Saws by Professionals

This info is a month old ... but new to me ... Matt Cianci's blog (The Saw Blog)

I just got home yesterday from a four day trip to Cincinnati where I was filming two very exciting projects with Popular Woodworking magazine. The first project is an instructional DVD tentatively titled ‘Super Tune Your Backsaws’, and the second project were video segments for a forthcoming on-line class on how to build your own backsaw. The former will be similar to Chris Schwarz’s recent ‘Super Tune a Handplane’ but for an old backsaw and hosted by yours truly, and the latter will include 4 half-hour video segments available for download, plus live web-based interaction with myself and a forum for questions and discussion, all hosted by Pop Wood.


and go to the blog for a step-by-step pictorial of professionally sharpening a crosscut handsaw.
He takes quite a whack off at the start! (careful how you read that)
Pictoral: How I File a Saw – The Saw Blog

Cheers,
Paul

Courtesy of Homesy and Tom Iovino ...

The saw gets ripped - part one | Tom's Workbench

Andy ... who made the video Toby linked us to ... (https://www.woodworkforums.com/f152/s...n-saws-172087/)

Saw Sharpening Masterclass - Part 1 - Hand tools

This is most interesting.
Thanks for listing this Paul.
SG

Quote:

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Originally Posted by pmcgee

Courtesy of Homesy and Tom Iovino ...

The saw gets ripped - part one | Tom's Workbench

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All pretty standard, except this bloke reckons he files crosscut saws from one side only, so he can use the same guide. Blowed if I can visualise how you could do that, unless he takes the guide off & flips it round for the return trip. It's quite possible to file from one side if you are adding fleam (but no 'slope'), though you still have to reverse the file angle for each alternate gullet....

To me it seems easier & less hassle to just switch the saw around. You can do a rip from one side only, but I have to be very attentive to keep that file dead square to the saw. I find it's easier to file from opposite sides, & bias the file slightly so that it puts a teeny smidgin of fleam on both sides. This way gives me nicer teeth than if I file from one side only & the file gets slightly off-square...

Cheers,

Paul (Homes) mentioned the point to me - from the Iovino page, which has then been echoed from several sources - the point about keeping the topography of the very tips of the teeth, in order that you maintain the even spacing throughout the shaping/sharpening process.

It struck me that in sharpening the 'K' saw (as I called it) I hadn't had that thought lodged in my head as part of the process ... but then again the existing teeth were not very regular anyway. I even said at one stage that having large flats leads to some uncertainty as to where the point is actually going to be.

I'm looking closely at it now and it all seems to have worked out ok, so maybe it's a fairly self-healing process as long as not too much jointing is done in one go.

Compare that idea however to Matt Cianci's initial jointing of a Disston D8.

http://thesawblog.com/wp-content/upl...61-300x147.jpg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by pmcgee

- the point about keeping the topography of the very tips of the teeth, in order that you maintain the even spacing throughout the shaping/sharpening process.....

http://thesawblog.com/wp-content/upl...61-300x147.jpg

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Paul - I remember you touched on this topic some time ago, where you were moaning about the difficulty of watching teeth form from the top and sides, to keep the teeth even. I was going to reply at the time, but got distracted & forgot. In truth, you must watch both flats and gullets carefully, on a badly-filed & heavily-rejointed saw. If you work on the flats alone, you risk creating a bunch of cows & calves, again, even though the tooth tips may all be perfectly level. In the example you picture, it is pretty straightforward, because all of the gullets filed from one side are shallow & all the alternate gullets are deep, but the pitch is still ok. This is a very common result when you first try sharpening with fleam (DAMHIK!). In the case pictured, you'd start by working mainly in those shallow gullets. It looks like it is going to come close to even by the time you get them down to the level of the deep set. However, you would still need to watch closely as you get close, because you may will need to deepen the other gullets to keep them all even. If you were to just get rid of the flats, you might end up with another set of uneven gullets.

When you are faced with a saw that is all over the shop, as many are, it's a real challenge, you have to file away very carefully, watching both flats & gullets all the time, guestimating which side to place the extra effort on the file in order to bring the teeth back to even - a pain in the neck (literally!)

Cheers,