Hand Saw sharpening

[Gil Knowles]

Hi
I have a few old saws which need sharpening and wondered if anyone can recommend a good book on it. I noticed that Ron Hock's book The Perfect Edge covers saws but do not know how much details he goes into.

Many thanks
Gil

[Don Orr]

Best tutorial I have seen is on www.vintagesaws.com (http://www.vintagesaws.com) That's what I used to do a couple of mine. Not as hard as it might seem. I have the same book but have not had time to get into it yet. I printed it out to take to the shop.

Have fun!

[Tony Zaffuto]

Hardest thing to learn about saw sharpening is to not over think yourself. Read Pete Taran's piece and then pick your worse saw and have at it. No matter how bad you do, it will probably still cut better than it did. Try again, and after a couple of saws, you'll start to get the hang of it.

[Russell Sansom]

A google search will easily take you to many worthwhile sites on the subject.

[Matthew Dunne]

The internet does indeed have lots of great info, but Ron Hock's book is also an excellent resource on hand saw sharpening. (And every other kind of sharpening!) He gets into a fair amount of detail, and includes some very helpful graphics and pictures.

[Paul Saffold]

Joel has a lot of good information on the tfww (Tools for Working Wood) site including saw sharpening plus a great selection of tools and supplies.
http://www.toolsforworkingwood.com/Merchant/merchant.mvc?Session_ID=26dd5e6b77c01b140b86dd28c4 b4eddb&Screen=NEXT&StoreCode=toolstore&nextpage=/extra/blogpage.html&BlogID=86

[Terry Beadle]

Tom Law did a video on saw sharpening. He has a very warm country style to explain the particulars.

Best thing is to get good files and learn to take care of them.

Highland Hardware has double and single thin files.

Read a little, watch a little and have at it. Practice makes perfect. Try less strokes with the file before you try more. A lite sharpening will keep the tooth pattern and give good results on the first tries. Do a rip saw before you try a cross cut.

Like most advice, this is free and worth every penny....hoot!

Give 'er a go !

[Acharya Kumarswami]

A few years ago I was in the same situation, wanting to learn and wondering how to go about it. Having gone through the learning curve, acquired the gear, knowledge, jigs and skills to actually bring a saw to perfection, here's my take:
1. First you need to get a saw that's really sharp, not one that someone just says is sharp. When I started I sent a couple of backsaws to a professional sharpener. When they came back, they were not what I expected. Later, when I had learned to sharpen well, I confirmed that they had problems that caused them to not perform like a really sharp saw performs. Only a few eBay sellers who tout their saws as sharp actually provide a sharp saw. Marv Werner is one, and Daryl Weir is another. My success started when I bought a saw from Marv. Using it was a totally new experience. So, challenge one is to have a saw you can examine and see what the filer did with it, what the angles are, etc. The more saws you can see and examine, the more you learn about saws.
2. Get Tom Law's video. I found it very informative.
3. If you can find a good filer who will give you some lessons, I think that is ideal. I'm sure Marv could have gotten me up an running in much less time if I could have watched him file and practiced in his presence. Doing it remotely also works.
4. Failing that, get in touch with someone who really knows what he is doing who will guide you by e-mail. The books and web articles are good, but they often contradict one another. Once you have learned it you can tell what's what with them all, but when you are starting it can be confusing.

That's a starter. If you are really committed, there is some basic gear you need, such as a good vise and the correct file. I use a filing jig and find it very helpful to maintaint consistency.

[David Weaver]

Read all of the tutorials, etc, but remember two things when you sharpen saws:
1) The teeth must all be the same height when you're done
2) The teeth must not have any flats when you're done.

It's the touch of getting through rule #2 without breaking rule #1 that will make you go from saws that just cut to saws that cut fast and extremely smoothly.

You must be able to see what you're doing, and getting rid of the flats but just doing so is one of the hardest things for me to do without a magnifying glass, and I have better than 20/10 vision. I usually look at a saw from several different directions and in different lights to make sure that I have gotten all of the flats. Just looking while the saw is in the vise quickly will not quite do it.

the rest of the details about rake, file sizes, which brand you prefer, etc, you can figure that all out along the way. You'll quickly figure out that you don't like the blowout from a crosscut saw filed with no rake, and you'll quickly figure out that you don't like the speed a rip saw with 15 degrees of rake cuts.

Just make sure you have sharp points with no flats on the teeth and they are all as close to the same height as possible. If they are not, joint the teeth again lightly and do it again.

A couple of specific tips:

When filing crosscut - I have found it to be less trouble for me to just file into the teeth that are set toward me than it is to turn the saw around and try to keep consistent. You will have to file those teeth a little more to get the same level of metal removal, but you'll have less trouble keeping your rake and tooth size consistent. I have seen marv say this before, too.

Front to back or back to front - I think it is easier to keep tooth height dead on going from the back of the saw to the front when filing. If you have a lot of material to remove ("big flats"), then get the teeth close first and then come back and finish them. That way, you don't get a tooth height dead on where you want it and then move to the next tooth forward and accidentally file the face of the previous tooth more than you want and reduce the height.

If it's not quite right for any reason, joint a tiny bit and clean it up, you're close to where you want to be, don't do 90% of the work and leave a subpar job.

[James Owen]

Lie-Nielsen carries the Tom Laws video, which I thought was very informative, and they also carry a book called Keeping the Cutting Edge by Dynamite Payson, which has step-by-step tutorials for sharpening several different types of saws.

[Acharya Kumarswami]

Great advice! On the fleam angle for crosscut, I use 25 degrees, as Marv advised. And 15 degree rake.
For rip saws, 8 degrees is what I usually go for, but sometimes 4 degrees of 6 degrees. I have indicator blocks set up to help me keep these angles as I file. They slip on to the far end of the file. Truth be told, I have a line level taped to the block to make it even more fool proof.

[Gil Knowles]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I am going to order Ron Hock's book from LV as well as a couple of files and a saw set.
One further question are the saw sets and Nicholson files that LV sells any good.
Many Thanks
Gil