Thread: The Mighty Frame Saw - which size for resawing?

28" is too short. Ever use a miter box and get annoyed that a really long saw only allows a short stroke (else you pull it out of the miter frame)?

I think 36" is even too short - when you get one of these running (and sawing sticks down to 4" wide or so, or resawing, won't be a problem with the tooth count), you want the long stroke as you're more or less leaning back and forth and you'll like that you can do it at a slow pace and move a lot of teeth. Body sawing rather than arms.

I'd do a 4' saw first and smaller later only if you want to. If you can manage to get a really coarse tooth 28" saw, then just use the saw - you can get really good with resawing, but will find it to start to be lacking in wider panels.

Size and tension are the two things you want, and the weight of the saw so that it bears itself into the cut rather than you having to do it. The heavier weight is a benefit in this case because it keeps you from having to file overly aggressive teeth.

Steering the saw is sort of like a boat or airplane. You can steer both ends of the cut, twist either way to steer them independently, angle the back of the saw across the cut to adjust - all kinds of things.

Originally Posted by IanW

My mantra is never to use any tool larger than necessary! At a minimum, the blade should be slightly longer than twice the length of the cut being made. The rationale is that it will clear the sawdust on each full stroke. A good coarse-toothed ripsaw will certainly cut the sizes you mention, as DW has said, and may be easier to use if you are not familiar with frame saws.

A frame saw has got to be one of the easiest of tools to construct. Mine took no more than a couple of hours to make, the frame is held by loose tenons and the tensioning device was made from an M12 bolt with a couple of hacksaw cuts: Attachment 493846

I found it awkward to steer accurately, compared with my 5-3tpi Disston 28". That was partly due to inexperience & because of the too-narrow blade I used, but I'm very familiar with my couple of bowsaws & thought I'd be able to cut straight with a 3/4" blade easily. I can't as it turns out, but running a small kerf each side of the cut does keep it running straight, particularly if I reverse the wood every 150mm or so. An interesting point is that I used the lightest dimensions & materials I reckoned to be compatible with structural requirements, and my saw weighs in at 960g. If you pick up the Disston, it feels heavier, but the scales say otherwise - 860g!

I think the perceived ease of use of a framesaw is all in the blade. Having a blade in tension means it can be thinner & narrower, hence less friction & less effort overall. However, for occasional use, the old Disston does a sterling job & I don't expend enough extra calories to be concerned. Different matter if you want to re-saw many boards on a daily basis, of course.

So my frame saw spends most of its time hanging on the wall gathering dust. Some day I will get/make a better blade & it might suddenly become a more valued member of the team....

Cheers,

The shorter frame saws, I find a bit tricky compared to a carpenter saw. I have a couple set up with bandsaw blades, but they're not a roubo type, just turning or frame saws - alignment becomes an issue.

The bigger 4' types with a whole lot of tension on the blade are a completely different animal, but the size and tension are essential. The saw needs to be heavy enough to pressure the cut on its own (downward) and the tension and plate thickness combination need to result in a lot of steerable tension because adjustments are subtle and constant as part of sawing. That sounds like an obligation, but we all make subtle and constant adjustments as part of sawing, they're just different when you're making an adjustment for twist and left and right independently on the front and back of the cut. It sounds like it might be confusing, but it's literally just which way you list the saw left or right and then how you turn the direction of cut front to back vs. being dead parallel with the board. It took about 6 linear feet to get the hang of it permanently, but the boards from the first 6 feet were certainly usable.

For hand saw resawing, it's nice to be able to resaw with both hands so as to be able to get after it for a while, and it's also a good way to learn to saw with your offhand as it's not very demanding - once the cut is relatively straight, you're just pushing the saw, and you get to go back and forth on each side of the board being cut rather than flipping the board around in the vise. I will tension the frame saw (the wedges) for anything in the 5" or 6" wide neighborhood and 3' long, which isn't always everything, but it becomes monstrously faster in wider boards and other than making one feel a bit woozy from stepping back and forth slowly for a while, it saves your "planing and other sawing" muscles.

Originally Posted by woodPixel

DW, it looks like you have the Blackburn monster?

Perhaps it was delivered sharpened and drilled?

I ask as I don't mind paying to get a great job... Plus my saw sharpening skills are"beginner"

Delbs, if you're watching and still thinking about it, I priced delivery of two of the 48's and it's the same as a single..... Hmmmm......

Hey mate. What components were you thinking with this?

Originally Posted by delbs

Hey mate. What components were you thinking with this?

I'm also following this with interest. Would ordering 3 get any discount?

Well, IF I were to order, I'd grab the 48" one, with the kit, sharpened and drilled.

These are the kits and info on the offers --> Blackburn Tools - Roubo frame saw parts

There is a delay of 4 weeks, so its not an instant-oatmeal order.


On postage, the PayPal doesn't seem to change when I add two or three of the kits.

Here is a screengrab....
screenshot-www.paypal.com-2021.04.29-16_26_39.jpg



No doubt the vendor might have something to say about that! We can but try


I suggested Delbs as he's a local and I go past his work often enough... adding postage to redirect this would bugger up any savings somewhat.

Three would bring it to AUD$286 each.


HOWEVER (!!) I was thinking that one of these 700mm and a spare blade might be a better option...Bowsaws : Saw, Bow, 'Classic', 700mm, Turning Style, Universal Blade, #712965

I just don't know!

Maybe IanW is right... just use a 28" diston properly!

... then again, that FAT 4" 1200mm resaw blade looks MAJESTIC.


Have a think. Im in no rush (Ive some family issues to do/handle with aging parents).

If you're looking the coarse hand tooth route, you can resaw fairly wide boards, but beyond something like 5", it can become arduous.

If you're going to process lumber by hand mostly or resaw mostly by hand, $286D aud will be money well spent. If you don't use it, though, then maybe not so well spent - I think I had a cheap streak when I made mine instead of buying hardware as I wouldn't make the stuff isaac makes for the price he makes it now, but it was even cheaper back then. I think hardware and blade would've been about $150 or something at the time (for a blade that was just punched, but needed drilling for the holes and sharpen/set.

I have one of the 700mm ulmia saws - it would resaw about what you could do comfortably with a hand saw, but if you made a frame saw the same length, it would be torturous to use as you'd need to supply the downforce or file overly aggressive teeth, and it wouldn't have the ability to stay straight and steer subtly.

(actually, I use the ulmia saw now to saw 1/4" steel plate with a cut-apart bimetal portaband blade (those can be resharpened in about 10 minutes with a diamond file if you're cheap like me). That's not a substitute for a hack saw, it doesn't have the blade stiffness, but it's fine in longer cuts when the blade is buried between metal bits.

I'd venture to guess I've cut about 100 linear feet of bar stock - it doesn't stink up the shop like using a cutting wheel does and it's far more accurate - I'd guess 1/2 inches a minute of cutting on 1/4th high carbon steel or old annealed files with a saw like that and not unpleasant except for the resharpening.)

I just bought mine from Blackburn today and used myus.com as a forwarding carrier. It worked out much cheaper that way than getting Isaac to ship it directly. Not sure why the price difference but it is what it is. I got the largest saw kit that's sharpened and drilled including the saw file comes time for resharpening. I'm going make my frame out of Qld walnut. I've been waiting to get this saw for a while and seeing that I just sold my bandsaw I can't afford not to have it.

Woodpixel I haven't got pics yet, I only bought it today. I don't know how long it will take for shipping

we don't have any good options for shipping anything but first class mail (<4 pounds) internationally. Everything else is exorbitantly expensive except for bulk surface items. I think the forwarders can group things together and either ship container air with negotiated rates or on slower shipping, ship bulk on surface and sort things out or do it by agreement.

For example, if I want to ship a priority mail box to England or Europe, it will cost me about $56. That's a box about 10x14x4 or something like that. No more than 20 pounds. Scaled rates are generally higher unless something is small.

UPS international rates are higher and there are other options like DHL that are also expensive (DHL has a bad reputation for damage here, too - I've gotten two large boxes from them with guitars, both boxes were damaged - one with a towmotor fork hole in it. Oops. One of the guitars was damaged, the other one lucked out. EMS has never damaged a properly packaged guitar from japan for me, nor has UPS domestically).

AT any rate, I think we like to import things here and only export big industrial things, and our postal bits reflect that. It takes a forwarder to put a bunch of stuff together and ship it more like a commerical/industrial shipper would do.

Section1 - you sneaky bugger Tell me, how much was the MyUS and the final weight?

Keen to know

i can give a couple of tips for first use with the saws once you get them set up. You can use a kerfing plane or cut the kerf with a rip saw on your first couple, and start the top of the board cut with a hand saw on the first cut or two, but you won't need either of those after a while - just a very good vise or setup to hold the board and a good bold line to cut through or to either side of. You will become confident quickly. Whatever you saw, you can generally use a jointer plane afterward to finish to the mark quickly.

Good blade stiffness when you start the saw itself on a line and it'll just sit on a line (the blade won't wobble, etc) and then you give it a bump or two. In a couple of strokes, it's half an inch deep.

When I mentioned earlier being a good idea to set up a rhythm to saw and check, 25 strokes doesn't sound like many, but they're big strokes. You'll cut several inches in most boards in those 25 strokes - tiny corrections are easy and you won't even notice that they were made after the boards were split. Any large wander is generally not correctable, thus the rhythm if you want to work accurately and perhaps are pushing it on the resawn board thicknesses given the first board thickness.

Originally Posted by woodPixel

Section1 - you sneaky bugger Tell me, how much was the MyUS and the final weight?

Keen to know

Well it's on route to them but when I did a calculation estimate it was around $43 and I can't remember the weight. Oh and I paid Isaac $20 shipping.

Originally Posted by D.W.

i can give a couple of tips for first use with the saws once you get them set up. You can use a kerfing plane or cut the kerf with a rip saw on your first couple, and start the top of the board cut with a hand saw on the first cut or two, but you won't need either of those after a while - just a very good vise or setup to hold the board and a good bold line to cut through or to either side of. You will become confident quickly. Whatever you saw, you can generally use a jointer plane afterward to finish to the mark quickly.

Good blade stiffness when you start the saw itself on a line and it'll just sit on a line (the blade won't wobble, etc) and then you give it a bump or two. In a couple of strokes, it's half an inch deep.
When I mentioned earlier being a good idea to set up a rhythm to saw and check, 25 strokes doesn't sound like many, but they're big strokes. You'll cut several inches in most boards in those 25 strokes - tiny corrections are easy and you won't even notice that they were made after the boards were split. Any large wander is generally not correctable, thus the rhythm if you want to work accurately and perhaps are pushing it on the resawn board thicknesses given the first board thickness.

At first I thought a kerfing plane would be good but then I thought I can simply saw a kerf. Until I try a kerfing plane I really speak for or against it. At first I will take it real easy until I get used to it and develop the muscle memory for accuracy. I'm so ecstatic, super excited to start using this saw.