage.
It's on the ground now.
Looks like it takes a 14" blade.
Final drive bull-gear rim is intact, but no longer attached to the hub. I do have the spokes, but not the pinion, so will probably replace it with a vee-pulley.
One of the ears that hold the vice nut was repaired by brazing long ago, but the other one needs it.
There is a loose serrated wedge that, from reading other power-hacksaw threads I suppose has something to do with return-stroke blade lift
Surprisingly, the shaft turns freely and the hacksaw frame slides, but the arm does not want to lift. Perhpas it is latched somehow.
Looks like there is an oil pump in the base, but it was not immeduiateluy obvious how it is driven.
Does someone here know how Peerless, Racine, and Peerless-Racine are related?
I guess there is a clutch inhte shaft hub that is kicked out to stop the machine when cut is complete?
 

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There were quite a few machine tool manufacturers in Racine. I am not familiar with Peerless. I have a 14 inch Racine power hacksaw. It looks quite different from yours.
 
The arm lift may work correctly only in the intended rotation direction. You might check on that. The serrated wedge often interacts with a hardened blade type feature on the frame or frame linkage.

What I have seen on various saws is that the hardened feature is lifted by the closest serration of the wedge, so that it is progressively lifted by lower and lower serrations as the cut is made. The "wedge" is driven by a cam on the driveshaft, engaging the feature only during the lift, and retracting slightly so as to allow the frame to engage at lower and lower serrations.

The cutoff is often electrical, triggered by the arm falling down after cutting completely through the material. You might look for a pushrod going to a switch, which is pushed on the back-stroke when the arm is all the way down. There may be a slightly different system on that machine, as I have not worked on them.
 
Thanks for the info! I had ass-u-med that the names Peerless and Racine reflected different stages in the evolution of more-or-less one company. B ut I have noticed that my machine has features i have not seen on photos of "Racine": saws.

I think mine was a lineshaft drive, so shutoff would logically be by a clutch rather than a switch, but i do not have nealry enough parts moving freely to be sure yet.

Wish I had an electrolysis tank big enough for the whole machine!
The Google search I should have already done reveals a Peerless Industrial Equipment Co in Oshkosh, that apparently still makes power hacksaws. I sent them an e-mail, and i will report whether they feel warm and fuzzy about their old products, or wish they would hurry up and finish rusting away so that I would buy a new one.
 
Here's my Racine 8-16 after a complete rebuild by me. The hydraulic feed and pump were completely filled with corn, and several dead mice, all well mummified from the oil inside. Several parts were broken, but I took it apart and got it running. It's an awesome cutting saw. Very straight, so I don't waste a lot of expensive material, and it cuts faster than any good quality bandsaw I know. I use Starrett Red Stripe blades in it. They made a significant speed and cut-quality improvement over the blade you see in the picture. I cut 7.5" and 5" round bar, as well as 6" X 12" structural box 1/2" wall frequently with this saw.

People don't give these heavy duty hydraulic hacksaws enough credit. They're fast, take up half the space of a horizontal bandsaw, and I roll it out with a pallet jack, use it, and put it right back in it's hiding spot when I'm finished.

Good luck with yours.
Racine done.jpg
 
We bought a company/shop up in Long Island New York in 2006 and merged it with our shop here in Texas. We bought them for their product line and cliental, but 1/4 of the equipment was inoperable, and better than half of the rest was barely hanging on. They had 2 or 3 old smaller power hack saws that in the chaos of moving ended up going to the scrap man instead of on the truck. It was my dad's call and his concern was their wear, efficiency compared to our other band saws, and the safety of the arm moving around (similar to people shying away from a shapers ram). We had other machines that did make the move, but still ended up being scrap metal anyway. I kinda wish we had saved one of those hack saws.....
 
My family had a Peerless power hacksaw slightly newer than this one. it was worn out but still a cutting son of a gun! It was wicked! It wasn't for non-experienced person to run. That saw was dangerous in the wrong hands! We cut a lot of iron on that saw.

As JST said, it has a paw serrated rack set up for the feed mechanism that feeds the blade in the cut. And it did cut! There was a cam on the crank shaft that fed the paw on the serrated rack. Those paws were prong to wear and would wear out. I don't recall us ever replacing them over the years we had that saw. I recall the strokes per minute was around 50-60. It was fast! Had a water pump from a swamp cooler in the sump providing coolant for the saw.
 
My Racine had been lineshaft driven, but the clutch and drive pulley were missing. It has no motor, coolant pump, or electric. I added a motor and used a steel rod mounted in the blade frame to trip a shutoff switch, which is a standard light switch mounted in a waterproof exterior switch box. I didn't bother with a coolant pump. If I ever need one I would use a small submersible pump, like used on tile saws.
 
I have a little newer Racine W66 power hacksaw made by Racine Tool & Machine Co. I believe mine was built around 1960. I do like the saw and use it on a somewhat regular basis. It was purchased about 8 years ago as a backup when i had several large jobs going at the same time.
While I do like the saw in reality it is considerably slower than the Startrite H175 bandsaw sitting next to it. The Racine has 2 speeds of 100 and 140 strokes per minute. Given a 5" stroke it cuts at a little over 58 fpm. The bandsaw cuts at 3 speeds of 60 fpm, 100 fpm, and 160 fpm.

As mentioned at one time there were several equipment manufacturers out of Racine Wisconsin. Among them were Racine Tool & Machine Company, Racine Hydraulics & Machinery Inc., and Racine Malleable and Wrought Iron Company.

Here are a couple pictures of the machine.
 

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Here is a picture of my 13 x 16 Peerless made between 1922-25. It's the big brother to yours.
 

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