Is there a Saw Doctor in the house?

[Kenneth Fisher]

I bought a 12" Distton No. 4 13ppi rip from a reputable online tool vendor. It's in great condition, super sharp and exactly what I wanted in a saw. I got it in the mail Thursday, but I've only just now had time to try it out.

I have a couple of tenons to cut on my current project and was excited to use it. I got maybe three strokes into soft pine and got some extreme binding. I tried a few more times in some scrap and got the same binding. I started to take a closer look thinking the blade had a bend or kink some where in it when I noticed some one forgot to put any set in it :(

I have no saw maintainence tools of any kind, is there any way I can fix this?

[Matt Knights]

Use a small hammer and a nail set to set the teeth on a block of hardwood, you have to make sure you use consistent blows or the set will be uneven. Obviously do every other tooth on one side then turn the saw over and do the other teeth, once you have finished run a fine sharpening stone down the side of the saw plate to even up the set. You will have to experiment to get the right amount of set.

Alternatively see if there is a member close by who will set it for you.




Matt

[Tony Zaffuto]

Or, beofre monkeying with it, try it in some dry, hard wood, such as apice of cherry or walnut. Saw may have been set for working wood different than borg pine.

[Kees Heiden]

And put a little wax on the plate. That helps too.

[Jim Koepke]

I Guess you finally have a reason to come across the river.

I do not proclaim to be a saw doctor, but I do have a saw set.

My other advice would be to contact the vendor to see what they suggest.

jtk

[Robert Engel]

Have you checked the tooth set? I think that's where the problem is.
I would go for about .003 set on each side of plate.
Saws also perform differently in hard vs. soft woods.

[Patrick Chase]

I bought a 12" Distton No. 4 13ppi rip from a reputable online tool vendor. It's in great condition, super sharp and exactly what I wanted in a saw. I got it in the mail Thursday, but I've only just now had time to try it out.

I have a couple of tenons to cut on my current project and was excited to use it. I got maybe three strokes into soft pine and got some extreme binding. I tried a few more times in some scrap and got the same binding. I started to take a closer look thinking the blade had a bend or kink some where in it when I noticed some one forgot to put any set in it :(

I have no saw maintainence tools of any kind, is there any way I can fix this?

Others have said most of what you need, but I'd like to reinforce a couple points:

Saws like your No. 4 are most often used for joinery cuts in hardwood, where accuracy/tracking and surface finish are bigger concerns than binding. As a consequence it's often set up with fairly minimal set. For example if I were tuning that saw I would go for about 20% set, meaning that the toothline is 20% wider than plate. The 4 has a 31 mil plate, so that would pencil out to 3 mils/side. Have you measured the toothline directly to confirm that it doesn't have that sort of minimal set already?

Assuming that the saw does have a small amount of set, you have a decision to make. If you add enough additional set to stop it from binding in pine then you'll compromise tracking and finish in hardwoods. Personally I'd leave the Disston with minimal set for precision work and get a modern, over-set, impulse-hardened dispose-a-saw (http://www.amazon.com/BAHCO-PC-12-TEN-Inch-Professional-Backsaw/dp/B0001IX8LY/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1458483059&sr=8-4&keywords=bahco+backsaw) for the softwoods. That's what I've done (though my "good" backsaws are a mix of LV/Veritas and Bad Axe).

[steven c newman]

A little wax goes a long way...
334119
in curly maple dovetails, and..
334120
look like yours?
334121
Same cuts in pine. Saw is 9ppi, filed rip. I rub along the teeth of the saw before I start to saw. Then again as needed.

[Kenneth Fisher]

Thank you all for the help and replies. I really appreciate it.

One of my first thoughts was that it was set for hard woods and did try in some scrap oak and maple I had, same issue.

I've just taken a closer look at it and it looks like the tooth line has been stoned a few times. Its ever so slightly narrower than the rest of the plate, so it definatly has no set.

I'm going to send the seller an email and see what advice they offer, till then continue to use my veritas.

If I were to start looking for a saw set, what should I look for?

[lowell holmes]

http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/page.aspx?p=32956&cat=1,43072,43086


The link above is a good place to start. You may be able to find one on the West Coast.

You might try placing a small screwdriver between every other tooth gullet and twisting slightly.
Frank Klausz talks about it in his dvd "Hand Tools Tuning and using chisels, planes and saws".
He called it a screwdriver set.

[Brent Cutshall]

If you can't find a saw doctor, I highly recommend that you get a Millers Falls No.214 saw set, read the info on saw setting on vintagesaws.com, and have at it. It ain't hard to do.

[Patrick Chase]

Thank you all for the help and replies. I really appreciate it.

One of my first thoughts was that it was set for hard woods and did try in some scrap oak and maple I had, same issue.

I've just taken a closer look at it and it looks like the tooth line has been stoned a few times. Its ever so slightly narrower than the rest of the plate, so it definatly has no set.

I'm going to send the seller an email and see what advice they offer, till then continue to use my veritas.

If I were to start looking for a saw set, what should I look for?

Hmm, if what you describe is true then the last person to work on this saw was a complete hack. One common way to stone is to apply a piece of tape of known thickness to the plate, and use that as a guide. Done properly that gives a reasonably well-controlled amount of set, and avoids the possibility of "turned in" teeth such as you describe.

With that said, the fact that you're not quoting numbers makes me wonder if you're eyeballing this stuff, which is is hard to do at least for me. If you don't already have a caliper that can measure differences on the order of a few mils then you'll be needing one shortly, because it's a lot easier to sort this stuff out if you can accurately measure the difference in width between the toothline and the plate. That's particularly true once you start setting yourself, because the set's settings are only meaningful relative to each other, so you'll want to measure and establish a baseline. It's even more true if you need to reset a toothline that's been stoned as you describe, because in that case the set's settings will correspond to different results than they would on a pristine saw. Obviously you can do without the caliper as craftspeople did long ago, but that takes a lot more trial and error IMO...