bow saw beam

[Matthew N. Masail]

I'm making a small bow saw to replace my dreadful coping saw, I was wondering about the beam connection. stub tenon with shoulder/no shoulder, glue/no glue? rounded over end and no glue to allow pivoting?

Thanks.

[lowell holmes]

You can download plans from Tools For Working Wood.

One answer is stub tenon with shoulder.

[Chris Griggs]

What Lowell said. No glue. The uprights need to be able to rotate a bit. That's what allows you to tighten the blade. The rounded shoulders are not required, but they are often seen as I guess they would facilitate the pivoting of the uprights. I used the TFWW plans and have had no issued with straight shoulders though. Just having the unglued tenon allows for enough pivot.

[Tony Shea]

Some of this depends on the what your plan is for the your blades. If you decide to use a blade that is available from a place like TFWW and never plan to make your own blade then you can keep the shoulders of this m/t joint flat. If you plan on making your own blades then creating a curved shoulder at this joint would be beneficial due to the slight variance in blade lengths. I believe the write up on TFWW's plans for their bowsaw covers this. I recommend checking out their site. The one issue I have with the TFWW bowsaw is the blade pins. I do not like that they rotate so easily while using the saw. I have seen other pins that are tapered which would solve this issue. Not sure where to get them but know they are available to buy. If I had it to do over I would use these instead as the rotating blade can be hard to control at times.

[Matthew N. Masail]

Thanks guys. I went with a curved end of the bar because of the reason Tony mentioned, I'm not sure I'll ever make blades though. I made my own pins, they are a friction fit in the hole so they don't turn easily once under tension.
the craftsmanship on this one sucks! with my job right now I have little patience for fine detailing, so I just knocked it together to be a user. I'll probably make a more refined version one day, but I hope this one holds up, the side walls on the mortises are a little thin, and the whole thing is a little thin (just over 1/2 thick stock), but it seems work.

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