Thread: Hand saws

There are a couple of saw makers on this forum. They will likely comment on this post and their comments will be far more valuable than mine.

But since you asked...

Many manufacturers today are making hand saws that I think would equate to "Fine Woodworking Tools". Most of those companies are making brass-backed saws, while far fewer are making full sized hand saws. Lie Nielsen and Pax are the big two which come to mind for full-sized saws of a decent quality. As far as brass-backed joinery saws, there are many. Lie Nielsen, Pax, Lee Valley/Veritas, Bad Axe, Wenzloff (who also makes full sized hand saws), Blackburn, and many, many others. I think that you could make a pretty good argument that, beyond a certain point, the actual functionality of the saws themselves are pretty similar. You eventually reach a point where you're paying more for things like handle material, the style of nuts holding the saw together, the minutiae of the fit and finish, and, of course, the brand name itself. I think it's safe to say that the brass backed saws being made today are of the same or, in some cases, superior quality to anything on the vintage (1950s or earlier) market.

Not the case with the full sized hand saws. The few companies making them today don't seem to get reviewed very well. My (limited) understanding is that the process of taper-grinding a saw plate is very specific and requires a set of machinery which is uncommon in today's industrial world. To do it properly is an art, and there aren't many people getting it right today. Someone may correct me on that.

So with the full-sized hand saws I go vintage, and I think the overwhelming majority of woodworkers today go for vintage as well. So as far as which manufacturers? Simonds, E.C. Atkins, Pax, Spear and Jackson, and maybe a couple of others which aren't popping into my head are major players in this ballpark. Of course there are others which weren't as mass produced, but I guess those companies I mentioned had the market during their day. The one company, however, which I think you're likely to see the most saws from, generally speaking, and also my personal favorite, is Henry Disston and Sons. They were an American company based out of Philadelphia from 1841 to the late 1950s when they were sold to Sandvik. Henry Disston was the first person to make a hand saw from all American-Made materials, and he was quite possibly the first person to cast crucible steel in the U.S. Admittedly, I'm American, so the Disston story is, quite literally, close to home, but it can't really be argued that they made fantastic saws. The two user saws in my shop right now were both made in Philly between 1878 and 1888 and they're still going strong. If you want more information on Disston, check out this site: http://www.disstonianinstitute.com/ . A Disston saw can range from a couple of thousand dollars for an older, less common saw to a $5 yard sale find that can be polished up and be put to work for the next century.

As far as handle material, Apple and Beech are going to be the most common on vintage saws. I've discussed the "why" with a few people and, other than the fact that they're both pretty woods and they are both relatively stable hardwoods, the fact that they became the norm is likely just a matter of tradition which developed. At some point someone probably tried to make a handle out of Maple or something and no one bought it so, there you go, Apple and Beech it is. I do think, however, that it's safe to say that most hardwoods will work for a saw handle, and I think this is evident today by the sheer number of handle woods which are being used. Anything from rainforest hardwoods to rock-hard desert scrub trees to deciduous giants are being used with great success on beautiful, long-lasting saws. As long as the wood will shape and sand well, hold a finish nicely, feel good in the hand, and have some durability and longevity, you're in business.

My AU$0.02

Hope that helps a bit.

Cheers,
Luke

Wow.Quite an impressive reply Luke. Yes i gathered the usual suspects have a certain appeal for their style/feel/design & user friendliness. I have a couple or so dozen old Disstons & Spears which haven`t seen the light of day for about 30 years as having been packed away after the old man passed on.Entering into retirement mode i figured apart from other things to do,it might be a good idea to unwrap them & see what needs doing. i `ve never used them relying on a modern day Sandvik or two in the times i`ve needed to hand saw. Well, some food for thought.Many thanks.

Can't really add much to what Luke said, except that as a sometime sawmaker, I can safely say that making a backsaw is relatively easy, compared with full size handsaws. The mechanics of a short(ish) saw stiffened by a spine means you don't have to worry too much about tensioning the blade. I do add a bit of tension to some of my saws, but not sure I can tell the difference between a tensioned or non-tensioned saw in use.

That certainly isn't the case with a handsaw. The two features that make such a saw good to excellent are taper grinding and tensioning. I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but sometime after WW2, as hand saw use declined precipitously, both features were either ignored completely or done so poorly that you could say they became extinct, even on brands that hitherto had enjoyed a good reputation. I sometimes use a modern 'hard point' handsaw, and although it cuts ok, it's like pushing a lifeless thing compared to any of my pre-war Disstons.

It's pretty easy to pick a tensioned saw from a clunker - it has a 'ring' to it in the cut, & you can bend the blade to a seemingly impossibly-tight curve & it will spring back straight. An old sawdoc I knew used to 'test' a saw by bending the tip to touch the handle. If it didn't spring back to straight, or snapped, it was obviously a cull. Can't imagine doing that to customer's saw! I certainly haven't been game to do that to any of my own old Disstons, but they would probably take it...

Taper grinding is the icing on the cake - a saw can work ok without it, but tapering the blade lightens it, and reduces the amount of set required to allow it to cut freely.

There are all sorts of myths & folklore around saws, and I suspect a goodly proportion of them are based more on imagination than demonstrable fact, but in essence, for any sawing task, you need to match size of saw, tooth pitch, & tooth pattern (rip, crosscut, rake angle) appropriate to what you want to cut. If you choose well, and if the saw is well-sharpened & set to a degree appropriate to the wood you're sawing, you can experience a revelation, something like the first time you get a plane to cut really sweetly...

I'd reckon that if your old-pot's stash includes a bunch of pre-WW2 Disstons &/or Spear & Jacksons, you most likely have yourself some pretty fine hardware...

Cheers,

Likewise from Luke,a really useful & interesting answer. Thanks Ian. Doubt i`ll be giving them a 'twang' test. Suffice to say the brand name will tell me all. At least i know what to look for & be able to clean them up. Thanks.

Newer lee valley or lie nielsen. Older western style pretty much anything before 1970... I personally prefer Japanese saws and Lee Valley. Disstone are over rated . There used to be bunch of saw makers at the same level. Spears Jackson is a good example...(they won the gold medal at the tolls exhibiton back ih the days, and NOT Disston!). But, again , not all models are the same, not all years are as good...preferable is to hold it in your hand before buying anything... See the feel of it...

Which disston saws are overrated? The panel and carpenters saws are as good as anything ever made. The backsaws are a bit fat, but functional.

Apple is the best wood I have ever used for handles. I'm sure disston went to the extra expense to get it (and if you see the trees that they used, you'd get the sense that they must've thrown away tremendous amounts) for a good reason, at least on their nicer saws.

I don't know how they dried their apple, but air dried apple especially has a quality for working by hand that nearly nothing else has. It's strong, it looks great (no pores), it carves easily, and it's forgiving for machines working against the grain, etc.

As for types well... a bare minimum would be ....
backed saws:
Dovetail saw 10"
Carcass saw Rip
Carcass saw x-cut
Tenon saw rip
Mitre saw and mitre box

non backed saws:
toolbox saw ~16"
panel saw rip 20"
panel saw x-cut
hand saw rip 28"
hand saw xcut 26"

Speciality saws:
fret saw
coping saw
jewelers saw
keyhole saw
stair saw
Hacksaw

and many others (butchers saws, ship saws etc.) of course most of these can be doubled for hardwood and softwoods with different tooth counts... at least that's the excuse i use.
Have fun

I'd cut that back (bare minimum) to:

* relaxed rake filed 10" or 12" hand saw - somewhere around 13 points. That would cut
* rip carpenter's saw at 6 points or 7 points
* 10 or 11 point crosscut filed carpenter's saw, full length
* a hardware store coping saw, and hardware store blades are fine, too (you can sharpen them before use).
* a hack saw with a solid back (that helps you spawn more metal tools).

A cheap breakdown saw (like a hardware store saw) could be bought if one is crosscutting large or dirty lumber to break it down, but I've found that even on those, I've bent teeth and then I have to throw the saw away. They do cut fast, though.

Of course, none of us really work minimalist like above. I could do everything I've done with the kit above, though, except perhaps resawing wide boards.

There are a lot of other tools to buy to work by hand other than saws if someone is starting out, it can be pretty daunting just to spend the time to find them, and some of the premium versions offer nothing over vintage (I've heard mixed comments about LN's panel saws, for example, but that's not to say they aren't a quality good, it's just the era in which they're built and the size to which they're built. They'd be more useful if they were full sized).

Originally Posted by Luke Maddux

There are a couple of saw makers on this forum. They will likely comment on this post and their comments will be far more valuable than mine.

But since you asked...

Many manufacturers today are making hand saws that I think would equate to "Fine Woodworking Tools". Most of those companies are making brass-backed saws, while far fewer are making full sized hand saws. Lie Nielsen and Pax are the big two which come to mind for full-sized saws of a decent quality. As far as brass-backed joinery saws, there are many. Lie Nielsen, Pax, Lee Valley/Veritas, Bad Axe, Wenzloff (who also makes full sized hand saws), Blackburn, and many, many others. I think that you could make a pretty good argument that, beyond a certain point, the actual functionality of the saws themselves are pretty similar. You eventually reach a point where you're paying more for things like handle material, the style of nuts holding the saw together, the minutiae of the fit and finish, and, of course, the brand name itself. I think it's safe to say that the brass backed saws being made today are of the same or, in some cases, superior quality to anything on the vintage (1950s or earlier) market.

Not the case with the full sized hand saws. The few companies making them today don't seem to get reviewed very well. My (limited) understanding is that the process of taper-grinding a saw plate is very specific and requires a set of machinery which is uncommon in today's industrial world. To do it properly is an art, and there aren't many people getting it right today. Someone may correct me on that.

So with the full-sized hand saws I go vintage, and I think the overwhelming majority of woodworkers today go for vintage as well. So as far as which manufacturers? Simonds, E.C. Atkins, Pax, Spear and Jackson, and maybe a couple of others which aren't popping into my head are major players in this ballpark. Of course there are others which weren't as mass produced, but I guess those companies I mentioned had the market during their day. The one company, however, which I think you're likely to see the most saws from, generally speaking, and also my personal favorite, is Henry Disston and Sons. They were an American company based out of Philadelphia from 1841 to the late 1950s when they were sold to Sandvik. Henry Disston was the first person to make a hand saw from all American-Made materials, and he was quite possibly the first person to cast crucible steel in the U.S. Admittedly, I'm American, so the Disston story is, quite literally, close to home, but it can't really be argued that they made fantastic saws. The two user saws in my shop right now were both made in Philly between 1878 and 1888 and they're still going strong. If you want more information on Disston, check out this site: http://www.disstonianinstitute.com/ . A Disston saw can range from a couple of thousand dollars for an older, less common saw to a $5 yard sale find that can be polished up and be put to work for the next century.

As far as handle material, Apple and Beech are going to be the most common on vintage saws. I've discussed the "why" with a few people and, other than the fact that they're both pretty woods and they are both relatively stable hardwoods, the fact that they became the norm is likely just a matter of tradition which developed. At some point someone probably tried to make a handle out of Maple or something and no one bought it so, there you go, Apple and Beech it is. I do think, however, that it's safe to say that most hardwoods will work for a saw handle, and I think this is evident today by the sheer number of handle woods which are being used. Anything from rainforest hardwoods to rock-hard desert scrub trees to deciduous giants are being used with great success on beautiful, long-lasting saws. As long as the wood will shape and sand well, hold a finish nicely, feel good in the hand, and have some durability and longevity, you're in business.

My AU$0.02

Hope that helps a bit.

Cheers,
Luke

Luke

I agree with others coments: An impressive post.

I think Disston sold out to HK Porter in 1955 and there was a general downhill trend in quality from there on. Sandvik bought out HK Porter in the 70s: Possibly 1978. As you mentioned, the Disstonian Institute is a wonderful reference. I just wish there was something of that depth for all the saw makers. I and a friend in the US have pieced together quite a deal of information on Simonds and that reminds me that I must update the thread I started on the Simonds story here on the Forum. Ahh... so many things to do and so little time.

One project I have on the back burner is I have quite a large number of bare sawplates and I am planning on re-handling them. It will be interesting to see just how much interest there is. I hope to rekindle the hand saw. I think everybody should have at least one such saw (re-sharpenable that is) in their possession. I know you have a few.

Regards
Paul

Rehandling carpenters and panel saws is an interesting prospect, it'll be interesting to see how they turn out. Over here, it's difficult to get wood that looks good/original compared to what the saws came with, and it's a large slot to cut and a lot of handle to do.

If pete taran did it, I guess some folks would buy it. If I did it, I'd have trouble getting what all of the parts cost, even if it looked good (it's sort of a branding thing).

As a sometimes buyer, I know I'm too cheap and I wouldn't buy my own work, but I think there will be some people who will buy nice work, even if it's cheaper to get an old saw with a near perfect handle. Especially if it comes along with the promise of being straightened, sharpened and set.

D.W.

You are of course quite right in that reputation is everything. Mine tends towards infamy rather than fame. I guess, like almost everything, the trick is to market a package so it appeals on many fronts.

We are lucky in Australia in having a variety of woods from which to fashion handles. The problem is more for the sawmaker than the buyer in that some of these timbers are pretty hard to work. I think that is why apple found such favour amongst the sawmakers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

I am hoping to get some examples ready for the lead up to Xmas. I believe it could be the perfect gift for any man to give his wife. Whether she will see it that way remains to be seen.

Regards
Paul

I like that idea, there are definitely plenty of ladies who need hand saws.

(ditto on the working of handles - I made my first three out of macassar ebony (two of them) and hard maple (the third)). And then I got a few board feet of quartersawn air dried apple. You could take a rasp and run it backwards against the grain and no chipout. It sawed like it had wax in it, and worked that way, too. Fantastic. I can understand why disston was so smitten with it - probably with their mechanized setup, it milled easily without damage and had a nice smooth finish, making it worth the trouble. It's too bad it's so hard to find now, and in overdried kiln dried stuff, it's not the same - it's lifeless and hard feeling, musical. But it's not like the dead feeling wax filled smoothness of air dried).

I didn't know at the time I'd never find QS apple like that again. Too bad. I have a whole lot of beech on hand, and american beech is wonderful and smooth feeling, but it's not the same.

Originally Posted by D.W.

Apple is the best wood I have ever used for handles. I'm sure disston went to the extra expense to get it (and if you see the trees that they used, you'd get the sense that they must've thrown away tremendous amounts) for a good reason, at least on their nicer saws.

I don't know how they dried their apple, but air dried apple especially has a quality for working by hand that nearly nothing else has. It's strong, it looks great (no pores), it carves easily, and it's forgiving for machines working against the grain, etc.

D.W.

According to Disston it was air dried for three years.

Regards
Paul