Thread: Confusion Regarding Modifying Eclipse Saw set No. 77

Originally Posted by thumbsucker

is the anvil the round disk that has the numbers on it? If yes and I turn it turn it 180° or back to front then it will present a flat face to the hammer but then the set would be zero/nothing. Then he says file . How is that different to how the anvil is by default?

IDEA - If I was seeking to reduce the set for finer saws would adding a metal washer behind the anvil then when the anvil moves forward the distance the hammer can travel or is able to jut out is reduced. Because the anvil now sits 2 mm forward. Would this not reduce the set?

QUESTION - The saw set is made from bronze I think and it stinks and makes my hand smell like metal after I touch it. I assume that is normal and wearing some cotton gloves should reduce my absorption of heavy metal.

You want to file or grind a small (very small) bevel on the edge. By small, I mean that the flat was no wider than 1 mm at its widest point. I ground a few of these facets, with flats of varied distances) around the perimeter to give me a few different options. I ground them at 15 degrees and also reground the hammer to 15 degrees (and ground it a little narrower to get at small teeth a little better).

By changing the angle from 23 to 15 degrees, you can bend the tooth further down from the tip and still get the same amount of set. This has a couple of benefits. First, if you joint the teeth after setting, you don't have to worry so much about losing all of the set you just put into the teeth. The second benefit is that you may be able to get an extra sharpening or two out of the saw before you have to reset the teeth.

I may be missing something, but putting a washer behind the anvil should not change anything.

I can't offer any help with the odor.

thank you for the pointers, I will report back tomorrow.

Hi,

The Eclipse has a disc with a varying amount of grind facing the plunger to adjust the amount of set.
Rather than rotate the disc 180, I think what Pedder means is to flip the adjustable disc over and put it on backwards.
This would present a flat face to the plunger - so you would have to then grind a constant 15 degree bevel all the way around.
Having a 15 degree set may be desirable. However, I suspect that the amount of variance that Pedder is talking about due to the spiral nature of the disc will be smaller than the variance of your saw sharpening.

If you make up a gadget like the one used to put a chamfer on the saw nut here, except with 15deg tether than 45deg, you could be on a winner.
https://www.woodworkforums.com/f152/a...0/#post1711130

+1 to what hiroller said.

Pedder



Fase+am+Amboss.jpg

Thank you for the photos. They have cleared up my confusion. Today I ground the hammer to 15 degrees and narrowed it to about 1.5 mm wide by beveling the two sides.

Next I will try to change the anvil.

TS, unless you are a pretty experienced metal worker, or have access to machines, I reckon you should shy away from mucking about with the anvil until you've perfected a few other aspects of your saw sharpening! By all means grind (filing is safer & probably more accurate in most peoples' hands) the plunger to a sharper end so it fits the smaller teeth better. As they come, any Eclipse I've seen is way too wide for teeth less than about 12 tpi. The biggest problem I've found with the anvils on the later models is that they are poorly ground, particularly on the fine end, where we most want to use them.

The difference between 23 & 15 degrees is a huge amount when you are shooting at the moon, but the actual difference in deviation you'll get on the top 1/3rd of a tooth (the amount you are supposed to push over) is not huge in a distance of less than a mm, so for small teeth, this is not a source of major error, imo. I don't totally agree with the current fetish for absolutely minimal set on everything. Crosscuts need a bit more set than rip, but you do need a bit of set on any saw, in most situations, or you cannot 'steer' the saw. I aim for a happy medium between a free-running, 'steerable' saw, but not so free that it 'rattles' in the cut. If you only ever cut dry hardwood, you can use less set than if you cut softer, fibrous woods or wood with a higher MC. For general cabinetry, I've found that an amount of set that gives you a kerf that is somewhere between 15 & 20% wider than the thickness of the sawplate works well. Keep to the bottom of the range for rip saws and the higher end for crosscuts. For saws that are only ever called on to make very shallow cuts, you can get away with no, or very little set, but it restricts the use of that saw, so I don't do that, but some folk like to do it that way.

When I fist started setting saws, I used to get uneven set every time. I blamed the saw set, of course, but it turned out to be the nut holding it. You need to pay attention, and make sure you apply the set at the same point on the tooth on each run - this is harder than you might think, since you work on a mirror image when you flip the saw for the opposite side, but it comes with a bit of practice. The small difference caused by the angle on the spiral chamfer of the anvil would only be measurable by very sophisticated equipment, and in any case, will be removed by the sharpening step (assuming you use the sequence: form teeth; set; sharpen). Once I got that right, I found my saws tracking much better off the file, and I rarely need much 'correction' these days. The real secret with saw sharpening is CONSISTENCY - the more consistent you can be, the better the saw will run.

Once you can file consistent teeth and get a saw that runs smoothly, you can start mucking about with rake angles and the other variables. These can make a big difference to both perceived & actual saw performance, but funnily enough, after much fooling about, I have come back to pretty stock-standard angles all-round on my saws. I guess things worked out by trial & error over long periods tend to end up at the best compromises......

Cheers,

If you use Mike Wenzloff's tip for setting teeth, then you should be able to work around any irregular and large set off the Eclipse. I use this method, and it works well. This is the method used on all Wenzloff saws.

Mike recommends reducing all set at the end with ordinary copy paper: wrap a piece of copy paper tightly around the length of the teeth, attaching it with tape under the back reinforcing. Now clamp the teeth in a metal vise and squeeze them together. In the absence if a metal jaw vise I have also placed the plate over the edge of a table saw bed with a hardwood sandwich layer on top, and used a hammer gently to tap down onto the cast iron surface.

What you want is the teeth to just break though the paper. The thickness of the paper will restrict the set to the ideal for a dovetail saw.

Regards from Perth

Derek

I use a similar method to what Derek mentioned with Mike Wenzloff but with some slight differences in technique. I don't bother wrapping the saw plate. I use a blue masking tape as a packing agent and adhere it to each side of jaws on a precision machine vise leaving enough room below the tape for the saw teeth to align below this.

Stewie;

I would also like to point out not all Eclipse no77 Saw sets are created equal. They have been around a long time and have varied dramatically over the years in both the width of the Hammer and the shape of the anvil. Some anvils are well machined, some have a sharp edge to the bevel and some quite round. So that is another aspect to consider.

Here is a thread on the topic and shows some diagrams of the angles on anvils etc.

https://www.woodworkforums.com/f152/e...aw-set-170005/

Also don't be confused by the numbers as many people are. They do not correlate to the TPI or PPi, they are simply a reference so you know what you used on what saw etc. ie 6 on the saw set is not a 6TPI saw

Moving on from the Eclipse 77; for one of which I have a user (not me) modified hammer down to a possible useful size for small teeth.

I prefer the Stanley 42X. I picked up a dirty, but good condition, one at the Tool Sale a week ago for a very few $ (I was not there early, how did you guys miss it?). Measured the hammer at 0.083" wide, which is the width of a 12 tpi tooth, the reputed limit for this set. I am personally very unlikely to go beyond 16 ppi - which is 0.071" per tooth. So... to ensure that the hammer is not bigger than 16 ppi teeth, I need to file around 0.006" from each side of the hammer. Having said that, actually using the unmodified saw set seems to work ok on only moving the designated tooth for a 16ppi saw (of course my eyesight probably does not enable me to see any possible unwanted plate deformation).

The next question - is the anvil at an appropriate height (on highest setting) for fine teeth?

Complicating this is the amount of wear to the arches that rest on the teeth (an issue for all sets), on some sets these are very worn. The two 42X sets I possess have only a little wear, and produce around 1.0mm of bend on the finest setting, and that is around the height of 16ppi teeth! So... the entire tooth is being bent. This may not be a good idea?? However these are quite small teeth and bending a tiny (but discernible) amount on the finest setting, and I have not seen broken teeth on fine saws. The next (is this anal?) step is to thicken the bottom of the arches on a 42X saw set by around 0.3 mm with a shim to lower the saw slightly and achieve a 2/3rd of tooth bend.

If not familiar with the Stanley 42 saw sets (42, 42W, 42X), plenty of pictures online; the anvil does not suffer the issues of the Eclipse circular anvil and similar - and is the more suitable in my opinion for adaption to fine saws (no grinding of anvil and hammer).

Have I missed something?

Cheers
Peter

Peter, I don't think you are missing anything mystical or magical. As you say, a set is supposed to push over the top 1/3rd of the tooth, to an amount that will give a kerf wider than the saw plate thickness. Mr. Lee Valley says something like 50% wider, but I find that way too much, and somewhere between 15 and 20% is good on my backsaws, which are used for relatively shallow cuts on dry wood only. If you are ripping construction grade pine or green hardwood, the 50% set is probably just enough. In practice, you can rarely get a precise 3rd, particularly on teeth from around 12 tpi up, so we just do the best we can, and given all the other variables, it sorts itself out well enough.

There are a number of factors conspiring against you. Besides the width of the hammer, the anvils on most sets I've used are not very well-machined at the fine end of the bevel and also tend to distort more with use, due to the increased pressure on a small area. As you say, wear on the arches of sets will alter where the hammer & anvil sit relative to the tops of the teeth. The metal of older Eclipses is brass, while newer ones like the Somax are aluminium alloy, so they are certainly prone to wear, but in my experience, this is compounded by the sloppy manufacturing tolerances. I have two old Eclipses, one about 60 or so years old (my dad bought it early in the 50's), the other of indeterminate age, but probably similar. One has a very nicely machined anvil, the other is not as crisp (not due to wear, it just wasn't machined as well in the first place). Both have very little discernible wear on the arches, but there is about 0.5mm difference in where the top of the tooth sits in relation to the anvil - quite a significant amount on a small tooth. So is it any wonder we all struggle with saw sets?!

I thought my small-teeth problems were solved with the purchase of a blue Somax a couple of years ago. I had to clean up the rather sloppily-ground hammer, but it worked well enough after that. The front edge was at an angle to the anvil, much greater than the slope of the bevel, so it twisted the teeth as well as pushing them over. That was ok when setting the teeth working from back to front of the saw, but when you turned about & set the opposite teeth, working from front to back, the twist was the opposite way round, making it extremely difficult to get an even set. After filing the end square across, it worked ok for some time, but it seems that aluminium body isn't designed for heavy use. During the workshop, Dale used it to set his saw. He commented what a cow of a job it was, & no wonder, the handles were not springing back properly between squeezes - you had to push it open with your fingers after each squeeze. When I got home I cleaned & oiled everything, which improved it, but it was still not opening smoothly. After pulling it apart several times, I think I've found the problem, which is that the slot in the handle that engages the rounded head of the plunger has become rough from sliding against the steel (as aluminium does), and that's causing it to stick. How I'm going to try smoothing it again, I haven't figured out yet. I had another old brass-bodied Eclipse, so I modified the plunger on it, and it will have to do until I either fix the Somax, or toss it out. The latter may be the more sensible course!

Cheers,

Ian, you would not think it should be this hard!

One thing I like about the Stanley 42 is the simple accurate anvil, and the 15º angle (especially 'X' model, although one of the workshop participants had a NOS 42W, with the adjustable spring loaded plate clamp which was quite nice to use - 12ppi in his case). The hammers are well machined as well, and should be straightforward to file a bit thinner. I will also shim the fallen arches and see how it goes.

I tend to under set, but use dry timber mainly. However I sawed a c. 3" Privet log recently with a finely set sharp xcut saw (could not be bothered going to the garden shed for a bush saw), and went right through with no protest. But I did have to reset an 18" tenon saw on dry Oregon a bit wider recently.

I think I will avoid the Somax Blue!

Thanks again for the workshop. Saw finished, a bit agricultural - but the first handle I have made from scratch. Just need to get some Loctite for the back, although back seems to stay on during use. The 0.015 blade 14ppi rip cuts quickly and easily, the heavy back (thicker than Wenzloff backsaws) and large handle may contribute to this.

Cheers
Peter