Andrew Pitonyak
04-21-2019, 3:39 PM
I bought my daughter a Lee Valley 14 TPI dovetail saw. She has not been using it, so, I decided that I wanted to give it a workout. As such, I have been ignoring my Lie Nielsen and Bad Axe dovetail saws and have been using hers. I realized that it was barely cutting. I pulled out one of my others to compare, and yep, it was very dull.
Historically, I have sent my saws out to be sharpened, not that they need it all that often for my uses, but, I have been doing a lot of cutting lately, and this thing was dull.
One very nice thing about the Lee Valley is that they actually list things like the angles that they use.....
I read up on the sharpening thing, marked every tooth on the side that "went away from me" (so I marked on both sides of the saw). Grabbed a 5x double taper file and went for it. OK, first I flattened the tops a wee bit so I knew they would be even. But, the saw was sharp when I was finished. I was worried about doing this, but, I am happy with the results. I did not mess with the set on the teeth because I read that I could do that like every fourth sharpening.
Very happy, I was a bit worried since I had not done it before.
Historically, I have sent my saws out to be sharpened, not that they need it all that often for my uses, but, I have been doing a lot of cutting lately, and this thing was dull.
One very nice thing about the Lee Valley is that they actually list things like the angles that they use.....
I read up on the sharpening thing, marked every tooth on the side that "went away from me" (so I marked on both sides of the saw). Grabbed a 5x double taper file and went for it. OK, first I flattened the tops a wee bit so I knew they would be even. But, the saw was sharp when I was finished. I was worried about doing this, but, I am happy with the results. I did not mess with the set on the teeth because I read that I could do that like every fourth sharpening.
Very happy, I was a bit worried since I had not done it before.