Thread: Hand saw handle grain

One additional point I should have made is that if you are chasing figure (in the timber ) you should look for a tight, intricate grain. It was Ian Wilkie that pointed out to me that big sweeping figure might be fine for your dining table but is completely lost on something the size of a saw handle. Common sense really, but needs to be mentioned before you wreck a perfectly good piece of large timber and become disillusioned.

Regards
Paul

Yes I must admit I do enjoy a bit of bling or something custom or bespoke to my tools

Thanks to Bernard on the forum found some grass nuts which will get me up and running from Carbitool I thought I'd post here incase others are looking

Spare Screws - Carbitool

So I've found two pieces of appropriate size I think I'll tackle. Will post some photos of progress soon

Thanks for all the responses very informative for me

Didn't see this thread before, was looking somewhere else..

Coupla comments: First NG rosewood could be fine for a handle, but you need to select carefully. I've used a fair bit of the stuff & have found it to be extremely variable, from damn-near balsa to quite dense & firm stuff that would be at last as good as the traditional woods. I'd say from the way your handle snapped just being shaped, you selected some that was more to the balsa side. My own preference is for ridiculously hard woods because they look good & polish with use to a lovely sheen, but most people are more sensible & choose woods that don't take an entire day to make into a handle!

Myrtle beech is a good handle wood if you have some. It is about the same density & strength as northern hemisphere beech, finishes much more better, and you can find some gorgeously figured stuff with a bit of chasing around.

I think you got enough advice on grain orientation. I look to put the longest run of grain I can through the top between the grip & cheeks on both open & closed handles, this is where most of the force is transmitted to the blade. The grip is all sort-grain if you orient the template this way, but experience shows they rarely break here. That flimsy little bit of a return between the bottom of the grip & the cheek is also mostly short grain & I can't see it contributes all that much to strength. In fact it amazes me that you don't see that many broken - you do see some, but not as many as I would've expected.

Cheers,

Nathan

Those screws will do the job but they are the type of saw screw that was used in the 1960s and 1970s: Not the 1870s.

People who have made up a few saw handles will tell you there is a strict sequence for the various operations. This is nothing to do with being easier or technically better, but purely to avoid disappointment. Simply put, if you mess up a particular job you don't want that to be the last operation. If you are going to make a mistake, do it early so you can be philosophical, chuck it in the bin and start again. This is probably the order most people adopt:

1. Select timber. Check for defects.
2. Mark out and cut. If you are copying a handle, shave down one side of a pencil for about an inch to expose the lead. This gives a flattish face to mark more accurately the original. (It's another Wilkie tip)
3. Check for defects again (see pix and comments below )
4. Cut out the slot for the blade
5. Drill the holes for the saw screws.
6. Check the above two are going to fit as intended
7. Rough shape the contours of the handle
8. Refine and sand the contours
9. Finish off with varnish, oil or whatever is your favourite

Arguably four and five could be done the other way around, but the kerf in fact gives a good guide as to how deep you should drill, bearing in mind you will use two sizes of drill for the male and female halves. Remember to set the countersinks first.

The reason I added No.3 is as follows:

This is a handle I made a few years ago. It is Forest red Gum in the London style pattern and at the time I was quite pleased with my effort:

P1070532 (Medium).JPG

Until I noticed splits here (it was not quite that bad and has deteriorated over time.)
P1070529 (Medium).JPG

And here in the cheek
P1070530 (Medium).JPG

As well as hairline cracks in the grip
P1070531 (Medium).JPG

A little more time spent at step No.3 would have saved a whole heap of heartache!!

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by IanW

. . .v .v .That flimsy little bit of a return between the bottom of the grip & the cheek is also mostly short grain & I can't see it contributes all that much to strength. In fact it amazes me that you don't see that many broken - you do see some, but not as many as I would've expected.

I think it possibly demonstrates that multiple thin framing/brackets that reduces the flex in other brackets/frames can be better than a single thick frame/bracket that is free to flex. I've cracked one of the thin ones when the saw fell off the bench and it landed on the lower horn. I wanted to put some glue in the crack but had a devil of time getting it the crack to open up. Eventually I took the blade off and carefully applied compression (simulating the original "drop" in a WW vice until the crack just opened and used a syringe to inject some glue. Haven't used that saw much since but its still holding.

Bob, I accept the 'return' contributes something, of course, but I just can't see that it's all that much in the grand scheme of things. "Pistol-grip" or "open" handles seem to survive remarkably well, so I've formed the private opinion that the darned things are just there to make handle-making more challenging. It takes me substantially longer to make a "closed" handle because the return constantly gets in the way when I'm trying to rasp & scrape & sand the other bits.

There is no doubt the cross-grain structure of plane totes lets them down all too often. I reckon that's a result of heavier applied forces (both in normal use & when they fall off the bench ), plus the extra torque courtesy of the extension . If folks would only keep the through-stud nice & tight it should be a much more rare event. imo....

Cheers,

A small deviation, an my apologies but the “Return”
I have always read as being called the Lambs tongue or the lower ogee curve.


Not trying to split hairs or be difficult(Well not this time [emoji6]).

But just thought I would put this out there for know particular reason.

Cheers Matt.

Based on the 10" extra large handle template I've copied it onto another piece I've grabbed from the NG rosewood pile but in all honesty I have no idea what it is, I cleaned up the faces to get a good look at the grain , same goes with the Jarrah piece

Gramercy bow saw coming out to help with these handles

those should all work fine.


Unless you're extremely rough with a handle in use or the wood is just a really poor choice (red oak here in the states splits like nothing, so it would be a bad choice), that orientation will be good and the wood should be fine.

I have a feeling that a lot of disston's preference for apple had to do with its workability (it machines really easily without little splitouts occurring, even when you go back against the grain a little - and no pore filling step in the finishing process).

Beech is a logical choice for a lower cost version of similar characteristics.

Originally Posted by Simplicity

..... but the “Return”
I have always read as being called the Lambs tongue or the lower ogee curve...

Well Mat, you are throwing out a challenge to someone who had 50 years of being a professional hair-splitter..

My understanding is that the bit referred to as the "lamb's tongue" is the circled part: Picture1.jpg

It resembles that part of a sheep's anatomy & the name is also applied to similar motifs in architectural carving.

If you call the whole thing a lamb-tongue, what's this bit? Picture2.jpg

The larynx?

Most handles just have a plain strip of wood between grip & cheek, with no additional decoration & nothing to suggest any mammalian anatomical parts, so we do need some terms to describe added flourishes. I've yet to read of or invent a good term for the little kink halfway up - "knee" springs to mind as being a bit better than "larynx", but our poor handle is getting to be a bit of a mixed-up metaphor, isn't it?

As far as I know, there is no established & widely-used term for the entire length of that irritating little bit of wood, which is why I used the blanket term "return" (picked up from someone else, btw, can't remember who it was). Feel free to come up with a good name for the darned thing - I'll adopt it immediately if I think it's a good 'un...

Cheers,

That's a very handsome handle Ian,
I know now what template I'll be using if I ever end up making one

Andy Lovelock mentions that area is called the clip, but that little step isn't present on the saw he shows in this
section of the video

Sharpening Western Saws - YouTube
I rather like that term, "return", heard it used for something else before, but forgotten.

Thanks for posting
Tom

My secret source of information,before I get to in over my head.

Nomenclature

Yes too the lambs tongue, the other bit I think Ray refers to it has the “Clip”.


Cheers Matt.
Please go easy on the hair splitting I’m a little thin on top in that area.

I was hoping to completely de-bunk this terminology challenge by referring to Simon Barley's superb book (British Saws and Saw Makers from 1660), which among his very comprehensive dissection (I introduced that word specifically for Ian to make him feel at home) includes a breakdown of terms used for the handle. It was probably more important in the British saw making industry as the handles were contracted out to specialist trades and the price paid changed according to the number of features included and these were detailed in the specification. In the US things were different as the handles were made in house.

However as you can see from this pic, every part is named except the one we are querying.

P1070534 (Medium).JPG

Simon Barley later on refers to the part in question as included in the lower horn. I have always described it as the lower guard as it seems to replicate the guard used in a fencing weapon.

The open handle was originally used in grafting saws, which tended to be a smaller saw, and as Simon Barley points out were often indistinguishable from toy saws and tends to be used only on smaller saws for two reasons, I think. Firstly, the saw depth is shallow and an enclosed handle would protrude below the tooth line making it look unbalanced and potentially interfering with sawing. Secondly an open handle is easing to make so in commercial terms is less expensive. Barley comments that these handle are usually restricted to saws of 8" or less (that is in the UK primarily, but similar in the US).

Once the saw length increases the enclosed handle is used. This could be because it looks better balanced, but also because there is more strength. If the strength aspect was not an issue I think the major manufacturers would have used an open handle on their budget models. Of course, you could argue that the market would have an adverse reaction to an open handle on a larger saw, but it does not look to me that any of them ever tried that.

This is from a 1916 Simonds catalogue. Although the No.170 was offered in 10" and 12" lengths we should note that it only had 1½" under the back and an enclosed handle would have hung too low looking ungainly. It's use, particularly with 17ppi, would have been for small dovetail work or model making.

Simonds No.170 (Medium).jpg

The back saws all had the enclosed handle and while I have selected Simonds to demonstrate this, it was common across all the manufacturers. (I knew the Simonds saws were all on the same page in the catalogue )

Simonds Back saw 1916 (Medium).jpg

I am trying to imagine an open handle on a 26" mitre saw ( I happen to be restoring one at the moment) and well......yuk!

There is one more aspect with the use of open or closed handles and that is the hardware. The open handle rarely (I haven't checked this) has more than two saw screws as there is just not the room. Once the handle is closed there is automatically room for three screws or even four in the case of some mitre saws.

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by Simplicity

My secret source of information,before I get to in over my head.

Nomenclature

Yes too the lambs tongue, the other bit I think Ray refers to it has the “Clip”.


Cheers Matt.
Please go easy on the hair splitting I’m a little thin on top in that area.

Matt

Thanks for all that. We should have known that Ray Gardiner's site would have all that info. I was taking too long composing my post while you put this one up.

I gotta go faster!!

Regards
Paul

PS: If we are going to split hairs let's hope it is with a scalpel and not an axe.