Thread: Some different saws and other stuff.

Nice layout with workshop. You did a great job with the bow saw build. Well done.

Stewie;

A small tweak you can make to your bow saw is to put a slight curve on the joint between the stretcher and the arms so that it always fits no matter what the tension.
See page 2 of the TFWW plans for an example:
http://www.toolsforworkingwood.com/e..._full_8x14.pdf

That first saw, the Armstrong looks like it was meant to be a rip saw going by the size of the teeth. Not sure from the pics but it also looks like the teeth are progressive. Are they small at the front and getting larger at the back or is it ust the camera angle.
As for adjusting the set you cant really bend them about a couple of times or as you have found they can snap off. You can reduce the set a small amount by stoneing. I find the numbers on my eclipse saw set are a bit on the wide side so usually set teeth about 2 or even 3 up from the saws tpi.
Regards
John

Yes it is progressive. The tooth pattern is a plain tooth pattern filed crosscut to cut on the pull and push. Not as efficient as some of the other patterns but easy to sharpen and works OK in hardwood.

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Originally Posted by orraloon

...... I find the numbers on my eclipse saw set are a bit on the wide side so usually set teeth about 2 or even 3 up from the saws tpi.
...

John, the numbers on saw sets are not necessarily what you use for any given tpi, they are simply a scale. If they do happen to coincide with any of your saws, that's lucky, 'cos it makes it easier to remember, but they are often way off what you actually need.

There are good reasons why you can't have the same set for all saws of a given tpi. The first is that you should set to give a kerf that is somewhere between 10 & 20% wider than the plate - the amount varies depending on the saw's tooth profile & type of wood it's meant to cut . Plate thickness varies, so you need to take account of that, & push thin teeth over less than thicker teeth, even if they are the same tpi. You can muck about sawing kerfs & measuring the size with a feeler gauge & calipers, but trial & error is probably easier - just add enough set that the saw doesn't bind. If you add too much, the saw 'rattles' in the cut & leaves a wavy surface. Depending on what the saw is most used for, you might want a little bit more set than it requires to prevent binding for 'steerage' on a ripsaw. Most softwoods need more set than hardwoods for crosscutting, and wet wood needs a lot more set than bone dry wood.

So the numbers are a guide, but you can't simply apply a saw-set number to a given tpi.......

Cheers,

Nice work with the bow saw!..

That Disston, is very likely to have been made in Sydney ( or at least handled in Sydney ) Disston set up factories in Canada to take advantage of the favourable tarrifs between commonwealth countries and shipped saw plate and hardware to commonwealth countries like Australia for finishing, saws with Disston Canada medallions are common in New Zealand too, but most of them came from Disston in Sydney.

Why they didn't make a Disston Australia Medallion I wonder?

Ray

Ian,
What you say is so right and what I have found by trial and error. Prior to joining this forum all the woodwotk books I read said use the tpi number to adjust the saw set. Practical experience showed it was not quite the whole picture. I was not aware of the set to plate thickness ratio but it makes sense. Always a good day when you learn something.
Regards
John