Anyone recognise old Brixey floorboard saw.

[68c]

This was at my local bric a brac shop, spent several minutes looking at it wondering what it was while OH shopped for girly things. Delighted to unwrap a pressie and see it again. With better lighting I can now see it is a Brixey Limited, Floorboard saw. From Parkstone in Dorset. On the side there are two holes marked 7/8 and 5/8. I assume these must have been something threaded into the nut to set the depth if cut. Been well used as spindle now very slack and appears to have had two spikes welded in rather clumsily.
Any one know any thing about this.

 

[tonyidle]

This was at my local bric a brac shop, spent several minutes looking at it wondering what it was while OH shopped for girly things. Delighted to unwrap a pressie and see it again. With better lighting I can now see it is a Brixey Limited, Floorboard saw. From Parkstone in Dorset. On the side there are two holes marked 7/8 and 5/8. I assume these must have been something threaded into the nut to set the depth if cut. Been well used as spindle now very slack and appears to have had two spikes welded in rather clumsily.
Any one know any thing about this.View attachment 569718View attachment 569719View attachment 569720View attachment 569721View attachment 569722View attachment 569722

Here's another. I've used one a while ago.

<Broken link removed>

 

[Mark and Mindy]

Interesting. When I was aged 5 my parents had radiator central heating installed in our house by a firm called Husbands in Southampton. One of the installers used a device like that to cut a hatch in the living room floorboards for the pipes to be installed under the floor. At that time there were very few power tools and most jobs were done with hand tools and the use and operation of that strange tool left a big impression on me and I've never seen anything like it untill now. After the hatch was cut I was able to go under living room floor.

 

[David and Sally]

Can't see where the batteries go.

Interesting item.

 

[Silver-Fox]

Can't see where the batteries go.

Interesting item.

It’s powered by Bluetooth electric

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[Taran_Las]

Are you sure it's not for pizza? ​

 

[63720]

Can't see where the batteries go.

Interesting item.

Had one of these, this is the armstrong model.

 

[MisterB]

when i started work as an apprentice plumber, we had something similar, it was mainly used to cut the tongue between the boards. it stopped the boards being butchered when we needed to lift them, never used it to cut across the board itself, we always worked back to a proper joint between two boards. when we replaced the boards after fitting pipework, you could hardly tell they had been lifted,

we also had one that didnt have a saw blade, it was like a sharp blade, but didnt do the job half as good as the one with the saw blade.

nowadays, a plunging saw is often used where the boards need to be 'saved' !

 

[Gellyneck]

Father used to have one but rarely (if ever) used it. Mainly used by sparks and plumbers when laying new cabling and pipework.
Think he "inherited" it from a telephone engineer who left it on the job.
If truth be told he found using a tenon saw (not even a floorboard saw!) much easier.
Nowadays a multitool is the tool of choice with Fein being the go to model.

 

[Lesanda]

Used one regularly when I was a sparky about 300 years ago, thank God that power tools are available these days.

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[andy63]

Those tools were standard part of what we called the hearthstone kit....used to remove floorboards as neatly as possible when dealing with a hearthstone fire..
In the days of open coal fires sometimes the hearthstone eventually cracked and the joists on which it was laid or butted against would catch fire..
They were a pain in the ass to deal with usually having to remove the hearth but common enough in my early days in the fire service..
Andy

 

[Dorwyn]

I've got a similar one I bought maybe 50 years ago. Haven't used it since then, it never occurred to me that someone would find it interesting. Just goes to show. It's not just my tools that are old!

 

[pappajohn]

Too slow for us ...we used a bolster/brick chisel ground to a thin blade and a lump hammer..
Cross cutting floorboards....using the above method spring up the center of a board to check for cables/pipes then hand saw to cut.

 

[68c]

Many thanks for the replies, glad to know I am not the only one interested in old junk. Any idea what the little spring clip underneath is for?

 

[BouncyBoatFolk]

Not forgetting them god awful " Yankee" pump screwdrivers, where the slot head bit instantly slid out out and you punched a hole into whatever you were screwing into!! With today's modern cross head screws, they would probably work, but a drill driver would be my option.
Mike

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[sonar]

Too slow for us ...we used a bolster/brick chisel ground to a thin blade and a lump hammer..
Cross cutting floorboards....using the above method spring up the center of a board to check for cables/pipes then hand saw to cut.

Or don’t check for pipes then laugh at the guy that was doing the cutting when went through a pipe with sparks flying everywhere. …and then realising later it was a live gas pipe.
And yes that really did happen

 

[Dorwyn]

Not forgetting them god awful " Yankee" pump screwdrivers, where the slot head bit instantly slid out out and you punched a hole into whatever you were screwing into!! With today's modern cross head screws, they would probably work, but a drill driver would be my option.
Mike

I've still got two of those too, but I did use them with posidrive bits. So I thought they were great. You could also countersink with them.

 

[68c]

Iv'e still got a box full of air driven ( windy) tools, all out of date since the development of lithium ion powered hand tools.

 

[3 cabbages]

Two plumbers were working in an synagogue.........................................


..............................they got their tools nicked!

 

[68c]

?

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[68c]

Ah, I think my logic circumvented your post.

 

[TheBig1]

Here is a more complete one with the depth adjuster still in place

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As John said above, we found it much quicker to use an old wallpaper scraper sharpened to put an edge on it to split the tongue off the tongue & Groove boards. Popped out the old cut nails, then slid a bar under across the board to enable the hand sawing of the board. Gave a neat finish when re-installed. We also had a floorboard saw that was like a small tennon saw with a curved end and the sharpened teeth ran all the way along the base of the blade and up the front face. It was very thin and had a reinforced spine to resist flexing

 

[MisterB]

the problem with the bolster/wallpaper scraper was that it tended to break the bottom part of the groove joint of the floorboards, yes it worked and yes it was effective, but made a real mess of the boards at times, albeit underneath.

as for the floorboard saw with the curved toothed edge - im sure you can still buy them !

i (as the apprentice) spent many an hour nail punching the nails down so the boards would lift easier, and the method of lifting the boards up just enough to be able to cut them across a joint made it easier to get full boards out when each end was under the skirting boards.

 

[Vikdikdok]

We used to carry one of these on The fire engine as part of the chimney fire kit to cut out the floor boards around the fire to check that no smouldering joists involved

 

[glenn2926]

Those tools were standard part of what we called the hearthstone kit....used to remove floorboards as neatly as possible when dealing with a hearthstone fire..
In the days of open coal fires sometimes the hearthstone eventually cracked and the joists on which it was laid or butted against would catch fire..
They were a pain in the ass to deal with usually having to remove the hearth but common enough in my early days in the fire service..
Andy

Wow you’re are quite correct. I’d forgotten where I’d seen one before.
The hearth kit that’s where .

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[Lenny HB]

Too slow for us ...we used a bolster/brick chisel ground to a thin blade and a lump hammer..
Cross cutting floorboards....using the above method spring up the center of a board to check for cables/pipes then hand saw to cut.

I had a floorboard bolster chisel, in fact I've still got it, it's somewhere under my floor been there for over 30 years.

 

[Coastal Cruiser.]

Popped out the old cut nails,

Have a bungalow I bought a few months back that we have just started to refurb, cut nails everywhere, nightmare trying to get skirting board off without pulling half the wall out
Some of the floorboard are teak and they been well fixed so not much chance of saving many

 

[Dorwyn]

Ps. Does anybody want a vintage floorboard saw and a Yankee screwdriver at a bargain price? Little used in the last few decades

 

[Silver-Fox]

Not forgetting them god awful " Yankee" pump screwdrivers, where the slot head bit instantly slid out out and you punched a hole into whatever you were screwing into!! With today's modern cross head screws, they would probably work, but a drill driver would be my option.
Mike

You leave the pump screwdriver alone.

I made a few quid using one on pricecwork hardwood doors

 

[Speve]

Still got my old Yankee pump in my toolbox when I served my apprenticeship we would drool over them at college on day release, they were quite expensive back in the day and had to save up to buy one

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