Tenons in hard wood

[Bill Rhodus]

I am currently making some tables out of pecan and have been surprised how hard this material is. I have discovered that I must use a very light touch or the saw tends to grab. Do any of you have any tips or tricks to make this easier? Surely the Aussies (Derek?) have some tips as the pecan, while one of our harder woods, is not as difficult to work as their woods. Also, I am using the Veritas carcas saws and would not be interested in resharpening them to facilitate this process, but if a change in fleam, tooth profile, etc is the solution I may be willing to try the change on an older saw I own. What are your thoughts?

[David Weaver]

Assuming you're talking about the rip being aggressive.

Before you change anything on a saw, do you have the ability to raise the working height of the work piece? I have a dovetail saw that's a bear to use down at bench level if you're standing, but it's a pearl if the working height is raised 8 or 9 inches.

If not, then you can always make yourself a file and a guide to put a microbevel of extra rake on the first few inches of teeth of an old saw. You can generally do two things for hardwoods and ripping, increase the tooth count or relax the rake. Relaxing the rake can be done without reprofiling the entire set of teeth, and doing just the tips.

[Bill Rhodus]

Thanks David. Yeah I am talking about the rip. I don't think I want to touch my Veritas saws as they work fine in cherry, walnut, etc. and are the woods I primarily use. I also have a 20t Veritas dovetail saw I tried in the pecan and the grabbing issue goes away but the saw is too slow, in fact the 12t carcas saw is much slower than I am used to. I believe I can modify one of my older saws to increase the rake and lessen the grabbing of the saw but this project led me to wonder what those people who use the difficult woods do to make their saws work in say, jarrah as well as poplar or pine? Do the have saws that are dedicated to the difficult woods? Throw the handsaws out the window and fire up the table saw? Fake an injury and ask their brother-in-law to do it for them? I like the last one.

[David Weaver]

I think with some experience, you'll get used to the saws, but it's really up to your experience to find out of that's true.

I have two, though, that probably have the first 2 1/2 inches of teeth relaxed so that I can start the cut but still have aggressive teeth. One is a dovetail saw, and one is a heavy rip tenon saw with aggressive teeth otherwise, where it's hard to have a light touch just because of the weight of the saw.

I think most hand toolers will tend to avoid woods like hickory and pecan because it's not as easy to work, especially if you're dimensioning it by hand. I would imagine at the same time that not a lot of aussie woodworkers use jarrah and fully hand dimension it, at least not from rough sawn boards that are far from the final finished size. I wouldn't.

[Derek Cohen]

Hi Bill

It sounds like the teeth are at too high an angle for the wood. I bet that they are nice and sharp. As David suggests, angle the end of the stretcher away from you. This will relax the rake of the teeth and make it a little easier to start.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Robert Rozaieski]

Are you sawing straight across the end grain or are you sawing out the corners first? I find that angling the piece in the vise and sawing the corner out first seems to help a lot with sawing tenons, especially in harder woods. By the specs it looks like the Veritas 12 TPI rip carcass saw already has a pretty relaxed rake (I think it said something like 10 degrees). My tenon saw is 11 TPI and about 4 degrees of rake and I don't have any problems sawing tenons in hard woods, but I angle the piece in the vise and saw the corners out, I don't saw straight across the end grain.

[Chris Griggs]

The Veritas saws already have a pretty relaxed rake (10 degrees I think), so should be good for harder woods (though admittedly I haven't used them). My guess is this is a technique issue. I think the solution may simply be to get used to using a light touch. You really shouldn't need to apply any downward pressure and when starting the cut you may want to take a lift a little weight off of the saw. If you want to cut faster the solution is a longer heavier tenon saw.

Couple other things that you may or may not already be doing.... Use a chisel to notch the corners of the tenon where you will start the cut. When you are actually sawing the tenon make sure you tilt the saw back and saw upward at an angle with the grain, then flip the work piece around to saw out the other side, before leveling off to saw out the middle. Again, perhaps you are already doing these things, but I figured they were worth mentioning just in case.

Edit: Wow, somehow I missed the fact that like six other people has already posted to this thread with the exact same feedback. Not sure how that happened. Sorry for the repeat info.

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

+1 on what folks have been saying about technique, position, etc.

I'll add this entry from Joel's blog at Tools For Working Wood :

http://www.toolsforworkingwood.com/Merchant/merchant.mvc?Screen=NEXT&nextpage=/extra/blogpage.html&BlogID=161&StoreCode=toolstore

The little drawings sort of help visualize what folks saw about sawing at an angle. This makes things quicker and easier for me.

[Bill Rhodus]

I am tilting the piece and starting the cut with the grain as much as possible and then turning the piece around. Perhaps it is nothing more than the pecan being more difficult than the materials I am used to. I think I will use the idea to increase the rake on the first several inches and getting more aggressive on the remainder of the saw when I have time to resharpen one of my older saws. Thanks for the replies.