Dovetail Saw

[Ray Gardiner]

Here are a couple of dovetail saws, and marking gages that I made.

The handles are patterned after the LN independance but rounded a bit more and the index finger position is modified a bit. The material is Australian Walnut that was offcuts from a friend who makes gun-stocks. I get lots of small bits of walnut that way. :-) The brass back was made in two pieces
and then milled on a router table, TCT router bits work nicely provided you take very light cuts. to make a slot for the blade, the two halves were then rivetted and soldered. To do the rivets I just countersink the holes and then peen brass rod and then flush.

The blade is a $10 replacement blade for a japanese pull saw, it is 0.024" I would have preferred 0.020", maybe on the next one. Blade was ground on a belt sander and then drilled with cobalt drill bits. In the picture the top one is sharpened to 15p rip and I have since sharpened the bottom one for progressive rip. Going out to about 10tpi at the heel and 15tpi at the toe.

I have run comparisons with my son's LN and I like mine better, but then
I guess I may be a little bit biased.

The marking knives are walnut handles and brass ferrules, the blades are old stanley knife blades re-ground.

I hope this picture works....

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=88972&stc=1&d=1211299986

[Mike Cutler]

Nice work Ray. Those tools look beautiful!
Well done.

[Mark Stutz]

Those look great. You're the first I've seen use Japanese replacement blades to make western style saws. I've always ben under the impression, maybe incorrectly, that these were basically "disposable" because they could not be resharpened the way traditional western saws are. I believe because they are harder. Do you anticipate any problems along these lines?

Mark

[Ray Gardiner]

Those look great. You're the first I've seen use Japanese replacement blades to make western style saws. I've always ben under the impression, maybe incorrectly, that these were basically "disposable" because they could not be resharpened the way traditional western saws are. I believe because they are harder. Do you anticipate any problems along these lines?

Mark

They are pretty hard, I had trouble drilling with the cobalt drills, whereas a lot of other saw blades are so soft I can cut with tin snips. The teeth (which I ground off) were "induction hardened" and I wouldn't bother trying to sharpen, (even if I could understand the tooth pattern). Once I cut off the hardened teeth I could file the new teeth, although it's hard on files. So my conclusion is that the steel is harder than a "normal" saw steel and probably is designed to be suitable for further induction hardening, which I don't have the equipment for. And would remove the possibility of sharpening later. As for time between sharpenings, I don't know yet. The material that I was originally going to use was 1095 spring steel 0.020 which I think is about 52Rc, unfortunately I couldn't get a supplier in Australia.

[John Thompson]

Very nicely done, mate. I see someone is partial to a pull saw to cut DT's with other than me. I sold my LN Independence to go back to a $19 (U.S. funds) pull-saw I used for years. The LN was fine if you prefer a push saw.. but when push comes to pull..... I hold the best line with a pull.

Perhaps you could make the cheap blade in your set-up replace-able also to eliminate the problem mentioned if any problem actually exist? Just a thought...

Nice saws and marking knives....

Sarge..

[Victor Stearns]

Very Nice. I expecially like that the marking knives. I am in the process of regrinding a jointer blade into the shape of the marking knives. I have the handle finished and hope to finish soon. Your work just inspires me to finish my own sooner.
Victor

[Ray Gardiner]

Very nicely done, mate. I see someone is partial to a pull saw to cut DT's with other than me. I sold my LN Independence to go back to a $19 (U.S. funds) pull-saw I used for years. The LN was fine if you prefer a push saw.. but when push comes to pull..... I hold the best line with a pull.

Perhaps you could make the cheap blade in your set-up replace-able also to eliminate the problem mentioned if any problem actually exist? Just a thought...

Nice saws and marking knives....

Sarge..

Thanks, I appreciate that. You might have missed one detail, that is I ground off the japanese teeth and re-cut western style teeth... sorry

I like pull saws too, and I use both push and pull, but somehow the push style saw feels more natural. (just personal preference I guess). I did muck about a bit before I ground the teeth off and it was really weird using a pull action on an otherwise western style saw.

[Ray Gardiner]

Very Nice. I expecially like that the marking knives. I am in the process of regrinding a jointer blade into the shape of the marking knives. I have the handle finished and hope to finish soon. Your work just inspires me to finish my own sooner.
Victor

I like the idea of using old jointer blades, I am now planning to try that. With the ones I made, I kept the tip relatively short to try and keep the amount of "flex" to a minimum,(because I was using stanley knife blades) One design question I haven't got a good answer for is how sharp the tip should be, I am leaning toward the "Rob Cosman" approach of using a relatively dull blade when transferring lines to end-grain so they are easier to see. But I still need a really sharp blade to do cross grain marking. (or use a roller type marking gage) My conclusion is to go as sharp as it needs to be for cross grain scribing, and use a pencil to highlight the lines for the end-grain marking.

Like all things in woodworking there are many ways to skin a cat. Even something as simple as marking a line on a bit of wood. That's what makes it interesting.