Thread: Hand ripsawing insanity

Out of curiosity I put a wooden handscrew clamp on disston ripsaw, so I could get a similar grip on the saw and cut in a similar fashion away from me with two arms. Seemes to work well.

Photos of the said quick test of double handle on a Disston saw..

Looking for something more challenging to saw, than some pine scraps..
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Originally Posted by MartinCH

Out of curiosity I put a wooden handscrew clamp on disston ripsaw, so I could get a similar grip on the saw and cut in a similar fashion away from me with two arms. Seemes to work well.

stylize it a little and start a revolution!!

Holding onto the bottom of the handle for a lot of work will rub my hands a little but, but I have a bunch of the cheap "mechanic's gloves" around the shop that hf sells (they're actually really good) for grinding tools when hot grinding. When whatever is in the leather starts to smoke, I know the fingers are hot.

But more germanely, they are good if saws are starting to make handles raw because they have leather and a little bit of padding, but they're not bulky. This doesn't happen when using a saw in a vise for me, just sitting ripping and gripping low on the handle to take away some of the agression/rake that will occur at the bottom of the stroke.

Not sure it will Strat a revolution on this forum let alone generally. Have also tried the reverse style cutting with both hands griping the saw best that can. Even though the handle not designed for it (I assume) seem to be able grip well. As well as getting the left arm into a better position holding a sawing this way seems to equilise side loading making for a vertical cit and the saw seems to track well. Having the timber laced to the bench is also a good. Didn't find a position with this style of grip that I liked while using my sawhorse. But it early days. Think I would okay sawing timber up too 2 to 3 inches deeps this way.

Wasn't fun trying to saw a 340mm dia hog, Too slow to be conformable

Wonder If the style of cut Ian was referring too.
Was not able to match old carpenter sawing vertically to the photo..

I have enjoyes watching a program on SBS on the rebuilding of Notre Dame in Paris and there is a very brief segment in it showing a large framesaw being used in the traditional way to rip oak logs the way they would have been back in the 13thC for the cathedral roof members. Here is a screen shot at 24min...

Rip sawing - Notre Dame Rebuild on SBS.jpg

To view the video you need to make/have an SBS account and be logged in. The screen shot is from the second of two programs in the series...SBS On Demand

I always wince when I see old photos/images of pit sawing... I can't imagine how uncomfortable it must be for the bottom chap with all that sawdust coming down over you. No wonder they call the chap on top the 'top dog'.

I meant to post this the other day. In this youtube channel, retired craftsmen re-enact old trades that presumably they practiced in their youth. Here they are milling timber out of freshly felled trees. There are some details, like how they prep and mark the log. The "under dogs" seem smart enough to stand and operate the saw in a diagonal, so they're not actually showered by sawdust. Make sure you turn on close captions since it's narrated in Español.

This video is pretty good too.

Originally Posted by raffo

This video is pretty good too.

[/video]

Agreed, an excellent video that covers most aspects of those forestry tools and their use.

Here is the tooth pattern on my best large saw that had the American tooth pattern that can be found on some old saws here in Australia on which I modified some of the teeth to become the rakers that perform the same function as the 'forks' shown on the racing saws shown in the video...

Tooth set on 1-2 person saw - 2.jpg

The rakers were formed with hammer stokes and are only on every second set of three teeth, so four cutters to every one active raker for the direction of the cut stroke. It performs half way between a true racing saw and a working saw. Racing saws are designed to cut fast for short burst with intense effort, whereas a working saw is designed to be used for extended sessions.

I roughed this out this morning with some scrap cherry that I have laying around.

https://ofhandmaking.files.wordpress...6027748492.jpg

Put the bolts through the handle - low diameter so as to disturb as little as possible in terms of the handle integrity. What seems obvious to me at this point is that the handle could use a fixture at the bottom and the top to take some of the burden of lifting the saw off of the grip, as squeezing things for no reason is never a great idea energy-wise.

I'll glue some horns onto it. If it works well...maybe it'll be worth remaking. if not, it hasn't taken much time to just handsaw this out and then belt grind, rasp and gouge a rough shape to test it.

but what I didn't think about is I have the bolts, these two being really the only ones the right length and small diameter that I can locate, but I cannot find matching nuts. many the right diameter, all the wrong thread pitch.

They're cheesy zinc galvanized, but I will just wipe them with tung oil to prevent them from getting nasty.

I've been using this as a turning saw with long ago purchased carbon steel bandsaw blades - haven't had the bandsaw blade for years. But a hook blade for wide stock is super fast cutting, if not accurate. You can't file handsaw teeth to match the speed, but in a hand saw, it's ultra hard on the back side of the cut, so it can't be just used in anything.

I think the rip blade that comes with this saw, which I also have, is too light duty for straight ripping. But I have some 1095 and can make one just a little taller and more rigid for straight tracking and more desire to maintain squareness.

This is a saw I've always struggled to find a use for. it's not really tall enough to be a turning saw, I put bimetal bandsaw blades in it and used it to cut steel, but those blades really hold up a lot better in a portaband than they do in a hand saw - fewer events that beat up the teeth and then cause cascading failure of the teeth behind the tooth that takes damage.

tried two cuts with this thing over lunch - one with a 1/2" bandsaw blade or 3/8, whatever is in it - that was fast but obviously wandered to an unusable for daily work state x 10.

I usually cut with a rip saw right at the edge of the line and if it's really critical, I will bias squareness away from the cut a slight amount to make sure my top vision doesn't lead to undercutting on the back.

so, i pulled out the 1 1/2 inch blade that comes with the saw. It's 4tpi or 5 point or so, too relaxed, and I reprofiled the teeth in about 10 minutes to be about 5 degrees rake. Speed in reprofiling partially due to a lot of history cutting and adjusting teeth (I work continuously and with a heavy hand on stuff like that) but also thanks to the fact that the blade is a little soft, which isn't as non-functional as people like to pretend - a blade that's a touch soft is super easy to touch up. it consumed only one corner of a newer mex nicholson (better than the early mex nicholsons) to reset the rake and two heavy handed strokes per tooth.

I noticed two things:
1) I steer it well enough already to be functional, but not as well as I can steer a sitting "toward the crotch" handsaw where I can just sit right on the edge of the line with no regard for errors.
2) the saw is still on the left side of the cut if you're right handed and it's surprising how tired the left arm gets lifting it in a cut. I don't know why I thought this would be an even thing. force on the downstroke is very even seeming. Force on the upstroke, it's noticeable that you are lifting from the center of the saw with the left arm and obviously you cannot lift up with the right hand to pull up half of the weight.

I can saw 100 linear feet in a shop session with the carpenter saw sitting without thinking much about it. You can't do it all in a row, but you can do 6 or 8 feet at a time in hardwood easily and then you'll probably have something that needs to be addressed with planes, anyway. and so on. within a couple of hours, you have a huge pile of saw dust. This does send the dust straight down, which is nice. I noticed no tendency for it even in my first time hands to try to work it's way laterally into the bench and bang around and scuff things. in full inch thick cherry, it will cut about 1/2-3/4" wood per stroke if you lay into it.

the other thing about ripping that isn't obvious is day to day when you do it, you're working focusing on accuracy, not speed, so you're not in a race wearing yourself out, anyway. Accuracy on the rip cut will save you 10 times over on follow up work vs. just trying to shred the wood like you're in a contest.

I do not actually have 1095 coil on hand to use on this other than a failed prior attempt at a frame saw (.032" plate 2" tall that would be a good fit here, but the tooth count is 2 1/2).

I do not see this beating the carpenter saw for speed, but it's an interesting option, if maybe requiring a little more fitness - think shoulder raises.

I took a 10 minute break from some intensive data work and cut five or six pieces off of my cherry test board with the frame saw. The kerf is thinner. To the extent that it is, I think it has the potential to be faster than a carpenter saw. I can't steer it quite as well yet, though.

out of curiosity, I timed one of the iterations including marking the line with a carbide scribe (think awl) and then pencil to see it better.

starting the cut is a little awkward, but I'm guessing the best way to do it is to lay the saw just a bit flat at the edge of the board and establish a shallow fingernail sized cut to start in, then everything goes smoothly

to cut 15 inches of 4/4 cherry (that is typical of good cherry - it's not light or chosen for easiest sawing) including the marking and starting the cut is 56 seconds. I would figure in a long cut if you could steer it, you could cut 2 feet a minute in 4/4 wood, which is a little faster than I would typically saw with a carpenter saw (figure 3 minutes for four feet of quality 4/4 stock or 5/4 stock that's been reduced to 4/4). I've cut four feet in less than two minutes with a carpenter saw before - in cherry - but that's in the samples that were both straight and easy to cut wood at the same time.

speed test 2 - 5/4 cherry, full thickness (rough) dry, not the hardware store stuff where they tell you it was 5/4 when it was wet, so 1.1" is the rough thickness on the rack.

37" long cut, something that you'd find fairly often making cabinetry.

Frame saw - including starting the cut (target just marked with a pencil and straight edge, so only a couple of seconds of marking -on better wood, I'd have used a gauge, but this is a rough board.
2 minutes and 45 seconds. I had to take a break a couple of times because my shoulders are really sore from lifting the saw yesterday. it's just an unnatural movement to pull a saw like that up in a cut, one I'm sure that will go away, at least in terms of the amount of stopping I had to deal with. the whole cut was just all of the pencil line to removing the whole pencil line. Wouldn't take long to clean up with a plane. Would correlate to a probably about 2 minutes and 10 seconds on 4/4, but we'll never know (like full inch, less on finished wood). In line with the expectation of ripping between 1 and 2 feet a minute.

Disston 5 point rip - I think. it's either 5 or 4 1/2 point. 2 minutes, 45 seconds also - no break needed, much more accurate cut, but I'm familiar with it - just removing the pencil line all the way down the board.

there would be less time and risk with the disston. We'll see if over time I can steer the frame saw a little better and put a slightly taller and stiffer blade in it and take advantage of what appears to be maybe 20% higher cut rate (guessing at that). it's far more than 20% more effort at this point, just heavier than the disston and a little stickier in a cut because the blade can flex more. It needs to flex a little or it wouldn't be possible to steer it.

I made the disston cut after pooping out my stiff "lifter" muscles. it sounds stupid, perhaps, to say that it gets hard to pull upward a saw that weighs a few pounds without developing the muscles on the front of your shoulders, but in a 37 inch 5/4 board, you're probably doing it 100 times. and there's a little friction in the wood (half heart, half sap cherry - heart cuts better. Sap is kind of stringy).

I'd use the disston at this point, though. the difference in speed would be erased immediately in cleaning up the edge and even though I got gassed pulling the frame saw up the way it's set up. the disston weighs almost nothing and I could lift it easily.

both times, same board, one cut 3/4" further in than the other and I stood astride the saw, something I don't usually do, but I've seen peter follansbee advocate it and I'd do it if ripping stock at the bench to avoid lateral alignment and squareness issues trying to stand beside the board and saw forward.

Why two hands? It's just a little easier if you're going to do a lot of ripping. You might to 10 feet of this at once making something, and you don't want to be feeling the burn when you go to pick up the next tool.

Also, I slowed down a little with the disston on purpose because I would presumably want to compare something at less than "full speed". you can't saw full speed for a cumulative 45 minutes' worth of time in the shop. Slowing down in reality also gives you more control in observing (steering, correcting) the cut continuously with a carpenter's saw, anyway. Accuracy is the focus due to the multiple times over reward you get doing the rough work neatly. The rest of the work that follows is almost nothing and you also get the confidence to cut a lot of stuff that will be hidden and never do anything to the sawn edge at all (panel ends, drawer sides, etc). there's no way someone was shooting drawer ends 200 years ago - they'd have been good enough to skip that sawing right at a marked line.

one more follow up before I order 1095 coil and just waste money on this whole project:
* two more cuts over lunch. I'm starting to get a feel for what puts less stress on the shoulders. Some of that is whole body kind of leaning. it can't be following the saw all the way down or you're lifting your upper body and no matter what shape you're in that'll be back trouble. But being a little more rigid and lifting the saw with some torso and leaning rather than rotation at the shoulders helps a lot.

So that's figured out.

It would also be a good back exercise for me as I used to have a good strong kind of unlimited sit ups in a row back, and it is gone (as a youth).

* second, the saw likes to cut on line a little easier if it's leaning forward a little bit. there's some limit to this which goes back to leaning. if you're leaning more, the saw can come back at an angle toward you more as it cuts forward because your legs are further back. if you are sawing closer to vertical, which is physically easier, you can stand closer to the saw. if you try to stand forward and lean the saw forward much, it just hits your legs, spoiling your accuracy.

2 1/2 minutes for the last cut and I've got starting the saw figured out in a way that it doesn't miss the mark.

if I'm guessing at a physical limit here for reasonableness, it'll be around 2 minutes for a little over 3 feet of 1.25" thick medium hardwood. it will be slower with something like ash or beech and faster with something like walnut or mahogany.

Waxing the blade is a good idea - it heats up quickly if the saw is being steered and from past experience, spring stock that's heated and steered will eventually get distorted and take on some forming that you don't want it to take on.

off to track down the .032" coil stock here.... it's going to be the secret to beating the disston saw. if the plate steps up to .04" stock like a disston saw, the speed advantage will probably be lost. I could've measured the rip blade that comes with these ulmia/ece saws, but I forgot. It's somewhere around .025-.03"

edit, it's about .024" for the rip blade that came with the saw.

Hi David

Suggest trying the reverse cut with your Disston, which u you mavehave done Here's a thread, with some videos on reverse cutting Topic: Reverse overhand grip for ripping '-' Woodworking Masterclasses
It the first time I enjoyed ripping in standing position, find rapid , less tiring-and the cutting tracks well despite my lack of familiarity with the stance.
The comments on the thread I concur with , including that I suspect this is an old technique that fallen out of popularity, in favour of freeing one hand.

Note cause my longer bench wasn't set up for gripping overhanging timber I am simply have the timber in the vice and repositioning occasionally.

Cheers M