Thread: Who has made a frame saw?

I've made a few. There's a fair amount to think about here.

How wide is the wood you are cutting? I use my 48" saw for resawing woods that are 5-6" wide, and have never felt that it was oversized.

It may be counterintuitive, but the longer length is actually easier and more efficient to use than a shorter saw. It's mostly a matter of balance. Think of the saw as a lever, with the wood you are cutting as the fulcrum. At the end of each stroke, most of the saw is hanging out over the work. To keep the saw balanced, you need to push down on your end of the saw. If the saw is long enough that there is still some unused blade left on your side of the work, you have given yourself a bit of a lever arm to work with. With a shorter saw, that lever arm is reduced. It may not sound like a big deal, but that extra energy adds up after a while.

Additionally, the longer the stroke you can take, the more efficient your sawing will be. I am 6'2", and I have no problem using the full length of the 48" blade in 6" wide stock. I find it takes less effort to cut when I use my whole body rather than moving just my arms. I have no idea how tall you are, but that may color your decision.

0.032" might work for you, but I'd have some cautious concerns about putting a tooth that large in plate that thin. My blade is 0.042" thick. I'll be curious to see if you really can file all of those teeth in with one file. You will almost certainly wring every bit of life out of it. I don't know where you are getting your steel, but if it comes with rounded edges, you will want to file that off before you start toothing. They must make that by cold rolling the edge, which makes it very hard. Once you get past the thin skin of hardness, it works fine.

I use a rake of somewhere between 0 and 3 degrees. If you are cutting really hard timbers, that may be a bit agressive, but it makes quick work of the likes of walnut and cherry.

I'd go with a minimum of 3" wide steel (mine is 4" wide). It really does help the tracking. Conversely, it makes it a bit more difficult to correct if you start going off course. Pick your poison, I guess.

If you're not cutting veneer, then you need ot have some set. I put about 0.015" of total set on mine. It will still cut veneers, but the surface it leaves isn't as smooth as it might be. If you use a narrower blade, you could use less set. Keep a set of wedges handy to keep the kerf open if needed, as well as some wax for the blade.

When you make the blade, consider leaving an untoothed section at the toe or front end. It only needs to be about two inches long. Start your first stroke by resting it on one corner of the work, then pushing forward. The running start makes a huge difference in being able to start smoothly and accurately. I'm not a fan of untoothed blades on backsaws, but the weight, length, and size of the teeth really make this a useful feature for a saw like this.

Workholding is a big issue. I've used any number of vises and clamps on a wide variety of benches before finally coming up with a system that just uses two pegs and a holdfast. If you're interested I can try to get a picture of that later on.

Your bench needs to be rock solid. It also needs to be heavy or somehow anchored to something that is. The big teeth generate a lot of resistance and will move a light bench around.

Whatever you use for hardware should be capable of taking a fair amount of stress. You need to be able to tension the snot out of the blade. I use an eye bolt that is rated for lifting; I don't think the typical bent wire hardware store eye bolt is a good substitute. I use a holdfast inserted through the eye as a lever arm to tension the blade. The arms on my saw are 1 5/8" x 3" straight-grained ash, and they are bowed by a good 1/16" when the blade is tensioned.

I wouldn't dismiss being able to cut veneers by yourself. Whether you're cutting veneers or just resawing, you'll probably want to flip your work around occasionally so you're not cutting blind. You could also consider cutting a kerf around the perimeter of the board at the thickness you want, but you may find that unnecessary with a bit of practice.

You probably already know this, but slow and steady is the way to go with this type of saw. It will wear you out if you try to go too fast; the teeth are big enough and the saw is heavy enough that it doesn't need to be forced.

That's a few more or less random thoughts. Let me know if any of it needs clarification or if it raises other questions.

Thanks Isaac - A couple of questions of speed for you, do you think there's a significant difference in speed between something like an old 3 1/2 point carpenter's saw and a frame saw?

I was planning on 2x1/2 x 2 inch ash (it's left over from a bench), but it sounds like from your experience i may want to move the tooth count up a tooth or so. (steel is coming from mcmaster carr)

Strangely enough, the thing that drove me toward building a new bench is the inability of my old bench to hold wood to resaw. I have a bench capable of holding the work now - fortunately (~400 pounds with 5 1/2 inch square legs).

I'm hoping that filing teeth on the upslope until they're close to full depth with lengthen the life of a file to cut all of the teeth (I've cut full plate depth on rip saws, it's a pain ,but I've done it. Paul McGee here has one of the rip saws I recut teeth on - I don't know if he knows that). Anyway, this will be more teeth than that, it's OK if it burns up a couple of files.

If this completely fails, I'll probably just go to your website and order a blade, i'm just on the other side of the state from you.

(thanks for the tip on the rolled edge, btw, I'll blast it off with an old bastard file before subjecting a good fresh file to it).

Originally Posted by D.W.

Thanks Isaac - A couple of questions of speed for you, do you think there's a significant difference in speed between something like an old 3 1/2 point carpenter's saw and a frame saw?

I'd say there is a fair difference. The teeth on mine are 3 1/3 ppi, which is very close to 3 1/2. The biggest difference is the length of the saws and how much easier it is to use the frame saw. Being able to use both of your arms (and the rest of your body) makes a huge difference in endurance.

Originally Posted by D.W.

I was planning on 2x1/2 x 2 inch ash (it's left over from a bench), but it sounds like from your experience i may want to move the tooth count up a tooth or so. (steel is coming from mcmaster carr)

I'm not seeing the connection between the size of the stock you were planning to use for your frame and the tooth count.

Unless it's changed, McMaster's steel in that size range does come with rolled edges. Depending on the batch, a mill file may not touch it when used flat. I've had better luck using an old (worn out, not NOS) 10" saw file and drawfiling with it standing on a corner (using the face just spread out the force too much). The hardness does vary, though, so a mill file may work on your piece.

Originally Posted by D.W.

Strangely enough, the thing that drove me toward building a new bench is the inability of my old bench to hold wood to resaw. I have a bench capable of holding the work now - fortunately (~400 pounds with 5 1/2 inch square legs).

That should be more than capable of this task. After using the the setup I have now, I will never go back to using a vise unless it is in a dedicated sawing bench or I have some weird shape I just couldn't hold.

Originally Posted by Isaac S

I'm not seeing the connection between the size of the stock you were planning to use for your frame and the tooth count.

Yeah, you're right, that was two thoughts in one sentence. I was thinking of increasing the tooth count because of the smaller size of my plate. Smaller and narrower. I was figuring on something in the 5 degree or slightly less rake, as you've suggested. I have a zero rake 4 1/2 point saw as it stands right now and it's pretty rough to use resawing. It's fast, but harsh and fatiguing.

Thanks for the help. You were right about the rolled edge on the steel. I'll have to tackle that tomorrow or Sunday and figure out what to do for connectors. If the rolled edge proves too much of a pain, I'll belt grind it off and then joint.

Is your setup for holding work on your blog?

I heard, by the way, that you did a nice interpretation of George's handle pattern. Was that you or someone else? If it was you, is it posted in the shop made tool area of this site?

Originally Posted by D.W.

Yeah, you're right, that was two thoughts in one sentence. I was thinking of increasing the tooth count because of the smaller size of my plate. Smaller and narrower. I was figuring on something in the 5 degree or slightly less rake, as you've suggested. I have a zero rake 4 1/2 point saw as it stands right now and it's pretty rough to use resawing. It's fast, but harsh and fatiguing.

Is your setup for holding work on your blog?

I heard, by the way, that you did a nice interpretation of George's handle pattern. Was that you or someone else? If it was you, is it posted in the shop made tool area of this site?

I think you're right about going with slightly smaller teeth because of the thinner plate. Depending on the wood you're cutting, you can go with even less than 5 degrees of rake. Once you get the rhythm of the saw, it cuts less harshly than a handsaw with similar tooth geometry.

I haven't gotten around to posting my workholding on my blog yet. I did take a couple of pictures just now. This is the bench I take to shows, and I keep it at my house in between events. While here, it gets used as a bit of a catch-all, so ignore the clutter on it. The bench is only about 48 " long and 17" wide, so it doesn't have a lot of mass. It is very rigid, does slide around unless I pile weight on the bottom shelf.

The first picture gives a general idea of the setup. There is one peg in the leg and one in the bench top. Both can be adjusted for a range of work. It's really simple but very effective.

I'm left-handed; if you're not, you may be more comfortable with it on the other leg. Truth be told, I don't think I have a strong preference either way, and am not sure if this configuration could accurately be called either left- or right-handed.




The next picture shows how the work is held in place. Well, almost...I usually have a holdfast that goes in the top hole of the leg to hold the work firmly against the bench. It also holds pieces up that do not reach all the way to the floor. One nice thing about this setup is that it holds irregular pieces that a vise struggles to handle. In case it's not obvious, I cut from the end of the bench, not across it.




I did make a saw-plane that used George's handle pattern, and posted pictures of that on my blog this morning. I did PM some of the pictures to George, so if you talked to him it is possible that he mentioned it. I haven't posted pictures anywhere else yet, so here's a few.

Thanks for the info on the saw, and the pictures of the work holding. It looks like a good solution. I may add a dog to the bottom of my vise setup before I do much else. The top will hold work well, but physical restraint in the bottom stringer or in the leg would be nice to protect my screw, I've got plenty of material to spare.

I think (I am being very cheap here) that I am going to find some mild steel to make collars to hold the blade, cut off some 1/4" drill rod and lighten up the frame a little bit to be proportional with my smaller blade. the teeth will be something more like 4 points rather than 3, I'll start aggressive on the rake as per your suggestion. 4 point teeth will be less volume of steel removed than 3 by a fair amount, too. I have heavy taper 8" files to blow, a dozen of them, but I'll have to set them aside and maybe use them later if I follow your design dead on if mine doesn't work out.

I talked to George this evening. He said someone had made a kerf saw (I'm not sure he follows the kerf saw craze too much given he had an apprentice, he was describing what it was and I pieced it together that it was a kerf saw) and used his pattern, and he said "somebody named isaac". I figured it was probably you because he said you did a nice job with it. I agree, of course, but who cares what my opinion is after George has levied his!

Thanks for posting the pictures, looks nice.

(I like the sparse teeth on it and the room in the gullets.)

Originally Posted by D.W.

Paul McGee here has one of the rip saws I recut teeth on - I don't know if he knows that).

I do remember - but given I remember, I'm pretty sure it must still be in the US.
In fact jumping up and down with others saying pay $$s and bring me home.


The links at the bottom of these pages are often interesting.
GraemeCook had a 2010 post on frame-saws that was interesting ... with two good links.

https://www.woodworkforums.com/showth...09#post1218109

Love reading Tage Frid's vehement frame-saw bias.

IanW has made various sizes of bow-saws ... and I think I posted some video links to big resawing saws not too long ago. (RWW eg, I think)

Cheers,
Paul

I've got half the teeth filed in. I have a regular taper 8" nicholson file (three actually) and blew one of them out only halfway in. Years ago I got three for some reason, USA made files. I don't think they last like bahco, I'm hoping to get through all of the teeth with two. I did figure out that the heavier hand I have, the more teeth I get out of each file corner, filing on the upstroke a little, but care has to be taken not to blow past the mark in 20 strokes or so per tooth and it's hard on the hands.

One of the things we can do here, I guess, is get large files cheaply on ebay because they are the one thing existing in NOS that doesn't have great demand. They just don't show up often. (not that isaac doesn't know this already, but it's probably different for guys in oz).

I got a box of a dozen NOS nicholson 8" "heavy taper" files (usa made) two years ago for $25 shipped (box as in a dozen of them). I can't find anything smaller on ebay for less than what it costs me to just get bahco files from auto tool world (or more accurately, to order them online and have williams tool / snap on just drop ship them to me).

Long story short, I can afford to waste the files at this point, they'll otherwise probably get rusty somehow before I get to use them.

Originally Posted by pmcgee

I do remember - but given I remember, I'm pretty sure it must still be in the US.
In fact jumping up and down with others saying pay $$s and bring me home.


The links at the bottom of these pages are often interesting.
GraemeCook had a 2010 post on frame-saws that was interesting ... with two good links.

https://www.woodworkforums.com/showth...09#post1218109

Love reading Tage Frid's vehement frame-saw bias.

IanW has made various sizes of bow-saws ... and I think I posted some video links to big resawing saws not too long ago. (RWW eg, I think)

Cheers,
Paul

I've got some of that ECE stuff (and a couple of shop made frame saws). I'm too far along with carpenters saws to make good use of it, though, I've sharpened it and tried. I really want something better for resawing than a carpenter's saw, but recognize that it will be an infrequent use tool. There's some novelty value to it that I can't deny. If there is some practical payoff, that would be fantastic.

Originally Posted by pmcgee

....... IanW has made various sizes of bow-saws ...

My saws are just tiddlers, Paul! It would be like comparing a ute to a 25 ton truck, holding one of my turning saws up against what is being discussed here!

Each is designed to do a particular job, of course. Rarely does a week go by when I don't use a bowsaw on something, but I have to say, I have no ambitions to make a behemoth for resawing logs or large billets of wood! Much as I like furniture-sized hand-saws, I think I spent too many hours on the end of a 'black snake' as a kid & teenager. Breaking down big chunks of wood by potato power holds no allure for me any more. If I can't heave it over my 17" bandsaw, I break out the Stihl & chew it into manageable sizes that way.

Wellll, just occasionally, I need to resaw some lovely chunk of figured wood for bookmatched panels, & it's too wide to go under the bandsaw (it can handle a fraction over 300mm). The only saw I have that can manage a job like that at all is my nice old Disston progressive-pitch. It gets me there, but 3 1/2-5tpi is a bit fine for cutting through 350-400mm thick material, and a lot of extra work is required just pushing sawdust around. At times like that, I remember watching blokes in villages in Asia converting logs into lumber with their frame saws, & I start to think I should build myself one for the occasional extra-wide rips I need to make. So far, the urge has always abated within a few minutes of finishing the cut.....

Cheers,

I hear you on the bandsaw, I have one capable of resawing, too. This is novelty work at this point.

I originally got the large ece framesaw in rip because I thought it would be a saw that I could get both hands into for ripping, but the reality is that because the blade is on the edge but not in the middle, there's still a lot of torsion on the saw. One hand ends up being the pushing force and the other ends up resisting the torsion. I can't rip faster with it or be less fatigued than a western carpenter's saw, so it just sits now.

I'll eventually dump it.

This frame saw is just a way to do something different resawing boards (which someone doesn't have to do if they have a bandsaw), instead of the carpenters saw. I can roll the bandsaw over and resaw stuff on it, but I LOVE the tactile feel of ripping wood. Some of that has to do with what we have for wood here. Soft maple, cherry, walnut, etc, are fantastic woods to work by hand all around - they chisel, plane and saw wonderfully. To some extent beech and white ash do, too, though both are less yielding to a rip saw.

Carpenter saw actually works pretty well for resawing, though, as one as one chooses one with a big handle so you can get both hands on it and crank.

When I do a project where I drag out the power tools and do the rough sawing/initial dimensioning in a wood that works well by hand, I feel kind of cheated. It takes a fraction of the time, but it's not very stimulating.

Well, Isaac. When I get back around to this frame saw, I'll be ordering another blade - from you this time. I don't have the heart to hand file the teeth on a four foot long plate again.

The one that I've made is crazy fast, but the blade doesn't have enough meat to it to handle the weight of a four foot frame. I could probably try to wedge the crap out of it and really make it tight, but I don't think I want to go much further. It's so aggressive that once it starts to wander it'll just go wherever it wants.

a 4 inch 0.042 plate should have several times more rigidity and much less desire to wander.

I'd venture to guess that on a 7" cherry board, with about an inch cut off by the kerf sawing, the saw will cut better than 6 inches per minute on a resaw, which is nutty fast. It's also wandered off track around that point.

Cutting the kerf presents some technical problems on a very long board, too. I've cut an old richardson saw in half to do it, but it's got a lot of set, which I need to remove. at half an inch deep, stuff builds up in the kerf to the point that I think I'm going to cut a half round section into the very front of the saw to try to get the stuff in front of the saw to get pushed up instead of forward.

Interesting learning experience. A 6" cherry board is a little more than 2 inches per minute with an old disston 3 1/2-4 point saw, and slower than that with a 5 point saw. The speed potential of the frame saw is too much to ignore, especially when I've got a friend who will be taking my bandsaw soon.

Soo....I still wasn't smart enough to order a blade, I got a 10 foot coil of 1095 from a seller called "zoro tools" on ebay. No clue where it comes from, but they milled the edge off so it had a machined edge instead of rolled, and I cut teeth into it. (I have a dozen heavy taper 8" nicholsons, so burning two to cut another saw plate isn't a big deal).

This roll was 4 inch wide and .042" thick stuff as isaac suggested, and the saw works as it should now. I'll put the light blade from the other one in a shorter frame saw at some point, maybe one that I can use sitting.

It's not easy to set the big teeth, takes some grunt on the gold somax. I wonder how much force it takes to break one of those.

Anyway, wish I would've been smart enough to ask about the plate size first before ordering 1095. On the bright side, I have some stock now for smaller saws.

Thanks for the help Isaac.

Any pictures of the said beast?