Thread: C. Nurse Dovetail Saw restoration

Originally Posted by derekcohen

Hi Paul

The photos that Stewie posted are from Smith's Key. Joseph Key was an English engraver who published a book on woodworking edge tools in 1816. Matt Bianci does a great job of discussing it here, but unfortunately I cannot get all the images to come up. I did find another source here.

These suggest that there were some saws with tapered plates. However I tend to agree with Pete Taran that the great majority of "tapered" saws were more likely a result of being dropped.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Regards fro Perth

Derek

Derek; as Ray G points clearly points out, your views, together with Pete Taran's, are historically misguided.

For a long time, it was debated quite vigorously whether in fact early saws were canted or not, after a while the evidence became overwhelming to confirm that early saws were in fact canted, tapered both in the spine and in the blade, the style seems to have changed in the mid 1800's to a parallel blade.

Stewie;