Finished this one off today. Attachment 319674
The vital statistics are: 14 inch blade, 10 tpi (rip), 0.025" plate, Tulip Oak handle. The design is based on the Disston half-back.
I had planned to work on it as my demonstration piece during the workshop on Sunday, but ended up not touching it all day. The saw plate is thinner than the couple of half-backs I've made previously, for which I used 0.030" plate. I was a bit anxious about the 'free' blade being a bit too whippy, so I hammered it to put some tension in the blade. It seemed to work a little bit, but I'm still pretty tentative with my saw tensioning, & afraid of marking the plate,so I probably dont hit it quite hard enough. In any case, the saw cut nicely & tracked straight, & doesn't feel like it wants to bend up under pressure.
As a matter of interest, the Tulip Oak is from a chunk I picked up at the wood show in May. It's a dense wood and not bad to work with, though it's easy to split out the edges if you are too enthusiastic with the rasp. It finishes nicely, but the colour & grain pattern make it very hard to see small defects in the surface. I thought I had it perfect until I applied the finish, and discovered the row of small indentations you can see across the middle . I will have to dismantle it & re-sand that side. :~
Cheers,