Thread: Infill Sawset

Originally Posted by Luke Maddux

That's really good to know. I have been considering doing this for a while. I read somewhere that they made a fine and a coarse version but I haven't had a bit of luck with locating the fine one.

I frequent a vintage tool dealer and he has about four of them kicking around for ten bucks at any given point.

So now I have my reason to pop in

Yeah, they remain quite inexpensive, for some reason - perhaps because only a small number of nutters like us want to sharpen saws! I keep 3, one for fine teeth (the Somax), one for coarser teeth and one spare (because it was my father's & I hang onto it for sentimental reasons! ). I picked up another one for $10 last week at the place I get my tablesaw blades sharpened. It was there with a few other bits & bobs when I took the blades in, & still there when I went to pick them up, so I thought the poor thing needed a good home. By the look of the anvil, it has had very little use...

Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

Oh for the good old days, eh? I'd love to know how many saws they expected to sharpen with each file - I suppose you could get a rough idea if you knew how many saws Henry made in 1918, and divided by 35,000...

Luke, we woodworkers all seem to be suckers for a bit of shiny brass. I have to admit, there is something fatally attractive about brass coupled with a nice bit of wood, but not when it's as rough as that, and the retaining screws aren't neatly placed!

Cheers,

Ian

Just before WW1 Disston were apparantly making around 3,000,000 saws a year and that level continued until the twenties. That would make about 85 saws per file, which I think is a little hope ful even for those days. However that included all types of saw such as circular, bandsaw and crosscut as well as hand saws and back saws. I did see a comment from paul sellars about how many saws he sharpened from a single file. I don't recall the number or the brand of file, but perhaps Mcgee can help there as I feel it was from one of his threads. The brand may have been Bacho.

Just out of interest, I recently had to joint a Disston 26" D-95 completely back to a smooth toothline as there were four teeth broken off at the base. I changed the tooth configuration from 8ppi to 5 1/2ppi as I had several crosscut versions of this saw, but no rippers. I used two sides of the file to shape the teeth and then sharpen. There is still some life left in the sides and one side was unused. It was a 6" regular taper Wiltshire. I think it would be difficult to acquire a modern file to do that. Hell it wasn't a walk in the park with a good file. Oh for a toothing machine.

Regards
Paul

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

.... Hell it wasn't a walk in the park with a good file. Oh for a toothing machine.....

Yep, I can sympathise with you, having just finished toothing half a dozen 15 tpi dovetail saws Each would have almost as many teeth, as your 26", but thankfully, it only takes about 4 strokes to form each tooth at that size. I've been using a few NOS Wiltshires & other 'made in USA' files Peter ("Heavensabove") sent me to try, and they are a considerable step up on the Pferds I was using! I used a side to tooth each 10" 12tpi saw, which is far better than the Pferds - it was taking 1 full file & at least 11 side of another to tooth one saw!

Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

Yep, I can sympathise with you, having just finished toothing half a dozen 15 tpi dovetail saws Each would have almost as many teeth, as your 26", but thankfully, it only takes about 4 strokes to form each tooth at that size. I've been using a few NOS Wiltshires & other 'made in USA' files Peter ("Heavensabove") sent me to try, and they are a considerable step up on the Pferds I was using! I used a side to tooth each 10" 12tpi saw, which is far better than the Pferds - it was taking 1 full file & at least 11 side of another to tooth one saw!

Cheers,

Ian

Four strokes! I need to buy a huge magnifying glass and go into dovetail saws .

Each tooth took more than twenty strokes to shape (I lost count after the first three runs) and a few more to sharpen even on a rip tooth. The D-95 was the most expensive Disston produced so I suppose the steel was fairly good. I might think twice about doing that again.

Just on the subject of saw sets, since that was the original post, I prefer the models that have the moveable lever on the underside. Any further thoughts on this?

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

......I prefer the models that have the moveable lever on the underside. Any further thoughts on this?....l

Paul my only experience is with the Eclipse 77 type, and a Stanley 42 that my father had. Both have levers that are "underneath", which seems the most intuitive to me, but perhaps you'd get used to whatever you had to work with.

The Eclipse 77 is by far my preferred weapon - it has the double plunger that first grips the saw plate, then the 2nd plunger comes out & pushes the tooth over. Of the Stanleys, apparently only the 42X has the same doubleplunger system. I found dad's old Stanley 42 to be pretty difficult to get consistent results with on hand saws (he used it for big saws). It now sits in a box of things that are going to some other home, when I get around to it....

Cheers,

I rummaged through a box of saw sets recently, and there seemed to be 4 widths of Eclipse plungers! The sort with the red painted interior is the oldest, and has a range of plunger sizes. I was able to find one fine plunger version - they are fairly rare. I also have a filed down Eclipse. The newer version seems only to have the wider plunger.