Usefullness of Veritas Saw 3-pack

[Matt Radtke]

I'm looking to get a nice handsaw, which quickly led me to look at the Veritas dovetail saw. Pretty sure that'll be the one I get, though I'll probably have to wait til after christmas.

My question is about the 3 pack. I see plenty of 'deal' there--you'll save about $36 buying all three. What I'm not sure of is the 'value.' Is this an actually useful combination of saws?

Is the 20tpi dovetail really that much nicer for smaller stock?
Is the crosscut good for much besides cutting tenon shoulders?

Basically, I'm thinking 3 steps ahead and I'm planning for subsequent saws. Just thinking out loud, but it seems like a tenon saw and a carcass/crosscut tenon would be more useful. Maybe a LN or two. . .

Of course, I'm not against ultimately buying the 3-pack and adding on a tenon and large crosscut saw later, but I would like to avoid getting a saw or saws that won't see a lot of use.

Other thoughts and things I might be missing appreciated!

[Chris Friesen]

If you do a lot of work in thinner materials the 20tpi might be useful.

The crosscut saw seems a bit small to me, though maybe in smaller stock it could be useful. Chris Schwarz recommends a carcase saw with a blade in the 10-14" size for general use. Of course, the Wenzloff carcase saw is twice the price, and the L-N isn't much less.

[Jim Koepke]

The finer the teeth, the less aggressive the saw, the less aggressive the saw, the less splintering of the material.

The other side is the finer the teeth, the more tedious the sharpening.

jim

[Rob Lee]

Hi Matt -

Tough call, isn't it?

That's why we made the price so attractive.... it's almost a 2 for the price of 3...

There will be a larger crosscut coming, presuming we make the mold work - and that's not a given...

Glad I don't have to choose..... :)

Cheers -

Rob

[Matt Radtke]

Hi Matt -

Tough call, isn't it?

That's why we made the price so attractive.... it's almost a 2 for the price of 3...

There will be a larger crosscut coming, presuming we make the mold work - and that's not a given...

Glad I don't have to choose..... :)


Heh. You know, it's people like You that make SWMBO beat people like Me :D

[Matt Stiegler]

Matt, I was asking myself the same question recently and ended up getting the set. I figured if I realized down the road I was not really using one of the saws, I probably could sell it for what it cost me anyway. But part of my comfort in getting the set came from having the chance to hold them and try them out before I got them.

[Tom Godley]

When I went to the LV display at the WWA show a few weeks ago they had the two new saws as well as the original dovetail saw. They also had a bench and some wood to try them all out.

As I was looking over the crosscut saw I asked the LV representative about why the second dovetail saw. He indicated that some people thought that the teeth were not fine enough on the original so they came out with a finer one.

I had purchased the Gramercy Tools dovetail saw when I went to the Philadelphia Furniture Workshop open house last year - the guys from Tools for Working Wood had a table and I had read a good review. It is a nice saw.


The new LV is a 20tpi -- the original is a 14tpi if my memory is correct. I took the 20tpi LV saw the twenty feet to the Gramercy display at WWA and found it a big enough difference that I thought it was worth getting. The Gramercy is I believe an 18tpi.

I tried them all and while the original 14tpi is a nice saw I did not see how I would use it if I had the other two. They have a two pack deal -- crosscut and new dovetail -- that is what I bought. They were also giving 15% off at the show with free shipping

I like the crosscut saw -- I have used it quite a few times. The original 14tpi dovetail gets good reviews. For the final cost at the show I thought afterwards that I should have just picked them all up :)

[Richard Niemiec]

You can never have enough saws, they are like clamps. Buy the set and don't look back, Rob's got the pricing right and unless you have paws such that using the saw hurts them, its difficult to do much better at retail. Last count I have at least 10 different backsaws, English, LN, Disston, Craftsman (but older, vintage, likely made by Disston or Atkins) but to be honest, only about half are sharp (I'm working on that slowly). One beauty is a 6" split nut Disston dovetail saw, circa 1870, perfect handle, that I found in the bottom of a bucket of rust at a garage sale......I'm waiting until I get really good at sharpening before I tune that one up.