Saw drift

[Richard Hutchings]

I have a brand new Veritas Carcass crosscut saw and it seems to want to drift about 1/6"+ in 5 inches. I'm no expert at sawing and probably need some practice but, it's a new saw, I'm gripping as light as I can. The wood is 2" x 5" maple butcher block I'm cutting for my tail vise. I start by cutting across the edge with the edge up in the vise and then start dropping my hand and attempt to follow the line on the face. I expected better. Maybe I should start with the wood flat in the vise and just start on the far edge, I don't know what's right. I would like better results.

[James Pallas]

Try some cuts on scrap first keeping the cuts close together so you can see if the saw is actually drifting. Once you are sure it is the saw follow Lee Valley’s instructions about stoning a saw. Not unusual for a freshly sharpened saw to drift. I think have have 5 or 6 Veritas saws and only one had a little drift easily corrected with a very light pass on a stone.
Jim

[Mike Allen1010]

That kind of drift is not okay or to be expected from a new saw. It could be that the set is unequal (more on one side of the saw relative to the other), but frankly that seems unlikely to me. My experience with LV back saws is there well-made and well set up off the shelf.

Particularly in thick stock like this, technique really matters. Your approach is correct; starting a crosscut on the 2"dimension and then dropping your hand to follow the layout line along the 5" dimension. Candidly for thick stock like this, a larger, full-size or panel saw would be more appropriate, however that doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to do it with your carcass saw.

FWIW, you might want to consider making a few practice cuts in similar dimensioned softwood like pine. My guess is you're starting the kerf accurately along the 2 inch dimension layout line, but not paying attention quickly enough to the 5 inch dimension layout line. Thin saw plate back saws will very quickly, within one or two strokes, adopt and track any tilt your inadvertently adding.

Try just getting the saw started to track the layout line in the 2 inch dimension and as soon as the kerf is established across the entire width, like it immediately as the tooth line disappears in the stock, then focus on tilting your hand down and watching the saw track the layout line on the 5 inch dimension. Takes a little practice but you can nail it.

Cheers, Mike

[Scott Winners]

My experience with the LV backsaws ( I bought a set of three) were that they were correctly setup up as shipped. I agree with everything Mike said above, but he has probably evaluated a bunch more LV saws than I have.

[James Pallas]

One other way to check drift is to get the saw started 1/4 to 1/2” and than take a very light grip open hand almost. Than just cut to the depth of the saw. Put a straight edge (ruler) along the cut. If cut is curved you may have a drift problem. The curve will be slight. If straight you are probably influencing cuts somehow.
Jim

[Luke Dupont]

Maybe a video could help diagnose any possible issues with technique?

How about other saws, and other boards?

[Jim Koepke]

One tip that helped my sawing is to look at the reflection in the saw plate. For square cutting the reflection should look like a straight continuation of the piece being sawn.

Try setting the saw on a piece of wood. Hold it straight and angle side to side. Hold it straight up and down while rotating the saw left then right. Getting used to how the angling appears has even helped with cutting angled cuts like dovetails and miters.

jtk

[Luke Dupont]

Another thought: Could the saw have been damaged and a tooth or two bent slightly?

The other day I noticed my Douzuki was cutting weirdly. A close inspection revealed a couple of teeth had been bent ever so slightly outwards. I have no idea how that happened, as I'm usually pretty careful with my saws.

Anyway, a quick stoning with an Arkansas stone evened out the teeth and it's back in good shape. If the problem is the teeth, you may be able to detect any stray teeth either by eye, or by a particularly ragged cut in which you will notice irregular "grooves" in the kerf, where all other teeth are in one plane and there's one or two odd teeth sticking out too far and cutting grooves at regular intervals. If this is the case on one side of the kerf and not the other, then there's probably a stray tooth on one side which may be causing drift.

[Warren Mickley]

We would crosscut a 2X5 piece or maple by knifing it all around and putting it on a sawing board. Then starting from the far side, we would gradually bring the cut across the face, then saw flat across the width.

The method you use is not so good. If you cut across the thickness say one inch deep and you are just slightly off, that amount gets multiplied by five when you lengthen it to five inches. In other words the initial cut continues to affect your accuracy.

Depending on your purpose, you could cut right up to the knife line or just a little off to be cleaned with a plane. Don't use a block plane.

In the long run, the quality of the manufacturers sharpening is not important.

[Richard Hutchings]

I'm pretty sure it's my method. I just ripped a 2x5x17 with my rip saw and noticed that I have a tendency to cut to the right ever so slightly. The first half of the cut went perfect but when I flipped it end for end, I lost my line and cut to the right. I left enough material to account for it so no big deal other than I need to practice.

[Rob Young]

We would crosscut a 2X5 piece or maple by knifing it all around and putting it on a sawing board. Then starting from the far side, we would gradually bring the cut across the face, then saw flat across the width.

The method you use is not so good. If you cut across the thickness say one inch deep and you are just slightly off, that amount gets multiplied by five when you lengthen it to five inches. In other words the initial cut continues to affect your accuracy.

Depending on your purpose, you could cut right up to the knife line or just a little off to be cleaned with a plane. Don't use a block plane.

In the long run, the quality of the manufacturers sharpening is not important.

And for those with problems visualizing it, here are the (all I hope) the relevant pages from Robert Wearing's The Essential Woodworker. A list of his books at archive.org : https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22Wearing%2C+Robert%22


476377476379476380476381

[Richard Hutchings]

Thanks for those pages. I found myself practicing the registration mark on a sticky pad. :-)

[Rob Young]

Thanks for those pages. I found myself practicing the registration mark on a sticky pad. :-)
If you liked the pages, you'll love the book...

You can find used copies with a little searching and Lost Art Press re-issued the book with updated photos.

But a quick check shows that copies of "The Essential Woodworker by R.W." have reached silly prices. The re-issue is cheaper at $32 hardback. A search of Abe Books pops up most of Wearing's other books (all of which I get the impression) are collections & compilations of articles he wrote over the years for the various magazines with which he was associated.

[mike stenson]

LAP books are all priced pretty much due to low quantity and high quality. It's still cheaper than a paperback copy of "The Soul of a Tree" and it's a better bound and printed book ;).

[Jack Dover]

The re-issue is cheaper at $32 hardback.

Just be careful around re-issues. There's a ton of "print on demand" services that spam Amazon, AbeBooks, WorldBooks and other sites, they basically print books from archive.org (because they're public domain now) or project Gutenberg. The print quality is crap to the point when text is not legible (low ppi scan, defects, Google watermarks, etc) and pictures are just a mess of gray pixels. You can spot these by a stock front image, they're all using one or two backgrounds and just change a title, don't have photos of actual pages and never indicate that it's just a printed version of a PDF file they have downloaded from Internet.

[Jack Dover]

LAP books are all priced pretty much due to low quantity and high quality.

I would really, really argue about high quality of their books. The ones that I've purchased had tons of typos (ocr text wasn't proof read? idk), don't respect any single rule from book publishing and layout (these are engineering books after all, and there are rules on how such a book must be laid out), had a bunch of arbitrary filler material (who cares about ads from 1930?) and contents just isn't of the highest quality as they advertise it. E.g. their Hayward reprint is basically a waste of money, esp. the red volume - it's just a collection of article magazines, often by the same author, covering the same topic several times. All volumes had their covers cupped in a month of sitting on a shelf. For the money I think I could have just purchased original magazines.

LAP did a great job restoring drawings in Wearing's and Hayward's publications, that's undeniable. This and maybe some better quality paper were the only things I found to be true to their advertisement. Also, I'm talking about reprinted issues specifically, books written by authors like Peter Follansbee, Peter Galbert and others are way better in terms of content.

[mike stenson]

I wasn't critiquing content, that gets very specific very quickly (plus, there's a considerable amount of personal hatred for Schwarz around here, so doing so is pointless IMO). Paper is high quality, so is the book binding IME. Neither of those things, are cheap. Especially if you're making low quantity runs. I haven't had any cupping on any of the LAP books I have.

[Rob Young]

E.g. their Hayward reprint is basically a waste of money, esp. the red volume - it's just a collection of article magazines, often by the same author, covering the same topic several times. All volumes had their covers cupped in a month of sitting on a shelf. For the money I think I could have just purchased original magazines.


Honest Labor: The Charles H. Hayward Years description
“Honest Labour” is a collection of essays from The Woodworker magazine while the legendary Charles H. Hayward was editor (1936-1966). This book will be the fifth and final volume in our series from The Woodworker.

So yes, it is a collection of articles by the same author who invariably over his gazillion years as contributor and editor would have rehashed topics. In the case of H.L., the ads are included because they are contemporaneous to the time the essay was published and provide some context.

As to the issues with covers cupping, I've not experienced that. YMMV depending on environmental conditions where the book is kept.

[Jim Koepke]

I would really, really argue about high quality of their books. The ones that I've purchased had tons of typos (ocr text wasn't proof read? idk), don't respect any single rule from book publishing and layout (these are engineering books after all, and there are rules on how such a book must be laid out), had a bunch of arbitrary filler material (who cares about ads from 1930?) and contents just isn't of the highest quality as they advertise it. E.g. their Hayward reprint is basically a waste of money, esp. the red volume - it's just a collection of article magazines, often by the same author, covering the same topic several times. All volumes had their covers cupped in a month of sitting on a shelf. For the money I think I could have just purchased original magazines.

LAP did a great job restoring drawings in Wearing's and Hayward's publications, that's undeniable. This and maybe some better quality paper were the only things I found to be true to their advertisement. Also, I'm talking about reprinted issues specifically, books written by authors like Peter Follansbee, Peter Galbert and others are way better in terms of content.

Of the books I have bought from LAP they have all been done well. Not sure about "tons of typos" though a few have been spotted. (note the use of well and not excellent or superb)

My only discomfort was one pocket book sized edition having small print that is a bit hard to see with my old eyes.

As far as book publishing rules and layout, many modern publishers seem to have abandoned those since the long gone days of lead type being set by hand.

Schwarz may have been a newspaper reporter and later a magazine editor, but it seems he is mostly a woodworker with a publishing venture on the side.

Maybe if approached by someone with a non-acerbic demeanor about "the art of book publishing" they could be convinced of the idea of winning prestigious publishing awards by adopting some of the Lost Arts of Publishing.

jtk

[Ron Bontz]

I am a little confused by your post. A cross cut carcass saw plate is 0.020" thick and only 2+ inches deep. So how do you make a 5" deep cut, or is it your cutting a 5" long cut?? Am I misreading this? Also the 0.020" plate is easily veered off course when going full depth. ie: friction build up from a 0.006 set total. The slightest side to side pressure can alter the course. Also check the cut for straightness. If the cut is curved it is most likely the set, the plate follows the teeth. If it is straight, most likely user. Hard maple is not the most friendly wood in the world to cut with a thin plate as it is. Best wishes.

[Richard Hutchings]

I think I was using the wrong saw for the job. It was a crosscut tenon saw. I would have been better off with a panel saw but I was itching to try this new baby out.

[Phil Gaudio]

I have a brand new Veritas Carcass crosscut saw and it seems to want to drift about 1/6"+ in 5 inches. I'm no expert at sawing and probably need some practice
A day in the shop rarely goes by when I don't spend time sawing for practice (and fun). Get some scraps, mark them up across the top and down the edges with a square, and practice, practice, practice. Any time I've been suspicious of a problem with a saw, it has always ended up being the sawyer, not the saw (and I have owned and used many saws). Not happy with your sawing technique: change it up. Think about your stance, the alignment of your arm to the cut line, the height of the work: there are many variables that can lead to good or bad results.