Plate Thickness? Later Back Saws.

[Stew Denton]

Hi All,

My understanding is that the older back saws, the dovetail saws and the carcass saws, had very thin plates, Christopher Schwarz writes about a thickness of 0.020." Did the manufactures go to thicker plates later on, or if you buy a dovetail saw from the 50s or 60s do you still get a thin plate of proper hardness?

What about the modern saws? Are the saws from some of the old name makers that are still in business, selling junk, or are the plates still good, even though they have plastic handles, etc.?

Thanks and regards,

Stew

[Patrick Chase]

Hi All,

My understanding is that the older back saws, the dovetail saws and the carcass saws, had very thin plates, Christopher Schwarz writes about a thickness of 0.020." Did the manufactures go to thicker plates later on, or if you buy a dovetail saw from the 50s or 60s do you still get a thin plate of proper hardness?

What about the modern saws? Are the saws from some of the old name makers that are still in business, selling junk, or are the plates still good, even though they have plastic handles, etc.?

Thanks and regards,

Stew

w.r.t. modern saws, the premium makers are all right around 0.02" (Veritas, LN, Wentzloff, etc) or a bit less (BadAxe) for their dovetail saws. The Veritas goes for $69 so a solid DT saw doesn't need to be all that expensive. A bunch of people sell rebadged Pax saws, which I don't find all that compelling because they cost more than Veritas and IMO they don't measure up in quality.

[Stewie Simpson]

Veritas are classed as premium backsaws. Surprised me.

[Patrick Chase]

Veritas are classed as premium backsaws. Surprised me.

It's all relative. Compared to modern Stanley, Irwin, Bahco, or even Pax/Crown/etc they're premium. Compared to you, Ron Bontz, Mark Harrell, Mike Wentzloff, or Pete Taran not so much. We can argue all day about where to draw the dividing line, or just accept that it's a continuum.