Crosscut Saw Maint Kit

[Morbius]

Found this for sale on a site in the US.

293.jpg

https://www.lehmans.com/p-293-crossc...nance-kit.aspx

More money than I was to spend, but looks like good quality.

Regards,

Craig

[rob streeper]

Hi Craig,

If you're patient you can do better for those items on eBay.

Cheers,
Rob

[Morbius]

Those saws are far bigger than anything I use. I was impressed by the apparent quality of the tools. I was hoping it was an indication of more quality manufacturers taking an interest.

Craig

[D.W.]

Not sure who is making that saw (in the USA). Lehman's is pretty high on everything they offer, they have sort of a cult following in Ohio here (in an amish area), sooo....

I agree with Rob's comments. Plus, there won't be a whole lot of use for those tools unless you're using log saws like that (pardon my suggestion of that if you are).

if you are using a log saw, we'd love to see some of it in action. There's a lack of practical use of that type of thing on youtube, just contests and tinkerers.

[rmihai]

http://www.leevalley.com/en/Wood/pag...86&cat=1,43072

[pmcgee]

There's a thread on here on the topic of the big crosscut saws.
I'm pretty sure that manual in the picture is the one the US govt has available free online.
There are State? Federal? areas in the US that disallow the use of chainsaws (I'm sure DW knows) - so there is a real interest in some groups of using these saws for real (but not industrial scale) work.

There are good videos online on sharpening and maintaining crosscuts and axes ... and some on the safe felling and bucking of standing and fallen trees on often sloping ground.

I'm a bit fascinated by the idea of hammer-setting *hand*saws.
One of the S&J books says summat like 'quicker and more reliable' than with the plier type.
Pffft. Not if I did it.

Cheers,
Paul

[D.W.]

We're pretty free to go and do as we'd like here with chainsaws. It's like the guns thing, I guess (except there is no political drive that I know of to cut back chainsaw privileges).

If you want to go out and buy a husky 3120 and have a tuned pipe installed on it and start cutting trees after being raised in an urban setting, you can just do it. (well, local laws sometimes restrict who can do it in certain areas and at what times, probably more based on noise and potential for damaging adjacent property by doing tree work without being licensed).

Anyway, a lot of those forest service folks are keeping trails clear, and they're doing it on horseback or hiking in very remote areas, so they don't always have a lot of interest in carrying more than an axe, some wedges and a couple of crosscut saws. They are only going to make a couple of cuts on a log to get it cleared and then send it rolling wherever they want to dump it.

They do use chainsaws, though, too. They may have restrictions (not sure) where they won't use saws when there are certain fire conditions, so I may not be 100% correct. If your in the forest service group and out opening trails and you start a fire in a remote area, I'd guess your name would be mud.

At any rate, they look from their videos to use vintage saws. I was spurred to go look (because I think the idea of a crosscut saw to buck is interesting, they do cut fast if someone knows how to maintain them), and found that the "US Crosscut Saw Company", or whatever that retailer is doesn't get very good rules. Soft steel and saws that are not ready to cut. They look to me, just speculating, but they look an awful lot like the putsch offerings that cost half as much or less.

There's a kiwi company making saws that come ready to use, they cost a couple times as much, though. Pug tooth disstons are common around here, and those in need of a complete revamp are usually only about $40. I would like to get a decent one man crosscut saw at some point, but it's not been a priority. It'll be vintage when I get it, though.

Oh yeah, the videos. (forest service axe video)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I55QyJXHk2E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYNHWH6ipic

Crosscut Sawyer Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdq6pdpKmoc

A gigantic video set on crosscut saw filing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kD976NlxrSE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu3UO4c3Hks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcW1cX5jmq4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKyCPMKs770
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8GsCNKtiKA

And a video on trail tools in general

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekyJ8pMbTcE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-wXYgwjcqw

And one more on cabin logs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKGpkTgU1Fo

(i'm sure there are more - all of the above produced by the forest service / USDA)

I wish there were more videos of people who properly filed saws using them for something other than cutting through balsa, basswood or poplar.

[D.W.]

Follow up - I did go look some stuff up. I'm on the east end of the country, and we have a lot of national forest around here (pennsylvania cherry, etc, are marketing terms for the cherry lumber that comes from around here, though probably more from private forests, but I don't know).

Anyway, the hopping forest service stuff is probably out west, and I don't know much about it.

http://www.fs.fed.us/t-d/pubs/htmlpu...814/page17.htm

It looks like they allow volunteers to run chainsaws in some areas (strange thing to volunteer for, good way to get hit by a ghost), but you have to take a training course (though the same is true of the old crosscut saws, you have to take a training course before they let you use them). Same page mentions that some units don't allow volunteers to chainsaw anything because they not comfortable with volunteers doing that.

I don't know, interesting to me, I guess. I've seen a lot of incompetent chainsaw use, but it's not felling trees, it's cutting trees already down.

My grandfather felled and split trees and sold the firewood. His brother in law died from a kickback. My grandfather got 67 stitches in his leg from a kickback when I was very young. He didn't wear chaps, but this is at least 30 years ago now and he was elderly. Not defending that he's not wearing chaps, but I don't know what was available back then (it was not life threatening).

He grew up when kids would've used a buck saw or a crosscut saw to prep firewood, and you wouldn't have found him close to old technology - he loved a chainsaw and tractor mounted splitter and felled all of his trees with a 20 thousand pound tractor and a cable for directional assurance.