Japanese of Traditional for Dovetails

One of my current projects (being a bit flighty I always have a few going at the one time and even eventually finish some of them) requires making some drawers. So I have been playing around with dovetail saws.

My conclusion is that for me the best of the 3 I have tries is a 14 TPI Veritas saw. The 20 TPI is fine but a bit slow. I have a little pull saw
http://www.carbatec.com.au/fine-tooth-joinery-saw_c5740

and it is good but I like the feel of the Veritas better. It just cuts to a line easier and the grip is more natural for me especially when I have a fair bit of cutting to do.

Great...that's put my mind at rest..

Sent from my HTC_PN071 using Tapatalk

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by cadas

Great...that's put my mind at rest..

Sent from my HTC_PN071 using Tapatalk

---

I like buying tools and I subscribe to the view that :
He who has the most tools wins.

but neither my budget nor my storage space is unlimited. The 20 tip Veritas cost me about $75 and the little pull saw about $35 and to be honest I never use them. Anyway when I die my son can trip over them until he sells them I suppose. Tools are good. Really useful tools are even better. But until I actually put the saws into use I had no way of knowing which ones I would use most.

I suppose I could sell them but that would only make it certain that I would need them.

If anybody is just starting out and wants a good saw (one, not three) for dovetailing my advice would be to get the 14 TPI veritas.

I guess everyone has their own ideas about what tpi saws should be. I started out thinking the higher the tpi I could use, the better, because the cut is usually smoother. Smaller teeth do leave smaller scratches, to be sure, but it's not as simple as that. Smaller teeth load more quickly, so if the cut is wider than optimal for the tpi, they fill up & prevent the saw cutting efficiently, which then leads to wandering as well as slower cuts. Saws of > 18tpi are of very limited use to me, but that's based on the sorts of work I do, others obviously find them an advantage.

Smaller teeth can be sharpened less perfectly & still work ok (discovered this very early in my sawing career! :;), but the larger the teeth, the more accurately they need to be sharpened, or you will get a very rough saw. On the hand, sharpening large teeth is easier in some respects - at least I can see the damn things.

As to pull vs push, it's definitely a matter for personal choice. I suggest you will do a better job with whatever type you are used to, or if starting out, just stick with one or the other until you are happy you can cut consistently with it. Apart from the fact that I've used push saws for far too long to change, I couldn't sharpen a Japanese saw to save my life, so I think I'll see my woodworking days out with push saws. One oft-quoted argument for push rather than pull is that pull saws feather the line you are cutting to, whereas push saws do it on the side away from where you are looking. Sounds like a problem, but in fact it usually isn't; you should be watching slightly ahead of the saw ("watch where you're going, not where you've been") so it's not necessarily a deal-breaker. If you want to preserve the scribe-line to have a registration point to start a paring chisel in, or something like that, it can be an inconvenience in woods that feather a lot, but it has to be severe to completely obliterate the line. Severe feathering is often a sign of a blunt or inappropriately-sharpened saw, as well as the wood type, so it's worth checking your saw if the exit side is horribly ragged, with any type of saw.

Cheers,