Thread: Resuscitated saw blades

I told you so

Cheers Ian
Great bit of advice thankyou
And Ray thanks for all the info you have posted also, templates look the goods.
Found a few links if people are keen to read some more
Toolmaking | Norse Woodsmith
and
Welcome to Vintage Saws!
Cheers Men
Justin

Originally Posted by IanW

Jus -Teeth are cut with a file. There have been a few posts on various techniques for doing this, but they may be hard to find. To mark out, I use a paper template pasted on the edge to be toothed. RayG posted a set of templates as PDFs, with all the tpi you could wish for, a little while ago, but you can make your own, too. The teeth don't have to be an exact number of tpi - just consistent & even.

I mark each tooth with a very fine file (needle files are excellent for the job). This is the tedious & most exacting part. Once you have a good mark for each gullet, it's a fairly straightforward process of filing to depth. To keep the file at the correct rake angle, I use a short piece of wood jammed on the end of the file (this is also illustrated in previous posts, but I'll attach a pic which should explain it).

It looks difficult, but is actually not hard to do, & takes less time than you may think (I can do a small saw in about 20 minutes, now). I confess I was a bit scared to cut my own teeth on the first couple of saws I made, & had them toothed at a saw-sharpening place, then set & sharpened them myself. After a couple of dozen saws, I now find toothing is the easy part!

Cheers,

Agreed it is easier than you may think to cut your own teeth in by hand with a file I could not count the number of saws I have recut by hand, Hundreds definetly thousands probably! there were times where I would sharpen in excess of 200 saws in a day and once you get good at it you can almost do it without looking at it, and you can pick a defect from 20 yards away.

Originally Posted by Travis Edwards

Agreed it is easier than you may think to cut your own teeth in by hand with a file I could not count the number of saws I have recut by hand, Hundreds definetly thousands probably! there were times where I would sharpen in excess of 200 saws in a day and once you get good at it you can almost do it without looking at it, and you can pick a defect from 20 yards away.

Travis - I'm a looong way from being in your league! I get a few 'cows & calves' no matter how carefully I work, but slowly getting better. I can usually pick up a shallow or deep gullet by feel rather than sight, though it has to be off by a bit for me to notice. Just sharpening my own saws (even though I have one or two more than average! ) doesn't amount to enough to ever become really good at it, I fear.

Do you take on (ancient) apprentices?

Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

Travis - I'm a looong way from being in your league! I get a few 'cows & calves' no matter how carefully I work, but slowly getting better. I can usually pick up a shallow or deep gullet by feel rather than sight, though it has to be off by a bit for me to notice. Just sharpening my own saws (even though I have one or two more than average! ) doesn't amount to enough to ever become really good at it, I fear.

Do you take on (ancient) apprentices?

Cheers,

Would gladly take on an apprentice if you were a bit closer!

Pay would be poor and actual work would amount to a few hours a week though, 'cause I now do other things to feed the family, but find myself with a file in my hand at least once a week nowdays!

dont be afraid to file at 90 degrees to get the pitch and gullet depth right and bevel after you do your final set! Oh and joint regularly!

Originally Posted by Travis Edwards

......dont be afraid to file at 90 degrees to get the pitch and gullet depth right and bevel after you do your final set! Oh and joint regularly!

Hi Travis - If only you'd told me that a couple of years ago, you could have saved me some trouble! However, by trial & error, I eventually figured out that that was the way to go. I don't hesitate to take a file to the top of a set of teeth, & re-form them if they look wonky.

For crosscut teeth on small saws, I've been using a bevel angle of 20 degrees with no slope (i.e. keep the file horizonta)l. I tried a few higher angles but it didn't seem to make a lot of difference to the way the saw cut, just made the tooth look a bit too pointy & fragile. I use mostly softer woods like Qld. Maple, Camphor & similar & don't saw really hard woods very often. What angle do you use routinely, and do you use any slope, as well as bevel?

Cheers,

Nice tip Travis. The cows & calves can be a real pain sometimes.

Stewie.

There is no known cure Ian. You had better get started on some extra saw tills.

Stewie.

Originally Posted by planemaker

There is no known cure Ian. You had better get started on some extra saw tills.

Stewie.

No! There must be a cure!

(I think the eventual cure will be failing eyesight. I was sharpening a 24tpi tiddler this afternoon, and the light was a bit dodgy in the shed. Despite the magnifier headbnd, I found I was really struggling to see what I was doing, so worked mostly by feel. Saw seemed to cut well when I gave it a single test-run, but I'm not sure I'm game to look too closely at it in the morning light!)

Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

No! There must be a cure!

(I think the eventual cure will be failing eyesight. I was sharpening a 24tpi tiddler this afternoon, and the light was a bit dodgy in the shed. Despite the magnifier headbnd, I found I was really struggling to see what I was doing, so worked mostly by feel. Saw seemed to cut well when I gave it a single test-run, but I'm not sure I'm game to look too closely at it in the morning light!)

Cheers,

LOL

I once had to do some VERY fine backsaws for a bloke from memory they were about 36 tpi, The finest files I could find had less teeth per inch than the saws and the guage of the saws was not much thicker than tissue paper, although they were only about 5 inches long, they took hours to sharpen, and get right, beautiful little saws though!

Originally Posted by Travis Edwards

LOL

I once had to do some VERY fine backsaws for a bloke from memory they were about 36 tpi, The finest files I could find had less teeth per inch than the saws and the guage of the saws was not much thicker than tissue paper, although they were only about 5 inches long, they took hours to sharpen, and get right, beautiful little saws though!

Hi Travis. 36 tpi. I would have gone mad trying to sharpen a saws that fine. What were they used for.!

Stewie.

Originally Posted by planemaker

Hi Travis. 36 tpi. I would have gone mad trying to sharpen a saws that fine. What were they used for.!

Stewie.

To be honest I do not really know, I never met the customer to ask him but they were very nicely made saws. I would have assumed they would have been used for cutting fine dovetails and such in jewelery boxes and the like. only ever saw the two of them.

Travis - after those small teeth tonight, the thought of 36tpi makes me cringe. I had to concentrate like crazy on the 24 tpi so I didn't file the wrong tooth. There is no way I would even attempt anything finer than that! The needle files I have are only just sharp enough on the corners to cut decent gullets on such small teeth, and I didn't know you could even get anything finer. I guess that's the difference between a pro & an amateur, eh? I wouldn't have even tried those saws, but professional pride forced you to give it a good go!

Stewie - I suppose you would use very tiny teeth like that for very tiny jobs. When my daughters were small, I had a few goes at doll-house furniture, and that certainly needed small tools. I used to use an 'Exacto' razor saw, which was ok for some things, but they have no set, & are hard to keep to a fine line. The saw I finished this evening will be used for that sort of very small stuff - I guess I'm hoping my minature skills will be needed again for grandchildren, before I get too blind to see.

Cheers,

Hi Stewie,

Those really fine saws are usually model maker's tools, they can go to some really fine teeth.

Here's one that's 52 tpi, with 8 thou saw plate... Zona Razor saw ultra thin kerf 52TPI

As IanW said, used for doll house furniture, things like cutting dovetails on a set of 1/12 scale drawers for a dolls house

Regards
Ray