Thread: Bush millers and the others - Help with retoothing please?

Crosscutting Ironbark sounds like a job for chainsaw!
Is the wood green or dried?
Are you thinking of handsaw or crosscut saw with an M-tooth pattern and rakers?

Clinton, if you are planning on bucking small logs around 100-150mm diameter with a handsaw, then I reckon a pretty coarse pitch will be the go, say 4 or 5tpi. (For larger baulks of timber, you would probably be better off with a small one-man 4 or 5 footer, which will likely have "M" teeth, so you would just follow the existing sharpening angles.) Ordinary crosscut saws aren't as sensitive to rake angles as rip saws, and you can vary the rake angle quite a bit without noticing much difference. I suggest you try a pretty standard angle of around 15 degrees which is as a good a place as any to begin. Fleam angles can be anywhere from 15 to 45 degrees, but again, I'd start with a 'standard' angle somewhere in the 15-20 degree range and see how you get on.

Rip handsaws don't come much coarser than the 3-5tpi progressive pitch beauties, and that's probably because at that pitch they take a fair bit of effort to send through a chunk of dry hardwood. Green wood is another matter altogether, and you could get away with a coarser pitch if that is your quarry. For dry wood, I would recommend a rake angle of no more than 5 degrees for dry wood. If you experuiment with rake angle on rip saws, you'll quickly discover that a few degrees can make a big difference to how nicely the saw cuts.

For dry hardwoods, you should aim for a set that gives you a kerf at least 15% or more wider than the saw plate. For greed wood, you need much more, up to 50% wider (measured in dry wood).

Those are my opinions based on my own experience, other mileages will vary.....
Cheers,

Originally Posted by hiroller

Crosscutting Ironbark sounds like a job for chainsaw! .....

Yep, have to agree that when serious cutting up of dry hardwoods is required, I resort to a bit of fossil-fuel burning!

But if you want the exercise, I'm in full support, and any firewood you cut by hand will warm you twice....

Cheers,

Thanks to you both.
I need to have a think on IanW's post... Ian, your first paragraph, are the angles you typed for a M toothed saw?
My main aim is a small kerf as possible, and its not always convenient to take the timber to a bandsaw.

Originally Posted by Clinton1

... Ian, your first paragraph, are the angles you typed for a M toothed saw? ....

No, Clinton, I was thinking about 'ordinary' triangular teeth. Although as a teenager, I dragged M-toothed saws through more logs than I care to remember, I had no interest whatever in tending to the damn things, so I know zero about sharpening large crosscut saws. The old pot saw to all that.

Originally Posted by Clinton1

... My main aim is a small kerf as possible, and its not always convenient to take the timber to a bandsaw....

Or possible, if it weighs a few hundred kilos...!
Kerfs are going to depend on the thickness of saw you use, plus set. If it's green or relatively moist wood you intend cutting, you will have to go with more set than you would need for dry wood. However, it shouldn't be a big deal, the kerf from any handsaw is going to be no more than a couple of mm, unless it's some almighty monster of a saw you are contemplating....

Cheers,

Clinton

Just a word of warning with retoothing large teeth. There is a lot of filing involved. If you can possibly get somebody to retooth for you, I would. That aspect might be relatively cheap from a professional set up. The last time I did something of this nature I took in excess of twenty five strokes of the file for every tooth.

That was just shaping before sharpening!

Regards
Paul