Atkins “Demonstrations Saw”

[Mike Allen1010]

Greg Weese is one of the great Creekers here on SMC and is a very talented woodworking instructor here in San Diego. He was kind enough to give me this very interesting "Atkins Demonstrations Saw", the first one of these I've ever seen or heard of.


This saw, manufactured by Atkins was obviously intended to provide sawyers with some examples of how to correctly sharpen saws.

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The etch is kind of hard to see, so I have darkened in with a marker -- As you can see the saw is divided into sections with "Cut Off" and "Rip" teeth in various PPI configurations:

· "Properly Filed" teeth, directly adjacent to those labeled "Uneven Spacing".
· "Correct Amount" of set and "No Set" and "Too Much Set",
· "Correctly Filed Fleam" versus "Wrong Filing, Straight Across, No Fleam".



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It make sense that leading saw manufacturers of the Golden era would have wanted to provide their customers with "instructions" so that they could tune/sharpen their saws for best results, but I've never seen anything like this before -- clearly very practical then and now.

Thanks Greg for sharing this cool saw with your fellow Neander's !

All the best, Mike

[Jim Koepke]

That is kind of cool, thanks for sharing.

jtk

[Greg Wease]

I picked up that saw at a tool auction held by our local woodworking club. There were only a couple of us who realized what it was--and I knew where it needed to end up. Mike has made a couple of well-received presentations on saws and sharpening for the club. I'm glad you like it, Mike.

Mike is obviously a talented woodworker (reference his line & berry spice chest in another thread) and does a great job sharpening saws. He has sharpened several for me and has spent several hours helping me get started sharpening and straightening plates as well. I truly appreciate his patience.

His "All the best" tagline certainly applies to Mike's work!

Greg Wease

[Andrae Covington]

EDIT: As Jim suspected, I had missed that Mike wrote out in marker what the etches say because they are very faint. So nevermind.:o

OLD POST: I hate to be negative nellie, but I highly doubt the saw was created as a demonstration saw by Atkins. The theory of a demonstration saw sounds plausible, but I believe they would have etched or stamped the various configurations into the plate rather than simply handwritten them with a marker...

[Jim Koepke]

I hate to be negative nellie, but I highly doubt the saw was created as a demonstration saw by Atkins. The theory of a demonstration saw sounds plausible, but I believe they would have etched or stamped the various configurations into the plate rather than simply handwritten them with a marker...

Oops, I have made similar errors in the past of not reading carefully before replying.

Just below the first image is this:


The etch is kind of hard to see, so I have darkened in with a marker

jtk

[Andrae Covington]

Oops, I have made similar errors in the past of not reading carefully before replying.

Just below the first image is this:

jtk

Ohhh, man it really is hard to see. In fact, I still gotta take you guys word for it, though it looks like something faintly there in some of the closeups. Well, whaddaya know? Like I said, I thought the demonstration saw idea sounded plausible, but I figured they would etch it. I guess they did.