Thread: My "new" tenon saw

Nice job.

Do you even need fleam on the teeth of a 13ppi tenon saw? I used a similar tenon saw as the basis for my dovetail saw with a Moses Eadons handle template from TGIAG tool works. Had to tighten the set to get it cutting nicely, but like you I couldn't be happier.

Hi aldav. Thanks. Not sure about fleam but good practice nonetheless

Originally Posted by aldav

.......Do you even need fleam on the teeth of a 13ppi tenon saw? .....

Not if you are going to use it primarily for ripping, as in cutting the cheeks of tenons....

Well done, MA, the fleam business is a bit confusing at first, but once you've got your head around it, it's pretty basic geometry. I think it's a good idea to experiment & play about with set & fleam angles until you arrive at a place that suits you and you're happy with the performance of each of your saws.

Discussions around fleam pop up on a pretty regular basis. After much not-too-scientific fiddling with saws, I've come to accept Tage Frid's dictum that saws over 15tpi don't benefit sufficiently from fleam to be worth the extra bother. My much-favoured small bowsaw that I use almost every day is 15tpi. I put about -5 degrees of rake on it and a bit more set than I'd put on a dovetail saw of the same pitch to allow it to turn more easily. I really don't notice all that much difference as it goes from rip to crosscut on a circular cut, as long as it's kept sharp.

Certainly, you can spend a lot of time very carefully sharpening a fine-toothed saw as a crosscut to give you lovely clean cuts, but the situations where perfectly clean crosscuts are needed are few & far between in the sort of work I do. I keep a small 18 tpi x-cut on hand for some fine work, but it's an eye-straining chore to sharpen it, so it tends to get a bit dull before I give in & take a file to it, which sort of defeats the purpose. My main dovetailng & small tenon-cutting saw is 15 tpi, filed straight rip. It leaves adequately clean surfaces on dovetails, which are essentially rip cuts, but also crosscuts with little or no blow-out on most woods so I can just cut to the line for non-critical shoulders (like drawer-runner tenons). For any cut that will be highly visible, I still follow the way I was taught as a 12 year-old; cut just shy of the line & trim with a chisel (or shoulder-plane now that I own such things). Rip-pattern saws are easy to resharpen, so I keep them in top form always (well, almost always), but my crosscuts sometimes cry out for attention because I need to be in the mood to tackle those - I can still make a dog's breakfast of a crosscut if I hurry it or don't concentrate sufficiently on what I'm doing!

When I started seriously toothing & sharpening saws, I experimented with all sorts of patterns & profiles, and for a while I favoured a 'hybrid' style for my small dovetail/tenon saws, in the belief it made them crosscut better, but when I did some more careful evaluations, I came to the conclusion that the advantages I thought I was getting were mostly self-delusion. Over the years, I've gravitated to pretty conventional tooth patterns - I guess they evolved over the long-haul for good reasons.

Cheers,

Thanks Ian. Just last night I read one of Paul Sellers' blogs and he was also recommending rip saw toothing for all handsaws above a certain ppi (13 I think). Personally, as a carpenter with 25+ years experience, I am very chuffed with myself for having finally done something that my forebears did regularly without a second thought. So much knowledge is being lost and I thank you and others for passing on yours.