Thread: Not another back saw!

Beautiful set of handmade gems, I wish I had the time to make some, its such a thrill making and using your own tools. Did you get that lovely aroma from from the Qld Walnut?? the one that smells like Eau de doggie doo doo??

I'll take a full set.
Lovely work Ian

Cheers
Michael

Originally Posted by RayG

...

I'm amazed, all SEVEN saws look just beautiful. Walnut is just beautiful stuff to work, it takes detail very well, is nice and durable, not to mention that it always looks magnificient. Mechanical properties aside, I think walnut is one of the best looking timbers to team up with brass.

Ray - there are only 5 saws. You had me worried, so I went back & counted them again. The way they seem to proliferate in my shed, I wouldn't be surprised if they started multiplying here too!

Don't feel guilty - the tables are about to be turned - I will me moving on to the "big" projects I've been avoiding for the last couple of years - starting holidays Friday, then back for just a couple of weeks in January, and that's it - the big "R" begins in earnest. LOML has a little list of "to be done immediately" jobs that should see me well-occupied til christmas 2015. I'll be getting some practice at saw-filing, but it will only be sharpening existing ones, for a while!

And do you mean "real" Walnut (Juglans sp.) that works well? If so, I agree wholeheartedly. The handle on the little saw I sent you is from the piece of Walnut I got from WW, and presumably edible (Persian) Walnut. It's a vastly different animal from the Qld Walnut on the above saws. It isn't even in the same family - much harder to work (full of edge-dulling silica), and much harder to get a good finish on, though it looks the goods when you finally get there. It's a bit tougher than the real walnut, so they ought to last.

Originally Posted by Claw Hama

.....Did you get that lovely aroma from the Qld Walnut?? the one that smells like Eau de doggie doo doo??

Actually,Claw, this piece didn't have as strong a smell as I remember from the last piece of Qld Walnut I used (which was probably more than 30 years ago, so perhaps I shouldn't trust my memory!? ). This was a very well-seasoned chunk, many years from the tree, so maybe that has toned it down.

Thanks for all the kind words,

It rained pretty steadily over the weekend, here, so I had a bit of time to play with my new saws, just to make sure all is well. They all performed up to expectations on a series of cuts, except the dovetail saw. I'd made a blunder with its handle. It just wasn't comfortable, and the reason was the grip angle was off the mark by a good bit. Don't know how, but I assume I picked up the wrong template - I'm accumulating a drawer full of them, each with dates & notes scribbled on them, so I suppose I read the wrong message. After scratching my head trying to find an easier solution, I accepted the inevitable & made a new handle for it yesterday. Now the grip is a bit more vertical, the saw feels a lot more comfortable in its allotted role. The angle I used suited sawing low down, as on a bench hook, but this saw is intended to be used typically a couple of hundred mm above bench height. As you can see in the composite pic., only about 8 degrees difference in the angle, but all the difference in the world in feel!

Out of interest, I used each saw for a rip cut in some Vic. Ash. Some time ago, I 'discovered' that freshly-sharpened saws of equivalent thickness & tpi cut almost as fast both ripping & cross-cutting, and here it is demonstrated again. The picture shows a series of straight cuts, by, from left to right: the 'big' D8 copy (10 tpi crosscut), the tenon saw (10 tpi rip), the bench saw (15 tpi, crosscut) and the dovetail saw (15 tpi rip, but with a small amount of fleam). The two angled cuts are by the dovetail saw. Each pair of saws is roughly the same thickness of plate material.

The kerfs are roughly the same depth after the same number of strokes, and a bit wider from the crosscuts compared with their equivalent rip pattern. This is partly because they have a little more set, but mainly because they don't track as well when ripping - they have a rougher, more 'wobbly' action. The difference in the quality of the cut is more obvious 'in the flesh' than in the picture, but you can probably see how ragged the D8 cut is. Of course, this has been known for a good many centuries, but it's interesting to make the comparison every now & then, & see ancient wisdom confirmed.....

Cheers,