Thread: New Lie Nielson Back-Saw Kinked?

You are paying top dollar for a premium tool. Send it back.

I doubt lie Neilsen would want factory second out there in public either.

Cheers

Doug

Hard to get a good photo. And they are in profile view so will upload wrong way around. Much more visible in real life. Hopefully these photos provide an indication. What do you guys think? I dont want to over-react.

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Cheers, Dom

Hi Dom, a bit of terminology discussion first: I'd call what you've described a 'bend' rather than a 'kink'. I think of a kink as a sharp bend in the plate, which has very serious implications and would need either expert attention to remove, or a new blade (which would be both cheaper & more desirable). A small curve at the back of a blade like you describe is not that uncommon on old backsaws. This happens if the spine and blade slots are slightly misaligned, either because they were cut that way, or the wood has moved & twisted the cheeks after it was manufactured (always a risk when you choose to use highly figured woods for handles!). Whatever the cause, when the bolts are tightened it pulls the plate to one side a little. My guess is that's what you have with your saw. It's easy to confirm, just remove the blade from the handle and the blade should return to perfectly straight, but of course you may not wish to do that if you are thinking of asking for a replacement. It's sometimes easy to correct, just a fraction off one side of the blade slot might do the trick, but that won't do it if the cheeks have warped a little. In my early days of sawmaking, before I learnt to take extra care with the slotting business, I ended up scrapping a handle or two I could not get to 'sit right'. With time & practice, that rarely happens now, but I still always fit blades first, after cutting out the handle blank - if it does go pear-shaped, at least I haven't wasted too much time.

But there are other possibilities for your less than straight blade. I mailed some saws a year or so back, and one arrived with a marked curve in the blade, which turned out to be caused by a slightly bent & twisted spine. I have no idea what Aus Post did to manage that, the packing seemed to be intact, so I can only hypothesise that someone sat a very heavy something on the parcel & that saw bore the brunt of it!

If your curve is due to slight spine/blade misalignment within the handle, it shouldn't affect accuracy, as the affected part of the blade is never used anyway, so it's more an aesthetic issue. If your saw was a fleamarket find, I'd say just use it & you'd probably find it cuts perfectly well, but as Doug says, it's not something you'd expect on a saw you forked-out quite a few $$$s for, so I'd be contacting LN (with a good illustration of the problem if you can manage it) & asking if they think this is within their tolerance limits.....

Cheers,

You up-loaded the pics while I was typing. As you say, it's not easy to see the exact problem from the pics. If my suggestion of a twist caused by the handle is correct, it should be all at the end covered by the handle, the rest of the blade should be straight. If 90% of the blade seems to be straight, try the saw on a few cuts, and if it tracks & cuts straight, then you just have to decide if you can live with a slight imperfection in appearance....

Cheers,

Ian makes good ponts, but it is still a premium product, as I Said before, not aflea market find.

In my experience, LN would not want a dissatisfied customer, or a substandard product out there cheapening their brand.

I would call them today and discuss it. I would be suprised if they du not offer a nnew replacement or at least a suitable repair.

Cheers

Doug

I'm going to agree with both Ian and Doug.

I agree with Ian in that it probably won't affect the performance of the saw, and, ultimately, it's up to you to decide whether or not you want it replaced.

But I also agree with Doug that Lie Nielsen would replace the saw in a heartbeat. They would likely WANT you to send it back because they have such high standards and also because tool companies (or any company for that matter) want people to have those "I just had a great customer service experience" stories. If you tell ten people about the level of integrity with which they handled your claim, then it's worth their coin to post it back and forth across the Pacific again.

Y'know... I've personally always kind of wondered why they use that curly Maple on their saw handles. Aside from its potential to cause issues like this due to its figuring and irregular grain, I'm not a huge fan of the light color. Why use something so light when it's just going to get grubbed up badly over time. I suppose the same could be said of their planes. But maybe I'm just a grotty, grubby woodworker... I think anyone who works with some of the gummier Eucalypts and Acacias would probably agree. I, for one, would like to see them switch to Walnut or Beech.

Good luck,
Luke

Thanks guys,

I'll shoot them an email and see what they say about the saw. I didn't want to even try a cut with it before i let them know it came delivered this way.

Luke, I agree regarding the handles. The maple looks nice but i would also prefer walnut. Guess that's why i ordered a Bad Axe Stiletto dovetail saw with walnut handle, gun-black nuts and copper plated back for $530au! last week. Hopefully my fiancee doesn't see my credit card statement! ��

Hi Dom
did you buy from Adelaide (LN Australia) or from the factory in Maine?

Either way, I'm confident that LN will stand by their product and replace the damaged saw.

Originally Posted by ian

Hi Dom
did you buy from Adelaide (LN Australia) or from the factory in Maine?

Either way, I'm confident that LN will stand by their product and replace the damaged saw.

Through Classic Hand Tools in the UK. I'll email them later today. They are really good guys so i'm sure if they think the saw isn't right they'll help to rectify it.

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Thought maybe this photo is a little clearer. I've email CHT and am awaiting a response. Thanks again for the advise guys. Much appreciated.

Originally Posted by DomAU

....Thought maybe this photo is a little clearer....

Yep, that shows the bend at the heel quite nicely. It certainly looks like a slightly askew slot/handle or a warped cheek problem to me. Perhaps one of the cheeks has twisted a bit from the humidity changes as it winged its way across the Pacific. I'm sure their QC wouldn't let that through to the keeper - maybe the inspector sneezed as it was going by.

BTW, I wasn't suggesting you should lump it, just saying it probably won't affect how it cuts. If it bothers you (& it would probably bother me if I'd paid out that much for a saw! ), you have every right to ask for rectification. As the others have said, LN should be keen to get their hands on it & determine exactly what the problem is. Maybe they should switch to Walnut in the future, it's a more stable wood than Maple.......

Cheers,

I've made a saw that's like that and gotten vintage saws that are like that. I've never noticed an issue in terms of actual cutting. I'm sure the front of the saw establishes your cut line and if the back of the saw gets to it, it will just flex to fit the cut line.

But I agree with the folks above - if you're expecting perfect and you're getting the saw from a company who generally delivers that, then exchange it if you'd like. The real danger in keeping a saw like that is that it makes re-selling very awkward if you decide you don't want to keep it. So, more of a problem in re-selling than using.

Just on the matter of Lie Nielsen QC and the woods chosen for saw handles.
I don't recall any previous posts on the wood working forums I inhabit complaining about the problem Dom has, which leaves me thinking that the damage occurred somewhere between the saw leaving Maine to travel across the Atlantic to the UK and then being packaged to travel to AUS and finally being unpacked on Dom's kitchen table. And that the damage is a warehousing / shipping issue, and is not related to how the handle is seated or the wood chosen for the handle.

Some questions if I may ...
was the saw in its original LN packaging when it arrived in Dom's hands? or had it been repackaged. From memory, original packaging is a sealed blue plastic "rust prevention" bag, butcher's paper wrapping and a reasonably sturdy cardboard box.

leaving aside questions about availability, how did the price from Classic Hand Tools (including shipping and credit card surcharges) compare to buying from Adelaide?

I'm sure that the bend (well, as sure as one could be) is due to movement of the wood after manufacture. LN would have a mechanized procedure set up (their saws are too inexpensive for anything else, and the cost of returns too expensive for any other practice) and someone touches those teeth up, and I can't imagine they or someone else doesn't look down the tooth line when they do it.

I wish the ones I made or had could make the same claim!! Unfortunately, the old ones, the slot is clearly not cut that well (they are old english saws, I'd imagine they were cut by hand), and on mine, it's definitely my fault for not cutting the slot well enough.

At any rate, curly maple isn't particularly stable - it's decent but not great - and when used in guitar necks, etc, it still has to be laminated with other woods, even when it's quartersawn. Heritage guitars over here made some expensive guitars with truss rods in them and without laminating them - they were curly maple - and they had all kinds of problems with them and eventually went to inserting other woods in the neck so that the necks were 3 separate pieces of curly maple in sequence with two other pieces between those three. Wood movement - it happens.

There is but one other possibility that I have seen in practice, and that is saws packed with something pushing the plate (for example, taping the plates of a bundle of saws together so that they are bowed for a period of several days) - that's more of a problem with resellers of old tools improperly packing and boxing tools than it is with new tool makers and retailers.