Thread: Bow saw

It's definitely a bow saw. The timber/logging saw that's shaped like an archer's bow goes by the same name. Yours is for finer work.

I don't know a whole lot about what makes a bow saw different from a coping saw on a fundamental level. I think that it allows you to use a wider saw plate that is under higher tension and, therefore, is able to be sharpened.

I recently was given a bow saw which uses the exact same saw plate as my dovetail saw so it fits perfectly into the kerf left after cutting pins and tails. It is absolutely invaluable and I'll never be without it. I'll be giving my coping saw away soon, as the bow saw can do every job it was capable of with considerably less fuss and infinitely more style.

I believe a more traditional approach for the tensioning of a bow saw is with a cord and stick configuration similar to this:

http://www.daviddarling.info/images/...raditional.jpg

I think it also looks better (that's just me though).

You have yourself a very useable tool there. I'd say it was well worth the $20 you spent on it and the $10-15 more you may end up spending on a replacement blade.

Cheers,
Luke

Thanks for the input Luke

I have a smaller coping saw from Ian similar to the one in the pic inly just a handle one end. It has a string like what you show. Quite proud to have it.

Can I use band saw blades to make blades for a bow saw?

Also would KD Blackwood be a good choice if I wanted to make my own?

Dave TTC
Turning Wood Into Art

Cant help you much I'm afraid. I have one similar but it just looks pretty on a shelf in my office. I'll post a pic tomorrow and we can discuss the differences.
P.

Dave,

I'm not sure about using band saw blades. They are quite thick. My bow saw blade is extremely thin (0.015").

If the Ian who made your coping saw is IanW then he would definitely know way more than me. After all, he is the person who made my bow saw!

I feel like Blackwood would work. I think the main property you want is stiffness so that the two sides transfer the tension from the string to the blade without flexing. One of the harder Acacias or Allocasuarinas may be better, but I don't know how much it really matters. Mine is made from North American Ash, which I believe is noted for its stiffness relative to other American woods, but I would be surprised if it held a candle to some of the dense, Aussie hardwoods.

Cheers,
Luke

Old bandsaw blades are useable but are typically much more aggressive having positive raked teeth rather than negative raked teeth typical of a hand saw.

You can however purchase blades here:
https://www.toolsforworkingwood.com/...Bow_Saw_Blades

Having now purchased a retoother, one future experiment planned, is to make my own bow saw blades by toothing and sharpening plate and then trimming the plate to the appropriate size with a hand shear.
I use a shear like this: http://www.machineryhouse.com.au/S193

Originally Posted by Luke Maddux

Dave,

I'm not sure about using band saw blades. They are quite thick. My bow saw blade is extremely thin (0.015").

Some bandsaw blades are as thin as 0.020" while 0.025" is quite common.
I have several bow saw blades I bought in the US and they are 0.025" thick, one is ~20" long and 1.5" wide it looks like a hand mitre saw blade bit it is definitely for a "ripping" bow saw

I feel like Blackwood would work. I think the main property you want is stiffness so that the two sides transfer the tension from the string to the blade without flexing. One of the harder Acacias or Allocasuarinas may be better, but I don't know how much it really matters. Mine is made from North American Ash, which I believe is noted for its stiffness relative to other American woods, but I would be surprised if it held a candle to some of the dense, Aussie hardwoods.

Blackwood would be great.

I made the two bow saws shown below ~ 8 year ago - the smaller one is made from a mix of Sheoak and WA river gum and the other is all WA river gum.
The leather string tensioner on the smaller works extremely well and is still good today.
The Brass lathered tensioner on the bigger one also works very well
The bigger one had a super thin Swedish log cutting blade on it for a while and the smaller one had a fine tooth cutting bandsaw blade and I also used it with a hacksaw blade..
More pics here
https://www.woodworkforums.com/showth...626#post342626
and
https://www.woodworkforums.com/f44/bowsaw-34043

Thanks Hiroller.

That shear makes for an expensive blade. I huess yiubwould have other uses for it.

At some point I would love to get into making some traditional hand tools so all of this gets filed away for hopeful recall when I get there.

Dave TTC
Turning Wood Into Art

BobL

Apppreciate your input too. Great to he getting some feed back and links

Dave TTC
Turning Wood Into Art

Cheers Dave, Just looking at that photo made me cringe about how bad my dust extraction was back them

I would also tooth a piece of steel, as mentioned above, but bandsaw blades are fine if you can relax the hook on them with a diamond card if they're impulse hardened and coarse, or with a file or triangular stone if they're just carbon steel. They should be cheap (the carbon steel ones you'd actually want to scavenge from) and the finer ones should be plenty thin.

(in case it costs a lot to ship from TFWW).

There are carbon steel chinese bowsaw blades on ebay fairly often, and they are fine, too, and the right hardness for hand filing. And they should be cheap with teeth already cut on them.

Originally Posted by BobL

Cheers Dave, Just looking at that photo made me cringe about how bad my dust extraction was back them

Lol

Originally Posted by D.W.

(in case it costs a lot to ship from TFWW).

There are carbon steel chinese bowsaw blades on ebay fairly often, and they are fine, too, and the right hardness for hand filing. And they should be cheap with teeth already cut on them.

Thanks

I happen to have a box of broken blades I aquired some time ago. Had always pondered whatbto do with them as the theynhad never ended up in recycling yet.

Have to go to work this morning as one of the jobs had a break and enter but will see if i can load some pics of the blades later. I have no means to measure the thickness. Also would not know if it is hardened or not.

Dave TTC
Turning Wood Into Art

Dave, check the blade length, mine is 14" x 1/4", and a lot of old English bow saws are that size - b*gg*r to sharpen. TFWW blades are 12". Gavin's idea to tooth, and then slice saw plate is a good one. I have the plate... and he lives pretty close...

Cheers
Peter

Dave check out .
Tools for working wood(American site)
They sell bow saw blade parts extra ,extra.
Matt

Sorry, Dave - been away looking after grandchildren for a couple of days, & not reading the Forum! Yairs, it's the same bloke wot made the saw Luke is talking about as made your little coping saw frame. The saw Luke has is in fact the first or second bowsaw I ever made, so it's not super flash, but certainly functional. BTW, the Brits call these small saws "turning saws", either because they turn round circles, or you can turn he blade in the frame to clear obstructions when you're cutting things out (or both!)

Of course you can make blades from old bandsaw blades! They come in a variety of thicknesses, & the ones I buy for my bandsaw are only a shade over 15 thou thick (0.45mm), as a matter of fact. I haven't actually made bowsaw blades from them, as I've had plenty of offcuts from 'regular' sawplate, until recently, but have run out of scraps, so I certainly intend to use some shortly. I'll report on how well it works, but I see no reason why they won't be perfectly adequate. However, I certainly wouldn't try to use the existing teeth, they are usually far too coarse & far too aggressive for a small bowsaw. Most blades these days are impulse-hardened and the teeth can't be filed, as BobL has pointed out, so it's no use trying to alter the existing tooth profile with a file. Instead, I'd cut off a strip & re-tooth it - the hardening only extends to half a mm or so beyond the bottom of the gullets. For small saws (up to 12 inch blades), I've found somewhere between 12 & 15 tpi works well, depending on the average thickness of what you want to cut with them. (In fact, I just cut out a plane tote from 24mm thick Wattle this afternoon with a 15tpi, 10 inch saw this afternoon & it was just right for the job! )

And since a bowsaw spends much, if not most of its time ripping rather than cross-cutting, just file the teeth as rip teeth, it's far easier, and I find that works the most efficiently for me. The hard part is drilling a small hole in each end of your new blade - ordinary HSS drills choke on saw plate. You can use the old trick of chucking a small, bunted nail in your drill and holding that hard on the spot here you want the hole til it gets red hot & tempers the spot, then a HSS drill will cut it. I use a small, carbide-tipped glass drill, the smallest I can get. I lightly centre-punch the spot, then drill through from each side to make a hole about 1.5mm diameter - simple, easy & quick.

Making very narrow blades 4-5mm wide isn't the easiest way to begin a saw-making career, so you might consider getting a few of the 12 inch Grammercy blades to get you started at bowsaw making. Their blades are not expensive (but the freight will be!) but these blades are pinned, like coping saw blades. It's not hard to make retainers for pinned blades (you have a model in front of you ) but if the Grammercy blades are like typical coping saw blades, it's dead easy to knock out the pins & use a nail to hold your blades like the typical old bowsaws do....

Cheers,