Thread: Saw filing guide

A while back, there was a Briggs saw filing guide posted on this forum. I had been working on something along those same lines at the time, and that guide provided some new direction. After a bit of experimentation, I came up with the filing guide shown below.


A brief description: Markings for fleam are at every 5 degrees (from 0 to 45); markings for rake at 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30 degrees (and can easily be interpolated between these). The file holder compensates for the tapered tip of most files, so that the axis of the file is parallel to the longitudinal axis of the guide. It can hold files ranging in size from 4" needle files to 6" regular taper or 7" slim taper files. This covers just about any western saw you would ever want to file. Rake, fleam, and the file holder are all adjusted with one common hex key.

For those interested in seeing more about how this works, here are the instructions.

In the first picture below, the first two have handles of apple, the middle two are walnut, and the two on the right are cherry.

Those of you who become squeamish in the presence of sharpening guides, jigs, and other gizmos may wish to avert your eyes at this point...


rm-ii-1.jpg rm-ii-3.jpg rm-ii-group.jpg rm-ii-large-file-parallel.jpg rm-ii-small-file-parallel.jpg



Thanks for looking.

Isaac