Thread: A Crazy Saw Service

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

I had not planned to do any work on the backs just yet, but a slight change of circumstances prompted me to investigate how I was going to fashion them. SWMBO was producing some embroidery for the Millmerran Camp Oven Festival, which is due shortly (full details here: Home - Australian Camp Oven Festival ) and I started to think that perhaps I could enter something in the woodworking section. However further investigation revealed that they don't have a woodworking competition and it was the Millmerran Show of which I was thinking . I have until next march for that one.

However, by this stage my mind was in overdrive, which brings it nearly to the speed of the slowest amongst you. So I prepared a back. This is the largest at 1" deep next to the second largest which is 7/8" and had to have a slither cut off. It was easy with the angle grinder.

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I did not cut it quite square but that was taken care of when rounded over.

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Then once I had done one I thought I might as well get all of them out of the way. This is the whole family. The brass has been cleaned but not polished although I will do that later on. Apart from polishing and adjusting for length they are ready to go except that on the 1" back I will deepen the kerf at the toe, maybe with a small cutting disc on a Dremel type tool to make it look as though the back has been folded. The arbor on the slitting saw prevented this largest back being kerfed any deeper. The smaller versions are deep enough to look the part.

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They are, even before polishing, actually brighter than they look, but the light was difficult: Also I had sore foot, I may have a cold coming on, we didn't get enough rain yesterday, I think it's going to be cold again and I have just been advised we have had five Prime Ministers in five years (that may be five too many).

Again, thanks to IanW for procuring the brass and slitting them for me.

Regards
Paul

Paul,
Well don’t they look the part well done.
But come on, we have gone from some very nice piece of square(well really rectangular)brass from Ian,who we all know is a very talented especially around saws.
To very nice looking folded backs from your fair hands.
But not really much juice, in how we got there, Ian and my self nearly started world war three over files that we suggested you use.
Only to be distracted by a D.... in Canberra who had an agenda about being kicked out of his job a while back.
So got the village idiot to start a ruckus.
To kick the new kid out of his job.

Now there’s a no village idiots in this part of the forum.
So how did we get that lovely curvaceous curve on the backs.
Come on we all love to talk about curves from time to time.

Cheers Matt,

Matt

I was counting on you to ask that question and I have to tell you I did not use a single file. Not even a bastard! The whole job took a little over two hours doing it as a mini production run and including the time taken to cut 1/8" off the spine for the second largest saw. This was with a thin cutting disc on the angle grinder. For some reason I was expecting it to be difficult, but the reverse was opposite and it was an easier process than with steel.

Mostly the shaping was done by eye with a few thin felt tip lines for guidance and crudely marked using my finger tip as a depth gauge. Initially on the first back I used an angle grinder with a grinding disc to hog off the corners, but on the succeeding backs I used a coarse flap disc instead as if anything it was more controllable. Then I used a finer or at least partly worn flap disc to smooth the profile a little. Once I had the basic shape on the top I used coarse wet and dry paper to smooth off the marks from the flap disc. I had intended to use 120g, but could not locate my ready supply quickly and settled for some 180g. On the two lower chamfered edges I used the body rasp to "plane" the shape after the angle grinder. The hardest part of both these actions was holding a relatively narrow piece of metal firmly in the vice, not clamping the kerf shut and leaving enough clearance to use the angle grinder and body rasp.

After all this I used a fibre wheel on the bench grinder to smooth off residual blemishes and to clean the brass and the difference in colour you can see in the first picture in my earlier thread. The sharp edges are lost but the softened look is quite pleasing to my eye.

In the end it was not the monumental problem I had built it to be in my mind.

WW3 averted . (Devcon 3 stand down).

Regards
Paul

Damn, damn, damn!!!! I've just made my last saws for a very long time (forever, if I stick to my guns!) and now you figure out (and amply demonstrate) a beautifully simple & effective way to shape the blasted spines. I could've saved myself hours of filing over the last 10 years!

Good one, Paul - I'm always amazed how a bit of simple lateral thinking comes up with elegant solutions. My stuck-in-the-mud brain didn't even think beyond coarse & fine files.

Gong back to those handles and carving the lamb-tongue, I knew I had lots of pics of handle carving somewhere, wich I eventually found. I wanted to show how I make the tongue.

I don't have many carving tools but a very useful one I happen to have is a 35mm #7 sweep that is perfect for this job: LT1.jpg

Depending on the wood, a couple of well-placed cuts (assisted by a few mallet-taps in our hard woods) makes a clean, neat defining groove on the sides: LT2.jpg

I then shape the point with a small chisel. Takes a minute or two to rough out a tongue if all goes according to plan: LT3.jpg

Of course, occasionally it doesn't: LT4.jpg Yep, we all have disasters!

That's the easy bit done. As you see I've 'finger-gauged' a bunch of guide-lines to help with the shaping.

My weapons of choice for the next step are these: LT5.jpg A 'handle rasp' for the inside bits and a 'modeller's rasp plus Liogier's version of a #49. I love my couple of 49s, they're light & convenient to use one-handed and the shallow curve of the back makes it easy to keep the sweeping curves straight. Usually takes me about 30-40 minutes to get to the 'roughed out' stage: LT6.jpg

Then the real work starts, & a few more bits of gear come into play: LT7.jpg

The spokeshave is only for smoothing the two flat chamfers on the cheeks, most of the cleaning-up is done with cloth-backed paper and the skinny home-made scraper. The scraper is the most useful tool of the lot, it can get into all but the sharpest corners and depending on the wood, can almost finish the job on it's own. But it's still a slow process refining the curves & making sure everything is symmetrical & invariably takes me couple of hours or more (again, depends on the wood, some can take even longer) to get to here:
LT8.jpg

I don't think I would've been up to the pace on Mr. Disston's factory floor!

Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

Good one, Paul - I'm always amazed how a bit of simple lateral thinking comes up with elegant solutions. My stuck-in-the-mud brain didn't even think beyond coarse & fine files.


I don't think I would've been up to the pace on Mr. Disston's factory floor!

Cheers,

Ian

My early working life fell in to the era of Edward de Bono. Now while his philosophies were a little glib at times, the principle of stepping outside the square and approaching from a different perspective was fine. Even after I had finished I realised I could have sped up the process. Firstly, I could have cleared the work space around three vices I used. I was building up a bench top, which obscured two (actually three) vices and a stack of timber was cluttering the third vice, plus it was dark and I had poor light: Not that I am making excuses , but as you can see not much elbow room.

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Secondly to avoid closing up the kerf in spine I could have just inserted a piece of old saw plate and I would not even had to take care! You can see the piece of sawplate that I even had to hand, but did not use, in the first pic.

One interesting point was that it was easier to work at the back of the spines in the vice and not the front like this:

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If you were working for Mr Disston, you would not have been multi tasked. You would have done only a single task and been absolutely bored to tears.

Thanks for showing your lambs tongue process. I too only have a few carving tools. They are mainly "Vee" groove type chisels, which work well on softer timbers but struggle with those I am using and I will have to resort to standard type chisels and rasps and anything else that comes to hand. Probably rifflers would be useful, but I don't have any of those either.

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by hiroller

Paul, to my untrained eye, all those handles look like MDF to me!

Gavin

You are so perceptive. Everybody else thinks I am making these handles from solid timber: Only you have picked that it is veneered MDF . It would certainly make the going a lot easier if that were truly the case .

Actually you have brought up a point inadvertently and it is that I still have to find an ideal material for the templates. I began by using plywood in the early days, but the inferior grade stuff I used tended to splinter when shaping using a rasp so I tried the MDF, which was better, but still suffers from splitting out in layers at times and you can see it on one or two of these templates: Normally occurs on the horns:

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I suspect hardboard may be the ideal material, but as I usually make these templates from left over scrap material and I don't have any hardboard (often sold under the brand name Masonite) I have not tried this yet.

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

I suspect hardboard may be the ideal material, but as I usually make these templates from left over scrap material and I don't have any hardboard (often sold under the brand name Masonite) I have not tried this yet.

How would clear perspex go? I have used it for templates before, but not for saw handles. It cuts on the bandsaw, won't delaminate, can guide a trim router bit and above all you can see through it. This can help in positioning to avoid defects in the timber and selecting the nicest grain etc.

Originally Posted by doug3030

How would clear perspex go? I have used it for templates before, but not for saw handles. It cuts on the bandsaw, won't delaminate, can guide a trim router bit and above all you can see through it. This can help in positioning to avoid defects in the timber and selecting the nicest grain etc.

Doug I was thinking just that honestly [emoji849].
But it can be a bit pricey I would say you would want at least 5/10 mm thick sheet.

Cheers Matt

Originally Posted by Simplicity

Doug I was thinking just that honestly [emoji849].
But it can be a bit pricey I would say you would want at least 5/10 mm thick sheet.

I have used 3mm quite successfully. I really think any thicker would be unnecessary. 3mm will guide a bearing on a router bit. It is rigid enough to trace around and put screws through.

As to price, I have a shed-load of offcuts. I did pay for them but much cheaper than buying it retail.

Doug

I think clear perspex would be the Rolls Royce of template material for all the reasons you have outlined, but I don't have any! Also I do need a little more thickness so I can adjust how deeply I cut with the flush trim bit. I can start off with the bearing riding high and then for the second pass drop down until it is at the lowest point. I do have two bits of differing lengths, but one of the objects in an already complicated process is to minimise the time taken to swap tools including the likes of router bits.

The MDF I used is offcuts of VJ board which I think is 9.5mm thick. 10mm is an ideal depth. In practice 6mm will be about the minimum depth for the template so even with hardboard I would have to look out for thicker material.

If I was making a production run of, say ten upwards, which I am definitely not, I would seriously contemplate sourcing some perspex. on the other hand I will now keep my eyes peeled for such offcuts.

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

If I was making a production run of, say ten upwards, which I am definitely not, I would seriously contemplate sourcing some perspex. on the other hand I will now keep my eyes peeled for such offcuts.

Not wanting to hijack this excellent thread, but to enhance its usefulness by keeping the info with the thread where the topic came up - I got my perspex collection from a company which does displays for department stores. I have a variety of colors but mainly clear and in thicknesses from 3mm to 25mm. If you can find such a company they will probably have a fair bit of it. Window/glazing companies would be another source. Some of my "offcuts" are quite large. One piece is 20mm thick 1800mm long and 780mm wide. That would make one hell of a template

Doug

As an only partially reformed digression criminal, I consider all related subjects fair game. It also helps maintain interest when I have nothing useful or productive (not necessarily the same thing) to add to the thread.

I will certainly be on the lookout for companies that might have such material available. Does this mean I am keeping things in perspective?

Regards
Paul

I have done my old trick of having several projects on the go at one times so nothing much gets done on anything. I decided to clean up one of the saws tonight. The 26" crosscut, which I believed to be a Disston No.12. at least that is what the handle was telling me. It is the black one in the middle:

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It has cleaned up well, but difficult to photograph in the lights I have available.


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Suffice to say I can see my face in it, but that is no recommendation.

And it was indeed a No.12

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I did a little work on the two closed handle backsaws as I knew how far into the handle the plates had to go:

Some marking out:

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The first and second saw cuts with different saws. The second saw is coarser than I would really like, but I am a little lacking on the saw front and these are the only two Gentlemen's saws I have.

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Ripped down to full depth.

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Two out of seven ready for a lot more work

Regards
Paul

Isn't having 3 or 4 (or more) projects underway at once, normal? Seems normal to me, anyway. Gives me time to think between mistakes....

Cheers,

Also allows you to move on to something else when a dilemma raises it's ugly head!

Regards
Paul