Diamond in the Rough

[Jonathan McCullough]

Things have been a little quieter around here lately so I thought I'd post a few more saw rehab pictures. I rubbed this one down and gave it my hot wax treatment.


http://i575.photobucket.com/albums/ss199/Jonathryn/Diamond%20in%20the%20Rough/DSC02313copy.jpg


It's a ship point and highly taper-ground D-12 like creature, but the way the saw plate shined up, I'm thinking it might be Atkins-made. At any rate, an old and very good saw.


http://i575.photobucket.com/albums/ss199/Jonathryn/Diamond%20in%20the%20Rough/DSC02314copy.jpg


A Diamond Edge Is a Quality Pledge!


http://i575.photobucket.com/albums/ss199/Jonathryn/Diamond%20in%20the%20Rough/DSC02315copy.jpg


This shined up very nicely. I'm finding that if you take a picture to show the etch, you invariably get every spot of patina oxidation, which doesn't really reflect the true condition of the saw. Conversely, if you take the brilliant "angels coming to take me home" starburst photo, all you really see is gleam.


http://i575.photobucket.com/albums/ss199/Jonathryn/Diamond%20in%20the%20Rough/DSC02390copy.jpg


This had an apple handle, but with lots of dark heartwood streaks, so I gave it just a little stain, some shellac, and some paste wax. I like to polish the saw nuts; many of the saws I get are abused dogs that nobody else wants, and preserving patina on them is a somewhat quaint notion. In this and many other cases however, I'm discovering that many of the saws that have few online references are as good as many that are very well documented.


http://i575.photobucket.com/albums/ss199/Jonathryn/Diamond%20in%20the%20Rough/DSC02391copy.jpg


After sharpening I took a test cut. It had a little of what the Norse Woodsmith calls the "wappita wappita" but with a little adjustment, it carved through some 1" x 6" pine like a paring knife through an apple. The taper grinding really allows you to subtly change course if you're wandering even the slightest bit. Took a thin slice and thought it resembled one of those silly "fluffy shavings" pictures you see for planes, so here's the saw equivalent of a fluffy shaving.


http://i575.photobucket.com/albums/ss199/Jonathryn/Diamond%20in%20the%20Rough/DSC02392copy.jpg


After cleaning.

[Jim Koepke]

Jonathan,

Very nice work.

My saw equivalent to a fluffy shaving is to mark some lines an 1/8 - 1/4 inch apart and saw a kerf on each one for about 3 - 4 inches without trying to correct the tracking. Then split the piece between them.

If you flip the wood to track from the other side before splitting, you can see how much drift the saw has. The difference you see will be twice what you've got.

Something like this:

147450

jim

[Shawn Albe]

Took a thin slice and thought it resembled one of those silly "fluffy shavings" pictures you see for planes, so here's the saw equivalent of a fluffy shaving.
After cleaning.

Nice restoration and photos, Jonathan.

To channel David Allen Coe, all you are missing is the saw equivalent of the vernier caliper / micrometer shot showing how thin it is...perhaps the saw equivalent should be a tape measure :D