Thread: Who Uses a Big Tenon Saw a Lot?

Hi Dave

About a decade ago I had Mike Wenzloff build me a couple of saws, one of which was a 16" tenon (10 or 11 tpi). Man, it is huge! I used it for all tenons, because it was the in-thing, y'know. It worked really well, but always felt like the balancing pole when walking on a tight rope. I still pull it out and use it on occasions ... just in case Mike might pop around and ask about it. I would not want him to feel bad.

My preference is a 14" Gramercy rip sash saw (13 tpi). It has a thin plate and a light brass back, and it weighs about as much as the average dovetail saw. Its not as fast as the 16", but woodworking is not a race. It gets you there.

Regards from Perth

Derek

I have two large tenon saws. One was badly made and now serves as my straw man for demonstrating the failures of boutique saw makers. Incidentally it also spurred me to start making saws. I thought 'How hard can it be...".

The other is a Wenzloff 77. The Wenzloff finds most use in sawing the tenons off of bowls and such when I'm doing turning, which I haven't in several years now.

Thanks, guys. Rob, it's pretty easy to make saws. To make them profitably enough to make a living appears to be pretty difficult, though!

It looks like Rob Cosman has a process in place that allows him to make them with relative profitability (a station to station setup with inexpensive tools and relatively little hand work - and an employee who does a lot of the work).

Adria saws were another one that comes to mind. Slotted backs, relatively crude handles (due to fixturing more than hand work) but reasonably well finished.

Aside from that, thanks for the comments, guys. As derek alluded to, when you get that type of saw to "hook up", the work is done quickly. I wouldn't want to saw a wedge out with a dovetail saw. But for cabinet sized stuff, which is what most of us end up building, a 12 or 14 inch saw always works better for me, because I'm never fighting it. Just cutting with it. Stroke for stroke, it's slower, but it's always working. With the big (heavy) saw, it's like Derek says - walking a tightrope to try to keep everything just right. A heavy taller saw like that really has a lot of bite and it's easy to get it stuck and then have to baby it for a little bit.

Mine is from Wenzloff's older kits, which included the good backs that he had made for himself (mine is stamped as if it was made by Mike because of that). So, it's not exactly a cobble aside from the fact that my first handle wasn't quite as nicely finished as Mike's were.

My biggest tenon saw has a 350 x 100mm blade (14 x 4" in old money). I don't use it for most furniture-sized jobs, but it's very handy for the larger joints like tenons on table skirts, etc. As with several of my saws, it tends to sit unused for long periods, then just as I start thinking "this darn thing is a space-hog, do I really need it?", it'll get a really good workout & I'll be grateful I have it. For everyday furniture-sized stuff, a 250mm 12 tpi or a 300mm 10tpi get the guernsey.

There are a few rough rules of thumb, like having at least 4-6 teeth in the cut, and a blade long enough for the teeth to clear on each stroke, but the size saw to use for any particular job is largely a matter of personal choice & what you have to hand. I did my apprenticeship on the end of crosscut saws with my old pot and very quickly developed an allergy to pushing around more metal than absolutely necessary. I do remember seeing a certain 'guru' a few years ago, wielding what I considered to be an absurdly large saw to cut a teeny bit of wood, & making the dubious claim that it improved accuracy. There is a point where the size of the cut dictates going up or down a size of saw, but the precise point will differ for each of us. I had a theory that part of the appeal of big heavy saws was that with the loss of sharpening skills, people were running a lot of blunt saws & maybe all that weight was compensating for the less than optimum cutting ability.

There was a strange trend a few years ago regarding tools and rarity. Large vintage backsaws are relatively rare compared to 3" deep 12" long saws. So they must be better.

4 1/2 planes sold relatively poorly here in the states compared to 3s and 4s. they're more rare, so they must be better. If rare is good for diamonds, it's good for tools, right?

Then it was bedrock planes, and "more bearing surface". More bearing surface has little effect on actual use, though, because little of an iron is in contact with a frog. If the later cheap stanley planes are made properly, they work at least as well as the earlier milled frog types, but you can't convince some people of that. They need to lap their frogs perfectly flat to them (which is actually probably convex when they're done, at least to a small degree), because they think the back of their iron is uniformly laying across a frog. This is "common knowledge" that you need that. Overbuying and trying things has taught me otherwise. My nicest to-use 4 so far (stanley) is a blue type 20. The iron was terrible (actually the only stanley I had where the iron was terrible), so I replaced it. The rest of the plane is smoother than any of the old planes that I have, despite the manufacturing process being cheaper.

Tall saws improve accuracy because you have a taller plate is sort of like implying that a longer sight radius on a rifle giving you better precision for long targets is something that applies to saws. I guess? It ignores the fundamental fact that we saw to a line, and depth is more about how deep a cut can go.

Then it was the thinness of the plate - all old saws were wrong because they had thicker plates. They probably had thicker plates because they hold up better in work and don't flex as much. Users of the saws probably cared little about how much waste there was in a cut, because it was on the waste side. I haven't heard the thin plate thing in a while, maybe it's ripe to be remarketed with lots of the other things that are "common knowledge" that the "old doofus makers and users didn't know because they didn't have modern engineering, and they were just tough and dumb and that's how they could do fine work with crappy tools".

I would probably miss my tall saw when resawing wedge material out of beech, but only because I have a habit of using it for that. Otherwise, I wouldn't miss it much, and if I'd have done a better job on the handle, I think I'd sell it off.

Originally Posted by D.W.

.....Tall saws improve accuracy because you have a taller plate is sort of like implying that a longer sight radius on a rifle giving you better precision for long targets is something that applies to saws. I guess? It ignores the fundamental fact that we saw to a line, and depth is more about how deep a cut can go.......

That was the message in one article I remember reading. Sighting down the taller saw made it easier to align the saw for the first stroke, it was claimed. It seems too logical not to be true, & probably is, but ignores the fact that to many (most?) of us, a large saw feels more clumsy and and harder to manoeuvre, so that has to be subtracted from the equation. As you say, one usually saws to a line, and I assume that most practised sawyers have long since learned to watch the cut & adjust the saw during the first half-dozen strokes to align the cut with the top & front scribe or pencil lines. This is crucial for finely-set and zero-set saws because once they are more than a few mm into the cut it is difficult to impossible to change their direction- if you do manage to force the saw to alter course, you usually end up with a rather wonky surface.

But certain skills are pretty easy to learn, and lining up a saw is surely one of them. My advice would always be to select a size saw that you feel comfortable with, first & foremost. If the saw is sharp & evenly set so it cuts without wandering, a little practice should have you cutting to your lines in no time. A 'trick' my old cabinetmaker mentor taught me was to sort of half watch the cut but also look ahead a bit ("watch where you're going", he'd say), I find this helps a lot on longer rip cuts, especially.

Thin plate? Yes, it was a must-have a while ago, & still pushed by certain makers. I like thin plate for small saws - wouldn't trade my little 15 thou dovetailing saw for anything, but it's not for everyone. I've seen too many thicker blades that have suffered from incompetence or impatience, so you can safely bet there's been a few tears shed over ultra-thin sawblades, already. I take every opportunity to shoot down the myth that the thinner the blade, the quicker it cuts - that's just not so, there are too many other factors that affect speed of cut.

And waste is hardly an issue with handsaws. Who cares (or would even notice) if the kerf is 5 thou wider?! So if you are a new or occasional hand saw user, I say robust is good....

Cheers,

Originally Posted by D.W.
.....Tall saws improve accuracy because you have a taller plate is sort of like implying that a longer sight radius on a rifle giving you better precision for long targets is something that applies to saws. I guess? It ignores the fundamental fact that we saw to a line, and depth is more about how deep a cut can go.......

Posted by Ian: That was the message in one article I remember reading. Sighting down the taller saw made it easier to align the saw for the first stroke, it was claimed. It seems too logical not to be true, & probably is, but ignores the fact that to many (most?) of us, a large saw feels more clumsy and and harder to manoeuvre, so that has to be subtracted from the equation. As you say, one usually saws to a line, and I assume that most practised sawyers have long since learned to watch the cut & adjust the saw during the first half-dozen strokes to align the cut with the top & front scribe or pencil lines.

For one, I certainly do not use the height of a saw plate to aid in determining vertical. For one thing, dovetails are cut at an angle!

My practice is to saw to two adjacent lines, where this is possible. It is so with tenon shoulders, tenon cheeks and dovetails. Do this and you must saw straight.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Originally Posted by derekcohen

....I certainly do not use the height of a saw plate to aid in determining vertical. For one thing, dovetails are cut at an angle!.....

Derek, I think the idea is you align the saw with your front scribe line, whatever angle it be, and supposedly, the wider saw makes this easier to do accurately. In fact, that's what I do when cutting dovetails, but I don't need a 6 inch wide saw to get the saw aligned fairly closely to the line I'm about to cut.

Originally Posted by derekcohen

.... My practice is to saw to two adjacent lines, where this is possible. It is so with tenon shoulders, tenon cheeks and dovetails. Do this and you must saw straight.....

In theory, you are absolutely correct, however lots of people seem to find this difficult to achieve, in practice. I think that last word is the real key....

Cheers

Just returning to the first post and the question of for what purpose do we use large tenon saws, I think that many were used in mitre boxes. This is despite the fact that the major manufacturers made specific saws for that purpose. However there was only a marginal difference in style.

The mitre saws could be had with four, five or six inches under the back. They ranged in length from 18" through to 32". There was an overlap with the back saws which ranged from 6" through to 24". I have taken those sizes from the Simonds range, but the other major manufacturers had similar offerings.

The back saws would ordinarily have only four inches under the back. However this was a saw made for large tenons. 18" long and 6" under the back. Kenyon style handle.

Kenyon styled back saw.JPGKenyon styled back saw handle.JPG

and in comparison with a 14" Simonds No.96

Kenyon styled back saw comparrison 14 inch No.96.JPG

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by derekcohen

Originally Posted by D.W.
.....Tall saws improve accuracy because you have a taller plate is sort of like implying that a longer sight radius on a rifle giving you better precision for long targets is something that applies to saws. I guess? It ignores the fundamental fact that we saw to a line, and depth is more about how deep a cut can go.......





For one, I certainly do not use the height of a saw plate to aid in determining vertical. For one thing, dovetails are cut at an angle!

My practice is to saw to two adjacent lines, where this is possible. It is so with tenon shoulders, tenon cheeks and dovetails. Do this and you must saw straight.

Regards from Perth

Derek

I agree derek. If there was something to view the saw against, like a line on the wall, it might be helpful, but we don't use saws like that, so you can just as easily mis-view a tall saw from above as you can a shorter one. I think it's an attractive idea because it's certainly true on guns, bow and arrow, etc - longer sight radius means easier (more precise) alignment.

As paul suggested, make the saw low set so that it can't be corrected to the line during a cut, which everyone says we don't do, but of course we do - and it's a tall saw that will wander off of a line with beginners and make them think sawing is harder than it is.

I do like thin plates on short dovetail saws, but I tried to make one with a thin plate and a lot of room under the spine and found out that it's a real dud. Still waiting to cut the plate down to an inch and a half or so.

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

Just returning to the first post and the question of for what purpose do we use large tenon saws, I think that many were used in mitre boxes. This is despite the fact that the major manufacturers made specific saws for that purpose. However there was only a marginal difference in style.

The mitre saws could be had with four, five or six inches under the back. They ranged in length from 18" through to 32". There was an overlap with the back saws which ranged from 6" through to 24". I have taken those sizes from the Simonds range, but the other major manufacturers had similar offerings.

The back saws would ordinarily have only four inches under the back. However this was a saw made for large tenons. 18" long and 6" under the back. Kenyon style handle.

Kenyon styled back saw.JPGKenyon styled back saw handle.JPG

and in comparison with a 14" Simonds No.96

Kenyon styled back saw comparrison 14 inch No.96.JPG

Regards
Paul

Yes, great in a miter box. And the longer the saw the better since the guides take away a large amount of the stroke length. I don't have any over 28 inches that I'm aware of (I have four, but have only measured one), but tried one time to use one as a tenon saw on something large. Only once. Too much weight - it digs into the wood like carbide spike ice shoes and stops.

The kenyon saw is curious because it's in a legitimate tool set. In practice, I found cutting the tenons on my bench to be faster and easier with a regular carpenters saw than with my large tenon saw, so it was once again relegated to plane wedges only.

This is an interesting thing to think about - because it points towards the wisdom of "Many traditional woodworking tools are mostly worked out pretty well..." For example - I find my "Regular" bench chisels get the most use by far... Not too long, not too short... Good steel + correct heat treatment = they will do an adequate job for most of what I need.... They are just about right for the bulk of my work...

And so it goes with a lot of these tools... A big 5 tpi rip saw is right for what it does... But it would be a waste of time and effort to re-file it to 35tpi version for fine work - my little razor saw does that just fine... And it's not horrible and clumsy when I am slicing off the end of a guitar's binding...

And that's probably what we find with the "standard" designs... They work pretty well... The kinks were sorted out long ago... And they are pretty good.....

There are some other hidden things about using those common tools, too.

A 5 point or 5 1/2 point saw is going to be fairly easy to find, and should be inexpensive. Easy to sharpen, and well made in most cases if it's an advisable type.

If you end up being someone who cuts large tenons a lot, 8 point crosscut saws are also cheap. They can be filed rip and set. If you ever end up cutting something really hard where 5 grabs, you can go to those carpenter saws filed at 8 (or 7, whatever you find). It's probably a $30 proposition including the file.

I resaw by hand relatively often. Not like a 12 foot board 20 inches wide, but something 6 inches wide and three feet long. I like a coarser saw than that (but I waited until one presented itself). All of the saws that I have were relatively inexpensive. All of the planes *could be* without any hindrance to function. Chisels, the same. I have a little thing for the last two, so could be and are are two drastically different things, but that's OK.

I don't generally work with any "rare" tools (large heavy backsaws outside of a miter, tall plate dovetail saws, really heavy smoothers), because I've found out why they're rare over the years. There's so much joy to be had with the common tools if we allow ourselves to stop thinking we're smarter and richer than the people who came before us.

Originally Posted by D.W.

There's so much joy to be had with the common tools if we allow ourselves to stop thinking we're smarter and richer than the people who came before us.

I am keeping a list of "quotable quotes," which I will "publish" at the end of the year. That's in the the list .

Regards
Paul