Dovetail Bow Saw Blade

[Stephen Shepherd]

I posted an article on making a cranked blade for a bow saw on my Blog.

http://www.fullchisel.com/blog/?p=229

Stephen

[Alan DuBoff]

To be honest, I read your article and it doesn't really make sense to me, and you don't really show the saw. It seems your trying to tweak a bow saw blade so the teeth are sideways, similar to how Rob Cosman does fret saw blades so he can cut out the waste of the dovetails.

Is that the intent, but to use a bow saw?

[Don Dorn]

If you watch the youtube video of Frank Klausz doing the three minute dovetail, you see that he uses such a saw. After he cuts the lines with one saw, he pickes up one with a twisted blade, sets it in the kerf and when he pushes it forward, it hits the twist and begins cutting horizontally across the scribe line. He makes very quick work out of a dovetail corner. It's an interesting concept, but I'm personally not so much in a hurry (or sell my work) that I have to cut that kind of time out of my dovetails.

[Alan DuBoff]

Don,

Ok, that's what I thought.

I use a coping saw with .018" thick blades in it which I get from Tools For Working Wood (http://www.toolsforworkingwood.com/Merchant/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=toolshop&Product_Code=MS-COPE.XX&Category_Code=GL). These will get in the kerf of most all dovetail saws, and a coping saw allows you to turn the blade 360 degrees.

The bow saw looks like a neat trick, but I can get the coping saw blades readily available, and they work fine.

Why not use a turning saw? Doesn't that allow one to turn the blade? At least I thought it was like a bow saw that allowed the blade to turn.

[Graham Hughes (CA)]

At least one good reason for using this instead of a coping saw blade, if you're interested in turning these things out as fast as possible (because, say, you live in Hungary and everything, including shipping pallets, is constructed with them, to pick one historical example), is that the coping saw blade cannot cut as fast as a specialized dovetail saw blade; there isn't enough room.

[Paul Atkins]

I can't believe it. A few weeks ago I had to make a small dovetailed chest for a customer and remembered a strange saw blade I had seen on a video at a woodworkers meeting 20 some years ago. Finally I found the newer version of Frank's and just had to make one. The chest got done in the traditional way before I got around to the band saw blade cut-offs I had set aside. Guess what? The first blade was the 'wrong' way so I had to make another. It was too short, so I dovetailed the blade together- I straightened the offset by heating and hammering on edge. Anyway, my old frame saw just isn't going to do, so I guess I'll have to make a new one. I've got some nice old black locust----Here are the two blades.