Just the facts please

[greg Forster]

I've read several times that the backsaws at Colonial Williamsburg are sharpened only rip. I'm interested in how the various sizes of backsaws at CW are sharpened and how to use them esp. for cross-cutting.

I'm not interested in how 18thc cabinetmakers may or may not have sharpened their saws or anyone's personal preferences... just how the saws used in the cabinet shop at CW are sharpened and used.

[David Weaver]

I can't speak for their saws - i'm sure george can. But if you have a rip saw with a little bit of rake and a fine tooth, put it to some wood crosscutting. It will crosscut, it just won't do it as cleanly and easily as one purpose-filed crosscut.

[george wilson]

On Jay Gaynor's advice,we initially sharpened them rip. I don't know what the cabinet shop may have done on their own. Krenov sharpened his rip.

Jay thought that ALL saws were sharpened rip in the 18th.C.. I looked carefully at the unused Kenyon crosscut saws we had there,and they looked to me like they were sharpened at about a 10º angle. It didn't surprise me at all,as tool evolution was pretty systematic through the ages.

I wasn't usually involved in tool research. That was left to the curator. Therefore I am not sure if earlier crosscut saws might have been filed straight across,and began to evolve into our modern more acute angles. I filed a crosscut straight across,and I can tell you that it did not cut nearly as well as it would have with a more modern filing.

The saws in the Seaton Chest were never used. Thus,knowing that tool makers in the 18th.C. did not supply tools ready to use (carving tools didn't even have handles as purchased), I could not conclude that the saw teeth had their proper final cutting angles formed. The teeth could have been "roughed in",and left for the user to finish up.

People in those days were so frugal about everything,including the degree of finishing they did to tools,like not supplying handles to carving tools,it's hard to draw definite conclusions.

[Pedder Petersen]

I've read several times that the backsaws at Colonial Williamsburg are sharpened only rip.

The question is: what does rip mean? If every saw with fleam 0° is rip, you are probably right. But in traditional german joinery a croscutting saw has 0° fleam, too. It just has a more relaxed rake about 15°-20°. So maybe there were such crosscutting saws, too? Tage Frid, who had a continental european backround advised to sharpen saws this way.

Cheers
Pedder

[Adam Cherubini]

I've read several times that the backsaws at Colonial Williamsburg are sharpened only rip. I'm interested in how the various sizes of backsaws at CW are sharpened and how to use them esp. for cross-cutting.

I know the answer. All of their saws have a fair amount of rake. The finer the saw, the more rake. For cross cutting they use fine toothed saws, always scribe all around, and being the Hay shop, it's rare that sawn surface isn't cleaned up with a plane. They are fastidious, perhaps anachronistically so.

Adam

[george wilson]

I corrected my post:It was Frid,not Krenov that I was thinking of.

[greg Forster]

thankyou all for the information