sawtill aka shipping crate

[Scott Winners]

Far and away my most ambitious ww project ever.

Besides needing to upgrade my original saw till, the wife and I have not yet downsized from the home in which we raised four kids. Our current plan is to list and sell the 'big house' Feb 2023, downsize maybe in Alaska and then maybe move back to America a few years after that if the winters start getting to us even more than they already are getting to us.

So besides a saw till, I needed a shipping crate.

Briefly, I used American Beech as the primary, poplar as the secondary. Interior beech finish is hemp oil to saturation, then 3-5 coats (I lost count) of SCJohnson floor wax, all hand rubbed. Interior poplar was painted with one very thin coat of "mustard" milk paint from the Real Old Fashioned Milk Paint company. Exterior finish was one coat of salem red, and then mustard yellow above. I shall in a little while go flagellate myself in the finishing section. I did a fair bit of prefinishing on his build and made many many mistakes.

For the 'drawer' fronts (they are really more like Akro bins) and runners under the bins I used 3:1 beeswax:lac wax, a small iron and a couple burnishers.

There were a couple times along the way where I was just about ready to throw this thing in the burn pit and start over. I can't find a perfectly square joint anywhere. I used TB2 to glue up panels, then fish glue from Lee Valley for the joints.

The small drawer on the left holds my saw files, the large center bin has my saw sets and binocular magnifier, the drawer on the right has spare saw nuts, a paint pen to label saw plates, and some rubber bands to hold teeth protectors onto plates when they are leaving the shop.

Overall I am happy with the design, my execution is advanced beginner. I am old enough to move on and keep this till near my bench as a reminder that "square enough" and "square" are not the same.

Before, after, and obligatory half blind dovetail shots:

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When the bins are pushed home, the only end grain showing is on the half blind dovetail supporting the upper perch rail. there is some plywood edge showing in the middle drawer that I shall address directly. FWIW the shipping envelope in there between a couple saws holds a mirror from the timberframe people. It is about 9x9 with a 2" hole in the center, and some marks on it 90 degrees from each other to help drill square holes. Also, one of the saw spaces is occupied by a ripped 2x2 I use as a saw vise in my leg vise. Behind the ripped 2x2 are some kerfed strips to protect saw teeth when they are travelling outside the shop...

[Scott Winners]

One thing I need to contribute is dimensions on a saw with a 30" plate. I bought the only one I have ever seen. My particular one is a Spear-Jackson Pete Taran tentatively called +/- 1860. I have two Golden Age Disston numbers 7 with 28 inch plates. The S-J with the 30" plate is just a hair bigger here and there, mostly about the same, perhaps 1/16" larger in some dimensions. I built my till to swallow the 30" S-J with minimum 3/4 inch to spare all around. Here is how you can make a template in luan or cardboard or etcetera to size your till for a possible future 30 inch plate to which you will not be able to say no.

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There will be another post with more pics. For now, I set the saw down with the tooth line on a straight edge, and the lower horn of the handle touching a perpendicular straight edge. Total length, 35 inches. The center of rotation, the pocket in the handle for the web between your thumb and forefinger, is 6.25 'up' from the tooth line and 1.375 'other up' from the lower horn.

If you are making a template, I suggest something like 3/4 inch auger, maybe one inch. You will need to subtract the radius of your bit from the 1.375 measurement so the edge of your drilled hole more or less matches the rotation point on the handle.

[Scott Winners]

If you want to draw a straight line from tip to high point, like you are building a packing crate for instance,

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However, every time a saw gets sharpened, the tooth line moves closer and closer the upper saddle just under the upper horn.

I did not allow for this on one of my saws when sizing my till. This one has been sharpened and used and sharpened and used over and over. This one has a handle that has been 'sanded' to an extremely fine finish by live skin on the hand of the woodworker who owned it before me, and by not allowing for that, the tip of this one does dig in to the back wall of my till. Of the saws I own that aren't golden age Disston number seven, this one is the most comfortable by a country mile.

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So look over everything you got when designing a till, learn from my mistakes.

[Scott Winners]

I guess I should mention the stickered poplar on top of the till will eventually be nailed up to the face of the till on moving day. I am going to buy a couple or three pool noodles this summer, cut them to width, and use them for tooth protectors after I cut some slits in them.

The feet on the bottom are poplar. I coated the tops of the feet with epoxy as a water barrier and attached them to the bottom, after curing and generous countersink, with brass screws, in case of future wet floor between houses.

So bins. There is a nominal one half by one half by eleven piece of poplar in with my sets. My plan, now that I have the magnifier and sets both installed on the same day, is to plow a groove (or rabbet, I can measure now) in the poplar piece and then glue it on to cover the edge grain of the BB ply, while clearing both the sets above and the magnifier below.

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As far as I know right know, plowing that groove and gluing it on to cover the plywood edge is all the work I have left to do. Besides having been a monumental project (for me) it will be a lifetime reminder of everything I could have done better. Yes, I hacked the bins to get them to fit. I maybe could have gotten some water and an iron and undone the joints, but I am not going to live very many more decades and I really need this thing in service a couple months ago.

QV post one, all my spare files fit down in the bin on the left, but my saw file roll up holder, in a till sized for 30" plate saws, doesn't fit down in. My till is 11 inches deep (inside), sized for healthy 30" plates. My drawer/bin depth is 9.75 inches. The LV saw file roll up is about 11.5 inches civilian, and could maybe be 11.25 inches if you are answering to a USMC drill instructor tomorrow.

I am extremely satisfied with the LV saw file rollup product and will continue to suggest if for folks who are going to try sharpening their own saws, but it doesn't fit front to back in a generously sized till. Also, in a different thread Tom M King asked why I was using a 12" mill file for jointing when an 8" file should be adequate. I agree an 8" file should be adequate, with the caveat my rotator cuffs are not what they used to be. Steven Newman's remonstrations aside, taking a 26 inch stroke with a 26 inch plate is not really a thing my anatomy can support anymore. Judging by the saws I pick up rust hunting, I am not alone. I keep my 12 inch mill file clean for special clean things and use my sole 8 inch mill file for lots of stuff.

At this point, I recognize many of you are restoring planes and chisels for our future grandchildren. My interests for metal working lie in restoring saws. Once I get next winter's cord wood stacked, and an annual wash on my truck done, I will see about evaluating the saw sets I have, and then get one set of 5ish point rip, 8 point utility cross and 12 point cross cut donated to Mike Allen so he can critique my sharpening. Given shipping from Alaska, I don't see making economical contributions to the community until I move back to the lower 48.

FWIW I got the magnifier on Amazon and it is adequate. I looked up the one LV used to carry and could only find it with single lenses. I did not find one with multiple magnification powers included. So I went to Amazon, picked my top three with multiple lenses included. Two of those could not be shipped to my zip code outside the lower 48, so I got this one. It is adequate, but it doesn't make me think of skipping class to smoke pot with a hot girl while in high school.

[Scott Winners]

I do have a PM in to Rob Lee, advocating for him to NOT change the pattern on the saw file roll-up. Yes, the LV roll up is "too long" to drop down in the bins I made in my generously sized till that can handle a saw with a 30" plate with plenty of depth left on the plate, but the utility of the roll-up cannot be overlooked.

Pic is an 8" mill file for jointing (10 inch nominal) and a regular 7" triangular file for rip saws of the Baron von Rippen und Tearin variety (8 7/8 nominal). I can fit the bare, spare, 7" regular files in my bins. The rollup is, my opinion, too valuable as a tool protector to overlook based on dimensions. I would rather have my active files in this rollup and well protected compared having them loose in a bin they could fit down into and possibly abusing each other. My opinion, the LV rollup for saw files is a good investment to keep my active saw files sharp, even though it doesn't fit good in a deep narrow drawer in my saw till.

YMMV of course.

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[Rob Lee]

As I told Scott - good thing I'm slow to reply! :)

We always appreciate suggestions for possible changes .... keep em' coming!

Cheers -

Rob




I do have a PM in to Rob Lee, advocating for him to NOT change the pattern on the saw file roll-up. Yes, the LV roll up is "too long" to drop down in the bins I made in my generously sized till that can handle a saw with a 30" plate with plenty of depth left on the plate, but the utility of the roll-up cannot be overlooked.

Pic is an 8" mill file for jointing (10 inch nominal) and a regular 7" triangular file for rip saws of the Baron von Rippen und Tearin variety (8 7/8 nominal). I can fit the bare, spare, 7" regular files in my bins. The rollup is, my opinion, too valuable as a tool protector to overlook based on dimensions. I would rather have my active files in this rollup and well protected compared having them loose in a bin they could fit down into and possibly abusing each other. My opinion, the LV rollup for saw files is a good investment to keep my active saw files sharp, even though it doesn't fit good in a deep narrow drawer in my saw till.

YMMV of course.

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