Foley Saw Sharpening Machines?

[Niels Cosman]

I've been looking for a Foley saw retoother for a while, but now have the opportunity to get one along with a Filer and a Setter (385,397,387).

They are all very good condition and complete with sets of ratcheting bars and blade carriers.

Does anybody have any experience with these machines and have an opinion about their usefulness/performance?

Cheers,
Niels

[Johnny Kleso]

I have a toother I never used yet and worked for 4 years at a band saw blade maker and we made machines that look very much like a Foley saw sharpener..

I would pass on the toother (see note below) unless its a package deal as older saws dont take power setter well and crack I have been told..
Hand or foot setter would be best for old saws..

They still make replacement parts or did when I called a few years ago for toothing bars

I ment to say SETTER not TOOTHER

[Mike Siemsen]

If you want to make saws a re-toother is very handy. Usually the problem is getting the racks and index bars. I too would avoid the power setter as it is easy enough to set by hand with more control. I also file by hand as it is easier to correct minor problems and do progressive pitch(which the filer and re-toother won't do). The filers work on saws with very regular teeth. When you re-tooth a saw you loose the full height of the teeth so a big ripsaw could end up 1/4 inch narrower. Practice on junk saws. check out
http://www.disstonianinstitute.com/foleyfiler.html
http://foleyfiler.blogspot.com/
Mike

[David Weaver]

I have seen sets of them go here often, four times a year or so, but have never seriously looked at buying one because I don't want to store the stuff. Usually they come with everything, as you're saying, or they're a retoother with no ratchet and carrier bars (worthless).

Someone sold a retoother with a bunch of ratchet and carrier bars, a filer, a setter and a couple of circular saw sharpening tools for $200 last year - in a world where I had more room, I'd buy it.

You might as well take all of the stuff if the guy selling it wants to sell all of it, but of those things, the toother is far and away the most useful because it'll allow you to punch plates and buy saws with broken teeth but otherwise full plates and not spend $10 worth of files to punch teeth in them.

[george wilson]

I had 2 Foley filers. Neither one worked consistently well. Their pawls would always slip and fail to move the next tooth,resulting in the same tooth getting filed twice and made very deep. This caused us to have to completely re cut all the teeth on the saw. I just gave up and filed the teeth by hand. We were ruining nice teeth rapidly with the Foley.

We had a brand new Belsaw setter that we got from Federal Surplus,but they can be a pain to set up unless you have a bunch of saws to set. We ended up setting saws by hand,too. Glad we got the setter cheap!!

I had a little Burro brand toother,and had to make some of the finer racks for it,but it was well worthwhile,and quickly would cut teeth with no problem. I would like to have a toother at home,but haven't found one yet.

[Niels Cosman]

Thanks for all the input!
I should have mentioned that my primary interest is forming the teeth in new sawplates and it's a all or nothing deal with the 3 machines. The setter really is almost totally uninteresting to me, considering ease of manual setting. However, the filer could be really useful. I have heard that the filers can be a pain in the butt to get set up properly and prone to error, which gives me pause. I think George mention that they abandon their use at Williamsburg for hand filing for this reason.

I too have a space issue, and these tools have no room in my shop at the moment, but I should be making the big move with my shop to larger digs this month where I'll have a bit more room to breath (or fill with junk and tools :) )

[Johnny Kleso]

Niels,
Filers in good condition work well but takes lots of time to learn how to set them up...
It will take you a month at least to learn how to tweek screws just right..

We had 100 filers most set for one job like one for left and one for right
If they are not set just right the left is deeper than the right..

Filing by hand might be the way to go unless your doing production..

The Toother is a must have for old saw that are miss filed or you want to change pitch

[george wilson]

I must say that I did not invest a LARGE amount of time on my Foleys. That said,I am a good machinist,and should have been able to make them reliable IF they could be so made. I was more interested in getting the large bunches of saws done at the time. I never photographed the crosscut and rip saws we made,nor the several other special types of saws.

My second Foley was in excellent shape,too. I just got tired of recutting teeth,and wasting saw plate.

[Johnny Kleso]

George,
I hated when I had to go adjust the filing machines, I worked for years there and was my least favorite thing to do..
Made me want to pull my hair out some days and these machines where 50+ years old

[Niels Cosman]

Thanks for the input fellas!
I just got back a whirlwind 5 day trip from saratoga springs, to syracuse (X2), to philadelphia, to brooklyn, and back to boston AND i have the Foleys in backseat and trunk of my car.
It's funny I brought a bunch of cash to NWA thinking that I pick up some things at the trade show but the only thing i bought was a copy of "The Essential Woodworker".
HOWEVER- I ended up emptying my pockets at a flea market in syracuse on little tool chest (filled with tools!) and these machines.
I think i might have to put myself in tool-time-out for a while now, to let my bank account recover!

I can't wait to get them setup and start experimenting, unfortunately i'm going to have to wait till the end of the month(at least) when I finish moving my shop. :(

I'm curious if either of you had differing experience with the filers when filing finer or courser teeth. I think anything smaller than 10 tpi I think would probablyhand file anyway. Regardless, I am going to spend some quality time trying to get the machine to perform- production potentially being a goal (pipedream) for the future ;)

[Johnny Kleso]

I know the ratchet bars go to 10ppi and maybe 12ppi but thats it..
My plan was to make a custom bar and try doing finer teeth as the sharpener has to have teeth in the saw blade to sharpen the toother works off the ratchet bar

Play with some old saws first then retooth them and see how that goes..
You may find the manuals on line for free if you didnt get them with the machine..

Here is a link to the manual in google books
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0BzJxodHACRRuNTA4NTcyZjgtOTM1Mi00NTJkLTljNGQ tNmJmZGEwNmIzOTgx&hl=en&authkey=CPnX8eMJ