Tail Blazer Take Down Buck Saw Modifications

A few weeks ago I got a Trail Blazer Buck Saw to use as my main bushcraft and backpacking saw. You can see the overview here.

After some work with the saw, I started to get a bit annoyed with the fact that once assembled, one of the handles stuck out on the top and bottom of the saw. This extra material makes it harder to work in tight spaces, and for me personally, made it harder to handle the saw.

So after some though, I decided to put the saw on a diet and remove some weight.

I took the long handle of the saw (the one that sticks out), and made a mark right where the saw blade attaches to the handle. I took a file (it was the only tool I had available for cutting metal) and started cutting at that line.

After cutting off the bottom piece, the place where the saw blade attaches to the long handle should look exactly like it does on the short handle.

Here you can see the saw assembled again after removing the bottom piece.

Next, I took apart the saw and put it back in its folded position. I measured so that when folded, there was a two inch overlap between the long handle and the short handle. I then cut off the top piece from the long handle. It is important that you leave enough material when cutting the top part so that the two handles will overlap when the saw is folded.

Here you can see the saw assembled after both the bottom part and top part are removed from the long handle.

You will notice that now when the saw is folded together, there is nothing to hold the two sections together, since they only overlap by two inches.

What I did to remedy the problem was to wind up some duct tape on the short handle, so that when it slides into the long one, it creates a tight, friction fit. This way the saw can stay in your pack without the parts moving around.

It is also important to remove the cap (it was not easy) from the top part of the long handle, which you cut away, and place it back on to the remaining piece of the handle. If you do not, the contents of the saw will fall out.