Saw Gloat

[Dale Cruea]

Today in my e-mail I received a gift certificate from my three sons for Bad Axe saws.
I am trying to figure out just which one I want.

So many choices..... What is a fella to do.

Thanks to my sons.

[bob blakeborough]

Nice! Any ideas what you are going to be looking at? I have a 16" filed hybrid, 14" filed X-cut, 12" filed rip and a 10" filed rip. I think the 12 inch actually gets used the most (I like the bit longer stroke when dovetailing, but the 10" super nice dovetailing on thinner boards. The 14" X-cut probably gets the next most use, while the 16" not as much yet, but with my bench build coming up, I am going to be putting it to some good use!

[Zach Dillinger]

It's like choosing between Mary Anne and Ginger... eventually you just decide there is room for both of them...

[Chris Griggs]

14" hybrid.... You will use it for everything

[Jason Coen]

It's like choosing between Mary Anne and Ginger... eventually you just decide there is room for both of them...

Haha, very true. My problem lately is I'd have about as much luck convincing my wife that I need a new saw as convincing her that I need a Mary Anne or Ginger. :p She'd understand if I bought another one, but then I'd have to understand her new pair of shoes, also.

[Rob Dickson]

It's like choosing between Mary Anne and Ginger... eventually you just decide there is room for both of them...

Hope whatever you choose will be "sharper" than Ginger ....sure pretty to look at though....;)

[Ron Bontz]

Hope whatever you choose will be "sharper" than Ginger ....sure pretty to look at though....;)
:D That was pretty good. I don,t know what Mark calls a Hybrid cut, but a 14" with a 3.5" under spine can be pretty versatile. Just depends what you are looking for or rather need. Best wishes.

[Jeff Labs]

One of the great things about Mark is that he will take the time to help you decide which model(s) will work best for your needs. What may be an even tougher decision is figuring out what handle and hardware to order...so many cool choices!

[Mike Holbrook]

I'm with Chris Griggs. I love my 14" Gramercy Sash saw, with the combination filing for both ripping and crosscutting. The thin .020" plate and 13ppi teeth seem to melt through wood at an amazingly fast rate with negligible effort.

[Rich Tesoroni]

Ordered the 14" bad axe x-cut black Friday, so that's my vote.

Also vote Mary Anne

Rich

[Chris Griggs]

I'm with Chris Griggs.

Me too! That guy is inspirational and brilliant! (and very handsome I might add)

[george wilson]

I haven't seen this "combination filing" Any explanation,or super closeups(better in focus than mine,please.:))

[Chris Griggs]

Its really anything that has some fleam, but not as much as true crosscut. Using small toothed backsaws you really don't need much fleam to get a clean crosscut so you can file a saw as kinda a relaxed rip and it will xcut fine. I think the badaxe saw are combo filed closer to xcut - something like 10 degrees of rake and 15 or so degrees of fleam (I don't recal). The gramercy is more like a rip with just a bit of fleam - 5 degrees rake 7 degrees of fleam. In my experiments I have found that I like 5-10 degress of rake and 5-10 degreas of fleam. My combo filed saw is currently filed at 5 degrees of rake and 10 degrees of fleam. I does slow down the rip a bit, but not a whole lot, and it xcuts everything other than really softwoods (eastern white pine) quite well. I actually might relax the rake a bit more (maybe 10 degrees of rake) as I use it more for xcutting than ripping. Its not necessarily a replacement for a big rip filed tenon saw, but for most small to medium joinery rips it works well. I like it because its nice to just sorta have one saw at the bench that works very well for just about anything I do at the bench.

[Chris Griggs]

Okay here is a closeup of the teeth on the sash saw I made. Its not a great shot but its the best I could get. You can see the fleam though in the center of the pic where the camera was focused. Yikes, this closeup makes my filing look kinda bad.

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[george wilson]

I think,from examining the NEVER REFILED teeth on the crosscut Kenyon saw in the Seaton tool chest,that they filed their crosscut saws at about 10º in the 18th.C.. Thanks to aspiring gentlemen who bought tools,but never used them,we have some record of these things.

[Mike Holbrook]

From the Gramercy page:

"Length of blade 14", 13ppi, depth of cut at the toe 2.87" depth of cut at the heel 3.29". 5 degree’s negative rake and 7 degrees fleam. Plate thickness: .020". 13ppi teeth do not show up well in a picture without a special lens, which I do not have. What I can say observing them with the naked eye is the teeth look like rip teeth. The edge of each tooth (facing the tip of the saw) appears to be about 90 degrees to the plate. The back side of the tooth appears to have slightly more rake than the teeth in Chris's picture. The teeth on my Gramercy saw are further form being an equilateral triangle. Whatever fleam there is is not visible to my eyes.

Not having met Mr. Griggs in person I can not corroborate any statements regarding physical appearance. He does make some intelligent posts but I can not be sure whether or not his buddies are feeding him the information or not.

[Isaac Smith]

I haven't seen this "combination filing" Any explanation,or super closeups(better in focus than mine,please.:))

Here are some pictures of one I just filed in a similar configuration. This was a 16" Disston backsaw. 11 ppi, 10 degrees of rake and 12.5 degrees of fleam. The saw plate is 0.032" thick with about 0.007" of set (total).

The last picture shows a test cut in 4/4 beech - rip on the left, crosscut on the right.


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Isaac

[Ron Bontz]

Thanks for confirming what I thought, guys. I just call it an aggressive cross cut. But what ever you call it, it does do a better job of cross cutting.

[Dale Cruea]

Still looking. I am thinking a 10" dovetail saw right now.
I still have money left for another saw.

What to do.... What to do......

[Jim Koepke]

So many choices..... What is a fella to do.

Think about the "hole" in your usage.

What tasks have you thinking there might be a better saw for this work?

Are there joinery cuts you are not doing because none of your saws seem right for the job?

For me, there are a few saws that would fill holes in my set up. Everyone has their own holes to fill.

jtk

[Adam Cruea]

You're welcome, dad. :)

I'm glad you were able to get at least 2 saws out of it. Maybe even a coffee mug or some of the other maintenance stuff Mark sells. :) Or maybe even get one of your super-dull saws sharpened. :)