Thread: Reducing your saw's set

One way I have seen is placing the saw blade between two thicknesser or jointer blades and placing all three within a vice, then screw up the vice, and the blades will remove the set from the saw.

Good thought, Helmut.

But surely the dedicated darksider won't have jointer/planer blades lying around...

I would say that the best way to remove/adjust set on a backsaw depends on the amount of set that is there.

If there is a "lot", such that the saw flops around in its own kerf, then it may be time to hammer it all flat and start again.

If the kerf is still tightish, but the saw pulls to one side, or the kerf is a bit rough, then I would use a diamond stone to stone the sides (one at a time, then retest).

Regards from Perth

Derek

Hammering out the set is easy enough, all you need is a hard flat surface and a small hammer, just go lightly, you don't have to whack it with a sledge hammer .. After that you probably should joint, sharpen and reset anyway.

I have read somewhere (sorry I can't quote a reference) that it was common enough practice years ago to "hammer out the set" on a new saw.

Most saws you find at retail outlets these days have way too much set.
Next time you are in Bunnies, have a look at the "Gents" saws, you will find they have a huge amount of set and are generally some wierd kind of crosscut teeth..

Recutting to rip profile and resetting the teeth on a $15 cheapie saw can turn it into a real gem.
More fun to make the whole thing yourself however...

Regards
Ray

Yep - I agree with you all, & Wenzloff et al. For many years my dovetail saw has had no set, or virtually none. But there is probably a good reason for commercial saws being overset - it allows Joe Blow who rarely uses a hand saw to 'steer' his way along a line & stay somewhere within cooee of it. If you go with a very fine set, you certainly get a nice fine kerf, but the trade-off is that you need to start the cut with the saw held exactly parallel to the line you wish to follow, 'cos a minimally-set saw is going to pretty much follow that line. You can change direction a bit near the beginning of a cross cut by lightly twisting the saw to left & right on successive strokes to widen the kerf & give yourself some steerage way, but I find it's not so successful on a rip cut because the saw cuts too quickly. Once you are practised & comfortable with handsaws, you barely notice this, but it becomes immediately apparent when I hand one of my saws to someone who doesn't use handsaws a lot - kerf & line soon part!

No-set is OK for SHALLOW rips & crosscuts, in even-textured, dry wood. For deep rips, I have to have a saw with a reasonable amount of set. The saw tends to follow the line of least resistance, & that is rarely where you want it to go, so some steering is always necessary. Not so much that the saw goes "sproink" on every stroke, of course.

And naturally, more set is needed when cutting greenish wood that has a big moisture gradient between inside & outside (or case-hardened by poor kilning), and a wider kerf will minimise binding. The saws used by chippies when I was a lad were very generously set, because they worked with semi-green hardwoods all the time.

As far as 'removing' the set, I don't think I'd bother too much about it unless they are truly horrendous - two or three sharpenings should do it easily. Lapping the edges after resetting & sharpening, to level any 'overset' teeth is ok, though only a couple of very light passes should be required. However, I reckon you would get some very pointy, strange fangs if you used that method to completely remove set. If they are so bad you can't live with them through a sharpening or two, I would recommend you just file off a mm or so & resharpen - the amount of tooth life you sacrifice is miniscule, & well worth avoiding the danger of breaking a couple of teeth.

You are supposed to set only the top 1/3rd of the tooth, which I can't do with a standard saw set on fine teeth. The bevel on the anvil just isn't very accurate, & doesn't go fine enough down the pointy end. If you squeeze the handles firmly, so that it seats the plunger fully, you are definitely oversetting most teeth finer than 12tpi. I've learnt to lighten the set by using a very gentle squeeze, but it's hard to be perfectly consistent. I got pretty good at it during my intense burst of saw making, but I reckon I've probably lost it a bit already...

And lastly - I think a lot of unnecessary angst is expended on kerf width. The difference in effort required to make a thickish or a very thin kerf is unlikely to cause too much extra RSI for weekend warriors, even if they use their saws a lot. I recently made several saws with the same tooth pitches, in several different plate thicknesses. The variation in kerf width was almost double from the thinnest to the thickest, but in a little 'test' I did with them, it took approximately the same number of strokes to cut the same depth with all of them (which surprised me!). And since a saw cut is made on the waste side of the line (except for stuff-ups!), who cares how wide the kerf is (within reason)??

Sorry - that was meant to be a brief chip-in....

Cheers,

Thanks for the brief contribution, Ian,



I will have to do my own testing, but from Shannon Rogers and Mack McKinney (my two contacts who heard Wenzloff et al last weekend), I have the following additional info:

1. Stoning is fine to remove extra set
2. you can use either a hammer or an engineers vice to push or squeeze extra set out
3. if you use a vice or hammer, a piece of newspaper on both sides of the saw plate and halfway up the teeth (or down the teeth if you are puttin the blade teeth first into the vice to squeeze them) ensures you get about the right amount of set (that gives you an idea of how little set you need)

On the last point, the vintage saws website says the amout of set is at most 20% of the plate thickness. If you are using 20 thou plate the set need only be 4 thou. I took out my micrometer nad that is about the thickness of a page of the SMH. One benefit that this should also bring is that it should make it easier to get the set even on both sides of the blade

I will give this a go later this week with a rip saw I bought a few months ago that truly has almost 100% set on each side!

Jeremy

One method I have successfully used is to stone the sides of the teeth with a carborundum or fine diamond stone. This is done by lightly holding one end of the stone on the side of the teeth, and resting the other end of the stone (wrapped in tape to avoid scoring the saw blade) on the saw blade and running the stone along the blade several times. Count the number of strokes and keep these the same for each side of the blade, and it is then simple to control the reduction in set. I did this recently on a bow saw & it dramatically improved the performance of the saw.

Regards

I was fortunate enough to be at WIA last week and took two classes with Mike Wenzloff as well as two classes with a first class sawyer, Ron Herman. I learned more in those three days than I knew about sawing in the previous fifty years.

I did see Mike Wenzloff ease the set on a Wenzloff tenon saw by tapping first one side then the other with a hammer on an anvil. I said "tap", not hit, as it was a slow, ryrhythmic tapping that he did. When done, the set was just discernible along the blade. Of course this was a new, modern blade.

G'day, Joe

This is very clever....... 2 bits of smooth angle iron in the vice... AND

"if you use a vice or hammer, a piece of newspaper on both sides of the saw plate and halfway up the teeth (or down the teeth if you are puttin the blade teeth first into the vice to squeeze them) ensures you get about the right amount of set (that gives you an idea of how little set you need)"

There is no way I would be hitting my saw blade with a hammer even tapping will stretch and deform (unless I was completely starting again) (you are also work hardening the teeth and more likely to snap off), unless its a 6foot long crosscut saw nothing more than a sharpen or two or a couple of wipes with the stone should fix it. On my back saws one wipe with a light diamond stone is enough to change the set.

I thought it was worth rebooting this thread after reading it.

I've posted previously that I gave a gentle de-setting to a backsaw by putting it in a vice between two pieces of wood, with two sheets of paper on each side.
The teeth poked their way into the paper somewhat, and the set reduced.

Paul.

But the main message was this excerpt from Ron Herman's 2nd Saw DVD:

Handsaws | ShopWoodworking

A reminder of his first DVD:
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glaVp5lszmw]Sharpen Your Handsaws with Ron Herman - YouTube[/ame]

And a link to related thread:
https://www.woodworkforums.com/f127/s...quired-138085/

Cheers,
Paul.