My first Turning Saw project complete.

[Dennis Hawkins]

In all the years of hobby woodworking I never built myself a bow saw. I had a piece of scrap curly maple staring at me for about 10 years and decided to use it for the project. 12" saw . The handles were turned from a piece of local firewood that when I split open discovered some nice figure so I mill out enough from the log to make a few small turnings.

I've never actually used a bow saw so this will be a learning experience on the using side as well and the making side of things.

Can anyone offer some advice as to how much blade tension I should be using. I realize this depends on the type of blade but just need some general guidelines.

282389

[Don Orr]

That's beautiful Dennis! I like the stylish accents at the joints. I'm curious about your tightening piece. Could we some details please? I have never used this type of saw so cannot provide any help with tension.

[Dennis Hawkins]

Don
The toggle idea came from an early example built by James Howarth.

http://podcast.unctv.org/wws/wws3102.mp4

[Tony Shea]

First off Dennis, your saw came out wonderful. The details on the cross piece and the toggle are really well executed and ads really nice character to an otherwise simple design. The curved tenon shoulders and mortised toggle are great details as well, especially when compared to my simple turning saw.

The tension is something that really needs to be done by feel and sound. You're better off starting out with less tension and keep increasing if the saw is not functioning in the cut as expected. I ping the blade while tensioning and listen to the sound it makes which I find really helps getting it close. You certainly need to be careful as this system can create enough tension to just fold this saw in half. You will eventually find its sweet spot, and once you're done sawing just unwind 2 to 3 times and you'll know where you're at when you come back to it.

[James Conrad]

Nice work Dennis! Did you use Bill Anderson's pins as well?

[allen long]

That is sooo beautiful. Are you really going to actually USE it? More of a piece of art.

Many Kind Regards . . . Allen

[Chris Griggs]

Wow! That might be the nicest I've seen posted here. Love that you chose that design! You nailed it too....just fantastic!

[george wilson]

A lot of extra work went into that scalloped design.

[Dennis Hawkins]

The tension is something that really needs to be done by feel and sound. You're better off starting out with less tension and keep increasing if the saw is not functioning in the cut as expected. I ping the blade while tensioning and listen to the sound it makes which I find really helps getting it close. You certainly need to be careful as this system can create enough tension to just fold this saw in half. You will eventually find its sweet spot, and once you're done sawing just unwind 2 to 3 times and you'll know where you're at when you come back to it.

Tony
I have been practicing on following a line on some pine to see how close I can keep to it and found myself plucking the blade, listening to the sound, then trying another cut just as you described here. I think I already found the sweet spot for the blade I have on it now. Also someone else suggested to use larger material for the tensioning line which I did. It made a big difference in reducing the number of twists to get to the same tension but I think at the same time I lost some fine tuning as a result. I might experiment with a different material to find a happy medium.

[Dennis Hawkins]

Nice work Dennis! Did you use Bill Anderson's pins as well?

James
I wanted to use Bills tapered pins but I didnt want to introduce yet another challenge into the build not to mention the added expense. So straight pins is the way I went.

[Dennis Hawkins]

Thank you all for the complements.

My wife always pokes at me saying "if is isnt broken I'll fix it anyway". This is how I approach everything I do so the extra time to fancy it up a bit was just me being me. I like the challenge. As a hobbyist just about everything I build is a "one-off" project so I usually shoot for the extra effort. (except for the tapered pins on this one).

[Don Orr]

Dennis-thanks for the great link to the podcast. I like watching Sir Roy and his projects.

[Michael Ray Smith]

Beautiful work!