2nd Visit to Estate Sale

[Mike Hutchison]

A couple months ago I went to an estate sale and purchased a couple pieces.
I exchanged phone numbers with the folks doing the sale because they said they
had a PODS to go through which they thought had tools in it.
Have been trying to cut down on the rust hunting as I have a number of acquisitions
which haven't quite found their way to completion as far clean up and / or repair.
Thursday AM my cell rings and they say the sale is on again.
Can find no makers mark on either of the small vises.
Believe the froe to be home smithy or blacksmith forged,
it has been rehandled recently relative to the forging.
Mallet is sound.
The saw has slight bow to the plate length wise, etch faint but combined with the medallion:
The Simonds Saw Manufacturing Co.
20" length of saw plate with a 11 stamped on the heel
First of the two ones very faint and no matter how I hold a rule against
the teeth I am not coming up with 11
Total for the 5 pieces $10

[Jim Koepke]

Drat, I'm going to have to get out more often.

Nice finds.


Believe the froe to be home smithy or blacksmith forged

My froe has a makers mark and doesn't look as well made as yours.

jtk

[Mike Hutchison]

Jim:
The froe has bad pitting on one side. The "new" handle had some slight cracking
from the collar heading down the handle. Tried to get some wood glue in there
and clamp it up. I tried the froe on a piece of 1x PT end grain using the mallet
and didn't do too well. At the moment froe is hanging on wall but if time allows will try to
tighten the wedges up and go at it again.
Other than purpose of sneaking a minor gloat in with 1st post; wanted to ask a couple questions this saw
has brought up. The saw has set to the teeth, that is evident. But why is it I can't look down the teeth
in decent light and determine xcut or rip? The teeth don't look much like the pictures/drawings that
I have seen. This is just about the norm for me and the old saws I run across. Could it be an unfortunate run
of botched hand sharpenings? Mis-use of saw/s deforming the tooth profiles? I'm (w/ tri-focals) just blind?
Have a saw vise and a set tool and have thought about trying sharpening. Fact that I can't even tell
what I'm trying for is not encouraging.

[Stew Denton]

Mike,

How many points per inch? If the answer is in the 4 1/2 to 6 range it is likely a rip saw. A cross cut is often an 8 to 12 point. I have a 7 point rip that I like a great deal for finish ripping. If your saw is in the mid range, say 6 to 8 you can sharpen it either way, rip or crosscut. A 6 point crosscut will do for pretty coarse crosscutting, fast, but the results will not be smooth. An 8 point rip will make a nice smooth cut, but will be a little slow, quite usable but a little slow.

It really depends on how you sharpen the saw. If the teeth are extremely worn, it won't be any work at all to convert the saw from one type to the other.

This is not meant to be insulting of you intelligence if you already know such, but if you can get a magnifier if you have trouble seeing the detail of the teeth, cross cut teeth come to sharp points, with the filing at angles to the plate, and rip teeth are filed a 90 degree angles to the saw plate. Also, crosscut teeth typically have quite a bit more set than do rip teeth.

Stew

[Jim Koepke]

Mike,

My froe came with a bad handle. Made a new one that kept slipping. So a couple of large screws were driven into the handle as stops. Now the handle may move a little, but it stays on. The eye on mine is a bit oval shape so the handle doesn't spin.

On the saw, as Stew says, it isn't so important how the teeth are currently filed. They could be a bad job of filing. What matters is what you want them to be.

One thing to try if the teeth optics are confusing is to set a small three corner file into the teeth and give it a little wiggle. If the teeth are well formed the file will nestle into the old file track.

jtk