Thread: How not to sharpen hand saws, and the tribulations of buying used tools.

Lance
I understand the disappointment in what you hoped would solve all your hand saw cutting needs.

BUT if I was sitting in your boots so too speak.

You have now got some fantastic saw steel I don’t know what the Disston saws are specifically an I’m sure the gurus will be a long shortly.

I know finding 1095 is difficult in AU I’ve looked there is some 1095 shim stock available in decent sizes on Amazon.

But back to your saws I would grap some saw files(Blackburn Tools, Tools for woodworking Lie Neilson)to name a few suppliers.

An keep going with your sharping practice,even tho the teeth have been ground(stuffed [emoji849])
You may find a few sharping rounds will bring them down an into shape.
Yes it may take a few rounds but it will be worth it an your skill will build


Cheers Matt

Commiserations Lance. That's one of the problems of buying sight unseen, pictures just don't cut it. Excuse the pun. I haven't been caught with saws, but I have with screwdrivers that had been 'tidied up' on a grinder and allowed to get nice and hot.

Can't imagine why anyone who knew what they were doing would sharpen 5 saws to sell them for $20. It's good of you to bring this to our attention, keeps us all on our guard.

Hmm, I can imagine how crestfallen you must have bee unwrapping that lot, Lance. But cheer up, it looks to me that you might have the makings of a couple of decent saws there, but it is going to take a bit of work, for sure. Going by the medallions (which may be totally misleading, of course!), several of them are oldies, with rather crude replaced handles. The panel saw at the bottom seems to have its original wood, pity about the pitting, it sure looks a bit unsightly, but it doesn't totally ruin a user, it should still sharpen up & work ok.

I'd choose a couple of blades that look the most promising and give them a chance. With luck, they'll even have retained most of their tension, which is one of the principal qualities of a good hand saw. Given your outlay so far, at least you have little to lose, and some valuable practice to gain. I'd recommend clamping the saws you want to resurrect between a couple of bits of straight steel & slicing off the existing teeth, then take them to a saw sharpening place & have the teeth re-cut for you - they shouldn't charge any more than the cost of the couple of files you'll kill in re-toothing them by hand.

I reckon there's a better than even chance you could come out of this smiling, after all....

Cheers,

Thanks for the responses chaps, you have buoyed my spirits. I will take your advice and progress a couple of saws to see how they end up.

I would appreciate some advice as to the TPI I should aim at to start with. My current need is not for cutting rough stock to size, but rather to make relatively precise cuts deeper than what my tenon saw will allow. Perhaps 10 TPI? Also, if I want to file one for crosscut and one for rip, would I use the same TPI count?

Ian, I was intrigued by your comment about the blade's tension, and after a bit of googling I'm a little bit more knowledgable. Who would have thought a flat piece of steel could be tensioned? For anyone else interested, this excerpt from Straightening Bent Handsaw Blades

There are two fundamental choices in manufacturing a thin saw that won’t kink. The least expensive choice is to make the saw stiff by using hard steel and disposable blades, because such saws can’t be economically resharpened. The second choice is to temper the saw so that it can be filed, and to stiffen it by tensioning the blade using hammer and anvil.
When a thin blade is struck on an anvil by a convex-faced round hammer, a dimple is created—often so small it can’t be seen by the eye. Steel from the area around the dimple is pulled inwards toward the point of impact, making the steel in the circular area radiating from the dimple stiffer, or tensioned on its surface. Hundreds of such hammer blows applied in certain patterns equally to both sides of a handsaw blade can make it stiffer, can true a warped circular sawblade, or can dish a large bandsaw blade to conform to its wheels while at the same time tensioning the cutting edge. Truing sawblades is not a low-order skill, and the major saw factories and filing shacks of logging camps and commercial sawmills was where you found it.

Kind regards,
Lance

Lance

10ppi would be a good number for a fine crosscut and possibly 6ppi for your rip configuration, particularly for hardwoods. If you are specifically looking to deepen tenon saw cuts you might want to pay some attention to blade thickness, not that you will be able to alter that. However, blade thickness that is very close will assist. Actually, when I re-read your post I think you meant using the saw instead of the tenon saw so in that case disregard my former comment.

I would also consider 12ppi for the fine crosscut mainly because you could use a 24tpi hacksaw blade to mark out the divisions. You could use the same blade (tap it down onto a piece of wood to gain an imprint and then transfer to the saw plate) for the 6ppi saw too. Obviously every other tooth for 12ppi and every fourth tooth for 6ppi. It will give you a tpi spacing, not a ppi spacing. For example, 12tpi is equivalent to 13ppi: Always one less tpi compared to ppi

Regards
Paul

Thanks Paul.

Your second reading was correct, I will be using the saw instead of my tenon saw.

I just rang a couple of sharpening places, and despite advertising sharpening hand saws, none of them are able to cut saw teeth. That's OK though, as I'll revert to the Sellers method of cutting the teeth with a hacksaw, and then just profiling them with a file. It's worked well for me in the past, so don't feel too daunted.

With respect to the marking, when I was cutting teeth into my tenon saw, I tried the marking with a hacksaw blade as you described, but found that with the "wave" of the hacksaw blade's cutting edge, the imprints were slightly angled which made it a little tricky at times to get even spacing. I'll just use a ruler and use the mm or 16th etchings to reference my square against when marking my template.

Kind regards,
Lance

Lance

The ultimate answer to all our recommendations and theories is "Whatever works best for you." Remember there are also the templates for tooth spacing:

Blackburn Tools - Saw tooth spacing templates

Regards
Paul

Following shared commiserations and encouragement from some of the master saw makers amongst us, I thought, why not.

Two of the smaller saws have very elegant skew-backs. These are the saws I’ve destined to be my users. So I chose one of the larger ones to practice on. Out came the angle grinder, and the games began.

I didn’t take any photos, but using Ian’s method of clamping some angle iron against the saw plate and running a cut-off disk along the top, I sheered off about 5 mm of plate. This was sufficient to remove both the teeth, and any of the “sharpening” that the previous owner had done.

The last time I cut teeth, I created a template from Tasmanian Oak, which splintered terribly, and had to be discarded after one saw’s worth of use. This time I grabbed some Spotted Gum (or so I thought). Using my ruler which was clamped to the vise at the same height as my template, I transferred 3 mm increments, which would give me roughly 8 tpi to my template piece of wood. What I like about this method is that you don’t need to rely on visual accuracy. You place your knife in the ruler etching, slide a square against the knife, then score against the square on the timber.

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With the marking complete, I created a furrow using a chisel against each knife wall, into which the hacksaw rests to cut the template..

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Then with some blue tape on my saw blade, I marked the depth of my teeth. This was a bad idea. The last time I did this, I set up a piece of wood as the stopper. So when the saw hit the wood, I knew I had my depth correct. Going by eye to a pencil line on blue tape was never going to work. If only I had figured it out at this point. I also WAY over estimated how deep the tooth gullets needed to be. One of the key differences with a hand saw compared to a back saw, is that they are long, with many more teeth. So my tough-as-nails template would need to be re-used several times along the length of my saw. It was then with dismay, that the spacers of my template kept breaking off. Later that evening whilst relating my tales of woe to my wife, she looked at the wood, and said “but that’s not Spotted Gum, I think it’s my left over Merbau from the bench seat I made”. Oh bother. So much for using a stronger wood as a template.

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No problem though, I’ll just draw the remaining teeth spacing onto the masking tape. Whilst this worked (relative to being guided by the saw spirit), I was surprised how much harder it was to get the hacksaw to bite without slipping when there was no template to hold the blade in position. I may try the paper template and a file to make the initial markings on my next saw.

Once all the teeth were cut with the hacksaw, I moved onto shaping and sharpening. The last time I did this, it was during the day, in front of a great big window. This time it was evening and the sun had set, leaving me to rely on artificial light. What bliss, what joy. If we recall the law of reflection, that the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection, I found that my filing position put my head in the reflection path from a ceiling light which made the unsharpened tooth flats gleam like an angel heralding a new dawn. It was so much easier to know when each tooth was sharp.

By the time I had the last tooth sharpened, the crick in my neck was firmly established, and enjoyed a well deserved stretch and head roll (as I repeated the action just now whilst writing it, a twinge remains on the back left).

So how did it turn out? Well, it’s sharp and does saw. It’s nice seeing small “chips” rather than dust ejecting from the cut. However there is no set yet, so will smile nicely at Adam and ask to borrow his saw set again. One thing I am pleased with, is that the saw stroke is smooth. No hang ups along its entire length. This is the second saw I’ve filed to a 4 º rake. I think the issue I had with my tenon saw, is that whilst aiming for a 0 º rake, you don’t need to vary much to induce a negative rake, which then catches terribly. I had read somewhere that Ian files his saws at 4 º, so thought I’d just emulate the master.

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Some teeth do look like a modern art sculpture due to the too deeply cut gullets. Oh well, they’ll recede as it’s sharpened over time.

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A final note. I know there is much discussion about saw files, so thought I’d plug my little wrong-size, broken-tipped Pferd file. This is its fifth sharpening, two of which required shaping new teeth from scratch, and it continues to work well for me. I have ordered some proper Bahco saw files that are making their way across the Bass Strait to me as I type this, so will be keen to give them a whirl when they arrive. This one now has sentimental value though, so don’t know that I could just throw it away when it’s done. It will have to be converted into something I can keep. Now what was a I reading just recently about making a birdcage awl?

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Kind regards,
Lance

Lance, I hope that's negative rake, or are we talking at cross-purposes? The teeth on any saw have to lean away from the direction of cut, i.e., they are not acting as "chisels" as is often stated, but more like scrapers. If you put zero or positive rake on a hand saw, you are normally giving yourself some hard yakka with a very bitey saw! Bandsaw blades have positive rake, but machines feel no pain..

Actually, I use 5 degrees for most of my own ripsaws, and usually advise beginners to start with 7. They will cut a little less aggressively, but much more smoothly. Anyway, you've done exceptionally well not to have any high catchy teeth on what must be only your 2nd or 3rd toothing - it still happens to me occasionally, when toothing from scratch.

I've never tried using a wooden template, if I've got a saw with reasonable teeth at the right pitch, I'll often use that, or simply use a piece of rulled paper glued to the blade. I mark out with a needle file - they are very easy to use accurately, and you only need a small nick for the saw file to start in. I can't imagine using a hacksaw to start the notch - the teeth are just too coarse for comfort...

Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

Lance, I hope that's negative rake, or are we talking at cross-purposes? The teeth on any saw have to lean away from the direction of cut, i.e., they are not acting as "chisels" as is often stated, but more like scrapers.

It appears as though I got my terminology wrong. It is indeed negative rake according to your description above.

Phew!

Lance

Thanks for the write up. I enjoy the journeys. I believe identifying the trials and tribulations helps others enormously. Not everything is plain sailing.

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

.... I believe identifying the trials and tribulations helps others enormously. Not everything is plain sailing.....l

Amen to that! As the old saying has it, "He who never made a mistake never made anything". I've made a lot of things.....

Cheers,

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

Lance

The ultimate answer to all our recommendations and theories is "Whatever works best for you." Remember there are also the templates for tooth spacing:

Blackburn Tools - Saw tooth spacing templates

Regards
Paul

The following is another source for tpi templates.

http://www.oocities.org/plybench/saw_teeth.pdf

I had an inkling that the men's shed up the road from me where I am a member may have a guillotine, so popped out from work briefly and was pleased to see that they did indeed. A couple of minutes labour and all the remaining vampire fangs on the other saws are gone.



Now to progress them as time allows.

Kind regards,
Lance

Edit: Whoops! Looking at the photo after I posted it, I realise I left the strips of discarded teeth lying on the ground.