Pair of large Tenon Saws -- Generation 1 and 2

[Mike Allen1010]

Below are pictures of two large, cocobolo handled tenon and saws I recently finished building. I wanted a pair of backsaws I could use for cutting larger pieces at the bench, where the weight and stiffness of the spline would help me get fast and accurate cuts, when I didn't want to take the time to move to the saw bench and use a full-size handsaw.

They both have .025” saw plates. The larger saw (in the background) is 18” long and is the only surviving member of the first generation of backsaws I built. I laminated the saw back using ¾” wide strips of 260 brass alloy and peening brass rod through the laminated assembly to fix the back/saw plate in-place (you can see where I was unable to file the brass rods into invisibility). I hand filed the teeth from raw plate into 9 PPI rip configuration.

Lessons learned:

1) 1) The laminated saw back technique was difficult for me to execute well. The other three saws in this generation had thinner saw plates and in the process of peening the brass rods I created a bunch of waves in the saw plate that made them all pretty useless -- ugh!

2) 2) Cutting the teeth with a file from raw saw plate was a handful- even in a simple rip configuration! As you can see, the profile and spacing of the teeth isn't very uniform. After a couple rounds of resetting, jointing, sharpening the height of the teeth are fairly uniform and the saw cuts well -- but it certainly doesn't look very pretty. At a certain point I ran out of patience -- I hope to the biggest errors in subsequent sharpening.

3) 3) Cocobolo is super hard! I drilled the saw holes free hard and even the Forstner bits wandered in the dense wood and consequently the saw nuts don’t fit very well. I also finished the cocobolo with Watco oil followed by a couple coats of shellac and paste wax. I think the oil darkens the color and makes the figure appeared muddy. The other saw here is finish was shellac only and I think it looks much better.


The second saw in the foreground is made with a slotted brass back and a saw plate I got from Dominic Greco (whom I met here in the Cave-thanks Dominic!) that was punched to 13 ppi crosscut.

For me, the slotted saw was a lot less labor-intensive and I think came out looking a lot cleaner. Also used a drill press to drill the holes, and although not perfect, they are a lot better than my earlier freehand attempt.

As I mentioned, shellac and paste wax I think worked better for me in this dense and oily wood.

Bottom line, although building the saws was a lot of work and they're not nearly as well executed as others I've seen here in the Cave, I'm surprised how well they work and I find myself reaching for them a lot more than I anticipated.

I definitely do get satisfaction from using tools I built myself -- but only if they work well- which I have to confess isn't always the case!

Thanks to all the Neaders here in the cave for your inspiration and advice!

Best regards, Mike

[george wilson]

Probably if you were to joint the tops of the teeth flat,and re file them,they'd come out more even looking with care. The handles look nice. Yes,do not oil dark tropical woods unless you want them to turn totally dark. I have seen dark Brazilian rosewood turn just as black as ebony,no exaggeration. It was as black as soot!!

[john brenton]

Those are nice looking saws regardless of any little imperfections. Not sure about everyone else, but I really like a pronounced palm bump like yours have. It makes a huge difference in saw and plane tote comfort.

[Archie England]

I'm awed/impressed. That's a mountain I'm not yet ready to climb. You did a beautiful job and if you hadn't told me the problems my only catch would have been the cows/calves in the final shot. Otherwise, both look excellent.

I'll have borrow some talent to ever attempt such a feat.

Archie

[David Weaver]

They look pretty good to me. The only markedly better saws that I've seen are from George and K&P, and none of us can expect to build saws at their level without putting in the time.

Cocobolo is not the nicest wood to work with for saw handles - it's not horrible, but a hard fruitwood is a lot nicer and more forgiving, so you did well. Especially if they work well. I doubt without our goading each other, any of us would do nearly as tidy of a job on a tool that we were making "just to use behind closed doors", but when you're done, it's nicer to have nice tools that follow an established pattern (disston in your case) than it is to have a bunch of hacked together one-offs.

[george wilson]

David,don't sell yourself short. Your saws and planes are just fine,also.

[Zahid Naqvi]

that's some pretty good stuff Mike, as has been said before we are our own worst critics.