More bow saw stuff. . . .

[Michael Ray Smith]

A while back I started a thread about bow saws in general and the Gramercy bow saw in particular. I just bought this saw.on eBay. You might have seen it listed. Heck, one of you might have sold it to me. The blade is marked Disston, but based on old catalogs, I'm almost positive the saw was made by Atkins. I thought I'd post some pictures to show how this one differs from the Gramercy design, whether for good or ill. The obvious difference is that the tension is created by a simple rod with a wing nut at one end, rather than the Spanish windlass on the Gramercy saw. The tenons are designed a little differently, too. The tenon on the Gramercy saw is the usual design with a shoulder all the way around. The mortise is set into a slightly concave surface, and the shoulders of the tenon are slighly convex, which allows the stretcher to rock a bit as the blade is placed under tension. The tenon on the Atkins saw is the full width of the stretcher (which, I think, allows it to move a little more freely). Rather than the mating concave/convex surfaces, there's a slight recess around the mortise (a technique that someone -- Jim Koepke, I think -- recently described) that hides the movement of stretcher as the blade is placed under tension. Finally, several people commented on the fact that blade rotates too easily with the Gramercy design, pointing out that a tapered pin (or an o-ring) helps prevent that. As you can see in the pictures, Atkins addressed that problem differently.

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[Steve Voigt]

Great looking saw! Will the Gramercy blades fit?

[Michael Ray Smith]

Nope. The Gramercy blades are too short, and they have small pins built into them. This one takes a blade with holes in it. The only thing wrong with this saw is that the small pins that slide through the holes to hold the blade in place are missing. Somewhere along the line, they were lost and replaced with small wire brads with the ends clipped off.

[Chris Griggs]

Cool saw. Cool design. Thanks for walking us through the unique features. Very cool.

[Joel Moskowitz]

The question of the blade rotating seems to be all over the map. The reason you want a fairly easily rotating blade is that when you use the saw you are either the handle is gripped in your palm and the frame resting on a finger, or you are burying the handle in your palm and holding the frame between thumb and forefinger. In either case the index finger is extended like you do on just about any other tool. So in actual use the frame stays but, but if you need to twist it to move the frame out of the way - or really twist the blade, you can do so easily without losing the rhythm of sawing. It does take some getting used to but for me, now, it is second nature.

The reason some early saws had tapered pins was because the pins were cast and tapered pins were easier to make than turned pins. The 1797 turning saw in the Seaton chest had straight pins, and once metal lathes were common straight pins became the standard. Tapered pins also had a tendency to split the frame.

The stretcher on the Atkins is really very very elegant!

[Chris Griggs]

I've seen a few people mention the blade rotating issue, but its been ZERO issue for me on the kit I made. Maybe I lucked out when I drill the holes but mine is just right. Stays how it should in use and rotates easily when I need it too. I wouldn't want mine any tighter.

Again, your saw is very very cool though. Hopefully you will find it to be very very useful.

[John Walkowiak]

I am not so sure about straight pins being the norm after metal lathe's came into use. As a collector I have handled many, probably well over 100, 19th C. English bow saws, and every one had tapered pins. I have 5 or 6 right now that I have kept because they were interesting to me in one way or another, all have tapered pins.
The late 19th, early 20th C. American bow saws made buy the likes of Disston and others have straight pins, as I have observed.

[Joel Moskowitz]

My English turning saw (late 19th century) has straight pins. And as I said the seaton book 2nd edition has measurements and it has straight pins (IIRC i don't have a copy handy). Both styles were obviously made. The tapered version is the lower end.

[Michael Ray Smith]

I checked the dimensions of the Gramercy saw and the Atkins, and I found some similarities. In particular, I was interested in the length of the blade, the length of the arms, and the position of the stretcher. All the dimensions of the Gramercy and the Atikins are pretty close, but they are amazingly close if you normalize the dimensions by calculating ratios. For example, the ratio of the arm length (measured from the middle of the blade to the rod or cord) to the blade length (measured from pin to pin for the Gramercy and hole to hole for the Atkins) is very close to 0.92 for both. And the ratio of the distance from the middle of the blade to the middle of the stretcher is around 0.59 to 0.60 for both. Maybe Joel can tell us if these ratios are fairly consistent for old English and American bow saws.

[Michael Ray Smith]

Found the answer to my own question in the Atkins catalog. They sold frames for various lengths of blades, but the length of the arms remained unchanged -- which means the ratio varied.