Thread: Coping saws?

Once you use them you won't buy any other blade.

Little bit harder going on hardwoods.

Regards,


Frank.

Originally Posted by pmcgee

Please excuse my ignorance (there's a lot of it) ... when you say "soap" ... ?

Thanks,
Paul

Yes, soap it is. This finish was / is used on the furniture designed by Hans Wegner, it is excellent on the lighter woods as it does not discolour the wood at all.

I use ' Lux Soap Flakes ' which you should have little trouble finding at the Supermarket. You will find more info on mixing & use here - Soap can be a surprisingly good furniture finish

I have been exploring traditional finishes and adhesives as the petrochemical versions I find nasty to use, and are getting expensive when compared with soap, shellac, wax, & hide glue, rice, and flour.

Obviously they each have their limitations, but they also have advantages.


Regards

Excellent stuff - I fully approve. (However, that is worth zip)

Also found while still looking for something else:

Video: Bowsaw Ergonomics with Mike Dunbar - Popular Woodworking Magazine (has video)

Aiming for dovetails off-the-saw with a (non-spiral) fretsaw



attempting 2 vids in one post

Originally Posted by IanW

Yep, this is how I would do it, too, if I didn't saw out the bulk of the waste.

But it's on that last tap, as the wood parts, that the wedge-shaped chunk of waste can be forced forward, jamming itself in the socket. It's not a big deal, only tends to happen on finer sockets, and probably only 1 out of 3 times, but it's just a minor annoyance. You can usually tap it out with the chisel, but occasionally the chisel buries itself in the chip, jamming it even tighter (insert appropriate expletives here ). You can avoid it with a bit of care, and making sure the 'relief' is generous, to be sure, but I don't always work so carefully & deliberately, I confess. By removing all but a mm-and-a-bit with pre-sawing, I know that I can reliably square up to the line with a couple of light taps each side, so for me, the small amount of extra time taken putting down the D/T saw & using the bowsaw is regained several times over.

Agreed, I can't give you any reason why Harold insisted on the chisel-only method, because he was not one to disscuss pros & cons, unfortunately. I can only speculate that he thought it was quicker overall to do it that way, and for someone who had been doing it for 45 years, it undoubtedly was - he certainly made it look easy!

My teaching philosophy is like yours. I would not tell people "THIS is how to do it" but "this is the most widely-used method for doing it", and try to explain the advantages & any disadvantages of doing it that way. It's the end result that matters, really, so if you can do as good a job or better in the same time with another method, I have no problem with it. I actually like to see people try other methods, rather than be passive sponges, soaking up dogmas. As often as not they revert to doing it the way they were shown, but occasionally, the alternative way really is better, if only for them. And what's that old saw about "The man who never made a mistake.......?"

And as to giving my bowaw a whirl - you are welcome to drop in to the shed any time you are up in warmer climes - just give me a few hours notice & I'll even whip up a batch of Anzac bikkies. I'm sure we will have no trouble filling in an hour or two....

Cheers,

i forgot about this thread and the email notifications dont seem to working, but that bit i highlighted is the key clue i think, my tip to avoid that jamming problem is, as much as its worth, but points straight to that issue you mention. is when you flip the timber to do the other side instead of mimicking the small relief you do on the first side or attempting to make it a 'bit' more generous, on the second (as i eluded to in an earlier post but didnt explain very much) side it needs to be more flat (generous, as you said just now also), but more than generous its best i think to remove it at a flat angle e.g stick your chisel in the end grain and take a slice out along the grain, you wont get that wedge sticking then. if you do it this way the second side is the least deliberate and can be done without too much care (within reason)


obviously hard to with pin sharp DT and the like but thats not what they did yonks ago either, nice contemporary and artistic they are now, arnt they

cheers
chippy

Wow!

Never thought coping saws could be so interesting

Basilg, that's a gorgeous piece of kit, really quite inspirational. I can see me placing an order for some bits and pieces.

Thanks again for all the input guys.

You are very welcome. As you can see there are many ways to achieve the objective, and trying different methods is part of the fun, and the learning curve, to improve skills. I use more than one method, one of which is a jewellers saw for removing the pin waste on very fine pins, as these saws will take very very fine blades, and the saws are a fraction of the cost of a Concept. However, the fine blades also cut very slowly and require greater sensitivity in use. to avoid breaking blades every few seconds.

There is lots of good advice here, and I suggest you head down the track that fits the work you intend doing without breaking the bank, but don't overlook exploring something just for the hell of it.

I am about to start making another Bow Saw, as I want to see how much lighter I can make one, without it splintering into pieces when tension is applied.

Regards

Originally Posted by Basilg

.....I am about to start making another Bow Saw, as I want to see how much lighter I can make one, without it splintering into pieces when tension is applied.

Bas - I've made quite a number of saws myself, built to proportions that have evolved over quite a few years of paring them back. My latest versions look very anorexic compared with the original clunkers I made 25 years ago. Of course, the wood you choose sets the tone for how fine you can safely go. Blackwood & some other Acacias I've found to be among the better local species, with excellent strength to weight ratios - which ones do you favour? To date, the only one I've had fail under tension was a version made from Red Box, which was a sily choice, as it was very wild (but pretty!) wood, and too full of short grain.

I just finished a couple of 10" saws - one for someone else, & the other because it seemed like a lot of bother to make just one set of metal parts, once I had the metal lathe dug out for the job, so I made two sets instead. One is of Acacia sp. (from my backyard, & not 100% sure what species) and the other is Ash (Fraxinus sp.). I had these bits of riven White Ash harvested from a friend's woodlot when I lived in Canada. I had intended using them for chair legs, but the chairs they were meant for were superceded by a totally different design, & over the years I have used it for all manner of non-chair projects (like brush-hook handles ). There was just enough left for a couple of saw bodies, so I thought I'd give it a go & see how it performed compared with the wattle. I made the frame a teeny bit bulkier than the Acacia frames, becausse I wasn't sure how tough it would be cf the wattle. However, it takes the tension nicely (I am very careful to align the long grain so that as much as posssible runs through the full length of the arm). I weighed both saws, and interestingly, they came out at a few grams either side of 320g, with the Ash saw being the (slightly) lighter of the two...
Wattle & Ash frames1.jpg

G'day Ian

Yes I am aware of your disease and have enjoyed looking over your saws for some time, I hope it is not too contagious as I am only just recovering from a marking gauge habit . Plus putting the final polish on a traditional end vice, and replacing the temporary handle ( broom handle ) for something a little more aesthetic, ( both with a two decade gestation )

I am using Tassy Oak for the saw frame as it seemed relatively close to the properties of European beech which is the traditional wood used for this style of saw in Europe, and it is pretty well straight grained.
I am aiming to reduce the weight of the frame as much as possible so as to reduce the turning moment created by the frame, and hence make the saw more controllable. It is a bit bland but using the Brigalow for the handles and toggle has added a bit of bling, and that additional weight provides greater momentum where it is needed.

Is the 320 gm for the entire saw or just the frame ?

Regards

Originally Posted by Basilg

Is the 320 gm for the entire saw or just the frame ?

The whole thing, ready to roll. I didn't weigh the frames on their own, but I will, out of interest. Somewhere in the range 320-350g. seems just about right for these little saws (for me). I find my latest saws very nice to use. The thin (20 thou & approx. 16 tpi) blades I've been making cut like steam under the weight of trhe saw alone, & they seem to just glide through softer woods like Camphor, up to around 18mm thick.

I haven't tried Tassie oak for frames, but I think it could be even better than European Beech, which can be a bit brittle. Don't forget, while they use the best woods they have for the job, in Europe, they don't have quite the choice we have!

Be sure to post your new saw & let us know how the fining-down goes.......
Cheers,

Ian
I have made up another frame which is a bit rough as I was fully expecting it to finish up as a pile of splinters when tensioned. Pleasantly, it took an awful lot of tension and is a very nice saw to handle, so i will give it some fine tuning and a coat of finish, & post the finished article, which I think is going to be my go to Bow Saw. I think it will weigh in at 270 gm or so.

Regards

Originally Posted by Basilg

Ian
I have made up another frame which is a bit rough as I was fully expecting it to finish up as a pile of splinters when tensioned. Pleasantly, it took an awful lot of tension and is a very nice saw to handle, so i will give it some fine tuning and a coat of finish, & post the finished article, which I think is going to be my go to Bow Saw. I think it will weigh in at 270 gm or so.

Regards

Hi Basil - Is that the frame or the whole saw? What blade length are you using, and what tpi?

Out of curiosity, I weighed the components of the two saws above, and they are as follows:
Acacia saw vs White Ash saw
Total weight: 324g : 312g
Handles & metal fittings: 111g : 102g
Frame (arms plus bar): 189g : 187g

The cord & toggle bar make up the rest of the weight. I have put as much tension on both frames as I could, short of breaking the cord, and the arms didn't show any sign of flexing, so they should be ok for the long haul. I used an earlier iteration of this saw, which had a Blackwood frame, for many years without problems. It had virtually the same sized arms and a slightly thicker bar.

I could probably have reduced the bar of the Ash frame a little more, but for the size & throat of these saws, a working weight of about 300g seems to give it a good balance & feel. The only thing I would like to improve in the future is the cord I've been using for tensioning. The Nylon (venetian blind) cord does the job, but stretches a bit too much for my liking. In his thread on making a little bowsaw to take coping blades, Bob Smalser used 1/4" 'drill rod' (aka 'bright steel') and "tensioned the blade up to high C". I don't tension mine to anywhere near that - barely low C, but that seems to be adequate for the job. I made a saw very early on in my bowsaw days, using 3/16" all-thread & a couple of wing-nuts, which worked ok, but I felt it made the saw a bit top-heavy (not to mention ugly & a bit too industrial-looking ) so went back to cord for subsequent versions.

Cheers,

Ian

Nice saws.

I picked up on this thread because by coincidence today I dug out my coping saw for the first time in several years. I held it in my hand and thought what a poxy piece of equipment this is. Out of all my rough gear the coping saw would have to be the least pleasing of all. Fortunately I am only cutting out knife handles (from one of the casuarinas, a reddish one ) and not dovetails.

Are the fret saw and the bow saw one and the same or is there a subtle difference?

I have always thought of a bow saw as a metal framed saw used for pruning small limbs. I appreciate I am displaying my philistine characteristics here.

In fact during one of our more persistent droughts I climbed a Kurrajong tree every day (not the same tree) to lop off branches to feed starving cattle using one of these devices.

Regards
Paul

Ian

That 270 gm is an estimate of what I think the whole saw will finish up at, I have been steadily shaving the dimensions, as much to satisfy my curiosity as to what I can reduce it to without breakage, and also to make up an aesthetically pleasing and workable tool. It is a 12" saw with a 1/8" 16 TPI blade. Once I have it finished ( or splintered ) I will post the finished weight and other details.

Can I see a who can produce the lightest bow saw thread on the horizon ? Or have you really kicked the saw making habit

Regards