Thread: Saw Teeth. Warning ... esoteric

Originally Posted by pmcgee

..... But now, I'm thinking they might be wear marks from the action of sawing.....

All the shiny bits in your pics seem to be on the side of the teeth pointing towards me, and there are no marks that I can see on the teeth pointing away (there should be marks there, whatever setting method was used, but they are subtle & will be obscured by the 'patina' on your saws). Something has to push on the metal to move it. I think your hypothesis that they are wear marks is a good start....

Originally Posted by pmcgee

..... It's interesting in any case - might be a diagnostic tool to tell how evenly you have sharpened perhaps?.....

.....to tell how evenly you have sharpened ..... Set, maybe?....

Rather than sawing away for however long it takes to make shiny spots on the over-set teeth, you can accelerate the process by wiping the sides of the saw a couple of times with a sharpening stone. That should tell you how even your set is. To get a rapid idea of how even the tips are, I hold the teeth against a straight piece of hardwood with strong light behind them. However, individual teeth have to be fairly severely out of whack for me to spot them that way.

I reckon the best way to test your sharpening skill is to use the saw. As soon as I finish sharpening, I reach for a piece of the hardest wood to hand and lay into it. Uneven teeth catch & introduce a roughness into the stroke that is not pleasant like the slight 'bite' of a sharp saw, which should be noticeable, but even - the harder the wood, the more you feel it. There is usually a little roughness in a freshly-sharpened saw due to the slight burrs & unevenness that is inevitable with hand filing, but that should settle over a few dozen strokes at most, & the saw should then cut quickly with a 'sweet' action until it dulls again. As I get better at sharpening, I get less roughness & it settles in a few strokes, but I suspect there will always be a little to begin with.

Cheers,

I came up with zero useful thought content here ... so over to Isaac Smith ....

Concerning hang angles and saw handles | Blackburn Tools

Love the patina

And re-booting a link by SG from the bottom of a forum page ...

Big Teeth, Little Teeth - Popular Woodworking Magazine

https://www.woodworkforums.com/f152/b...-teeth-100085/

Setting tool marks should be patterned at every 2nd tooth on each side of the saw plate.

Stewie;