how would one rip small pieces with a Rip Handsaw

[Archie England]

Holding small pieces for ripping with my rip saws has become the problem!

Currently, I pinch as much as I can in my face vise, leaving the lesser amount just out of the vise. This means that I'm sawing the piece nearly vertical from my lower chest or waist down--but not ever being able to saw a piece flat on a saw bench. The thinner the piece, the more difficult it is to "hold" it for sawing.

Any practical wisdom for me?

Thanks

[Prashun Patel]

You can hot-melt glue it or tack it with a pin nailer to a backer board and then clamp the backer to your bench.
Just cross cut the piece a little longer than you want so you can tack/glue in the margins.

[Rob Young]

Holding small pieces for ripping with my rip saws has become the problem!

Currently, I pinch as much as I can in my face vise, leaving the lesser amount just out of the vise. This means that I'm sawing the piece nearly vertical from my lower chest or waist down--but not ever being able to saw a piece flat on a saw bench. The thinner the piece, the more difficult it is to "hold" it for sawing.

Any practical wisdom for me?

Thanks

How small is small? What size rip saw?

You can rip pretty small stuff, think doll house sized, with a bowsaw rip blade.

That said, while "practicing" I've ripped down 1/2" x 1/2" (approximately) cross-section strips of poplar from small 8" long by 4" wide boards held in a bench vice with my 26" Atkens rip saw. Wasn't the easiest but worked OK because I'm tall enough to have my shoulders well above the work. I was more worried about loosing control and dinging the teeth into the vice!

I've seen Jr. cut much smaller stuff with his bow saws though.

[Rick Erickson]

Just pinch it between two thicker pieces. This will also give you a cleaner cut.

[Robert Rozaieski]

I hang it over the end of my saw bench and clamp it to the bench. I've ripped some pretty small stuff this way.
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[Sandy Stanford]

Holding small pieces for ripping with my rip saws has become the problem!

Currently, I pinch as much as I can in my face vise, leaving the lesser amount just out of the vise. This means that I'm sawing the piece nearly vertical from my lower chest or waist down--but not ever being able to saw a piece flat on a saw bench. The thinner the piece, the more difficult it is to "hold" it for sawing.

Any practical wisdom for me?

Thanks

Archie, for thin-ish stock use a crosscut saw to make your rip cuts. Anything less than 3/4" thick I almost always use a crosscut saw (10pt.) for ripping. You'll find the piece vibrates much less and is generally easier to control no matter where or how you clamp it.

[Randy Klein]

Depending on the size, "rip" with a scrub plane or drawknife.

[Archie England]

some of the smallish ripping I do is cutting 5 1/2" long x 5/8 x 5/8 for turning pen blanks. I've got a good coll..er...assortment of western handsaws, both cc and rip, to use. I'm typically using a 5 1/2 or higher ppi old Disston (12, 7, or 8). When cutting within the confines of the face vise, I get too much squeeze from the clamping torque. When cutting just off to the side, I get a lot of vibration perhaps due to the small hold (typically 3/4" or more). A lot of scrap that I cut is 1 1/2" square in less than 2' long strips. I'm okay when my strips are long; but, when getting down to those last 6" I have trouble. BTW, I have a great bandsaw for doing this.....but, that's not the solution to which I strive.

Again, many thanks for the advice.

Archie

[Sandy Stanford]

some of the smallish ripping I do is cutting 5 1/2" long x 5/8 x 5/8 for turning pen blanks. I've got a good coll..er...assortment of western handsaws, both cc and rip, to use. I'm typically using a 5 1/2 or higher ppi old Disston (12, 7, or 8). When cutting within the confines of the face vise, I get too much squeeze from the clamping torque. When cutting just off to the side, I get a lot of vibration perhaps due to the small hold (typically 3/4" or more). A lot of scrap that I cut is 1 1/2" square in less than 2' long strips. I'm okay when my strips are long; but, when getting down to those last 6" I have trouble. BTW, I have a great bandsaw for doing this.....but, that's not the solution to which I strive.

Again, many thanks for the advice.

Archie

Rip your strips off wide boards then crosscut the strips to length. Don't try to rip short pieces if you can avoid it.

[David Gendron]

+1 to Bob technique! a saw bench, hold fast or clamp, and a hight ppi saw!

[Richard Magbanua]

+1 on the scrub plane!

[Larry Marshall]

I approach such things in one of two ways. Most often I can use a simple bench hook. This allows me to shove the piece into the hook and saw parallel to the bench surface. No vise required.

In some cases I'll take the piece and clamp it to my saw bench. This is a simple bench set at 20" so I can saw 'down' into the stock.

Simple appliances like bench hooks, and saw benches are at least as important as the handsaw itself in my opinion.

Cheers --- Larry

[Sandy Stanford]

Holding small pieces for ripping with my rip saws has become the problem!

Currently, I pinch as much as I can in my face vise, leaving the lesser amount just out of the vise. This means that I'm sawing the piece nearly vertical from my lower chest or waist down--but not ever being able to saw a piece flat on a saw bench. The thinner the piece, the more difficult it is to "hold" it for sawing.

Any practical wisdom for me?

Thanks

I'd also add that if you are trying to rip several blanks out of a larger piece of stock there is no role for a scrub to play in that scenario except for perhaps when you get down to the last blank.

[Josh Bowman]

Depending on the size, "rip" with a scrub plane or drawknife.
Dumb question.....how do you use a scrub plane to rip? It looks like the thick shaving would be broken as it comes through the mouth.

[Randy Klein]

You're ripping (scrubbing) away the waste.

[Adam Cherubini]

I would try splitting out the pieces with a hatchet. For working with tiny objects, craftsmen of yore used a tiny metal hand vise. Yu can chuck the vise into a larger vise. These can be handy when sharpening molding plane irons or center bits.

For sawing small stock you may find a similar arrangement works. I have large wooden parallel clamps. They have really tight jaws and can produce wood crushing power. Try clamping small stock in them, then clamping the clamps in a vise. Just make sure the workpiece isn't resisting the force of sawing with friction.

A third tip is that you can hold your saw between your knees with it's handle in your stomach and then rub the workpiece over the blade. A fine toothed saw works better for this.

good luck

Adam

[Archie England]

I guess that I was primarily "thinking" along the lines of Rob above--use a saw bench with some form of recessed area for small pieces. My drive for frugality too often pushes me to get too much from that final piece. Thankfully, I've gone completely to back saws and handsaws for all of these potentially disasterous cuts on a power platform. Again, I can safely use push sticks to do these quite effectively on the band saw; but, I genuinely want to develop the hand tool alternative even to this.

Many thanks for all the help.

Merry Christmas

Archie

[Jim Koepke]

For small pieces like pen blanks, a bench hook or bench jack and a back saw should make it easy.

You may want to build yourself a bench hook that has a clamp to hold the piece while it is being ripped.

A flat piece with a piece screwed onto one end to hang over the edge of the bench or to be held in a vice. Another piece attached to the other end as a stop and a saw kerf in it as a saw guide. A couple of carriage bolts with wing nuts to hold one side of the piece being cut. Could even have the edge of the clamping piece line up with the saw kerf to guide the saw square.

I do not have one quite like what is described, but if you need some pictures let me know and it will be easy to throw something together with what I have on hand to take pictures to post.

jim

[harry strasil]

dat what I use for real small pieces, bench hook will work as a shoot board in a pinch too. make sure to make a mating small one for a side support for longer pieces.

[harry strasil]

For long narrow pieces that need to be ripped, just clamp in vise with not too much sticking up as it will vibrate,

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v81/irnsrgn/saw%20bench/sawbench14.jpg

and keep moving it up as needed till you get to the end, then reverse it in the vise and saw the rest up like this.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v81/irnsrgn/saw%20bench/sawbench15.jpg

[Jonathan McCullough]

I don't have the knife for my 46 but apparently you can take off small strips from thin stock with the slitting knife. Seems like it would be a good solution for finicky little stuff less than, say, 3/8" inch thick and whatever width you would need to adjust the fence.