Saw toother

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Here's that saw toother I cobbled together from junk
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And here's the first saw I made using it.
In fact this blade is in the saw toother in the picture.
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This was the one that had the uncomfortable hang to the handle.
I've since made a second blade only less wide and put that handle in it and made a new handle for this blade.
They are both 12" long.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

here's a close up of the saw toother showing the file and the mount. you can see the end of the file engaged in the work.

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The lead screw is 1/4-20 all thread making for an easy 20 TPI saw by turning the handle one revolution per tooth.
The drive is an old Dayton gear reduction motor,
The steel guide way shafts are running in cheap oilite bronze sintered bushings they control the in and out on the table ANd that is driven by a 3/8-16 all thread lead screw
The up and down for the file mount is controlled by 4 bushings.
The all thread lead screw drives an old 1960s vintage computer drawer slide I picked up years ago telling myself how hand it would be some day ( that was over 25 years ago). Well today is someday isn't it?

I can change the lead screw in about 5 minutes or less to get a different pitch.
I find it works better if I use oil on the cut.

[John Dykes]

saw toother I cobbled together from junk

This board is so bad for my self esteem...

On a good day, I can "cobble together" a bologna sandwich.

[Raney Nelson]

Wow - You get my non-existent standing ovation for making this. Very very McGuyver chic.

How consistent is the toothing depth - did you find you had to do much to joint the saw after cutting them?

[Alan DuBoff]

Cliff,

That's way cool! I like it!

[Phillip Pattee]

Awesome! How do you do fleam with that, or is it strictly rip?

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Wow - You get my non-existent standing ovation for making this. Very very McGuyver chic.

Grazi milli


How consistent is the toothing depth - did you find you had to do much to joint the saw after cutting them?

Deadly accurate flat. No jointing needed. The spacing is also dead on. However, I did discover how to screw up the flatness. All it tales is a little inconsistency on the infeed. I solved for that with tape and a marker on the hand wheel to give me that "STOP HERE" point.

But once I made that first lousy run of teeth I had the bugs licked and I can crank out a really sweet saw lickedy split.

The toothing machine was born from the mother of necessity: incapability. I simply could not catch the knack of hand filing.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Awesome! How do you do fleam with that, or is it strictly rip?

I can fleam the teeth out after cutting the initial geometry. The way I made my file mount I can rotate it to any angle I want. So far I use the Eyeball method.

[Paul Atkins]

Really cool. What about a video with it in action?

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

I forgot:
The drive shaft is an old BMW stub axle. Once you get through the case hardened surface or anneal it down that metal machines like leadloy.
The flange on the motor is just a chunk of round flat plate with a hub welded on.

[Johnny Kleso]

Edit:

I just saved the image to the desk top and see the drive unit much better, thats very cool..
My hats off to you Sir :)

I was thinking of making something like yours but using a Machinist Vise holding a stack of blades on a Mill or Grinder, shaping the teeth of a stack of 10 or 20 blades and using a File or Milling Cutter or Grinding Wheel to forum the teeth and doing a large stack of Rip Blades at one time..

In fact Bridgeport Milling Machines have a heavy duty Broaching Head that fits the back end of there mills and would be perfect for filing a stack layed horzontal to the table..

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

I've used the Bridgeport broaching head. I found it of limited value when taking a lot of material off. It worked best for me when I used a single point tool to generate a profile taking very small amounts of material off at a time on one piece at a time basis.

If I wanted to gang mill the saw teeth on the Bridgeport I'd use the angle head and one disk cutter to get one profile at a time and advance the table in increments. Either that or I'd make or buy a cutter that I could put in the quill and advance the work across that.

The angle head and shaper head for the bridgeport has always struck me as rather cheesy and weak. They fall out of adjustment easily, can't take a heavy pass, and are finicky to work with. They lend themselves best to those one off jobs where you can afford to take forever nibbline tiny amounts of stock away. A real broaching machine or the arbor press is far more robust than the milling machine head and a horizontal mill will do gang mill production all day every day leaving the bridgeport in the dust.

A good knee mill is a wonderfuly flexible machine but those alternate heads have always been the bane of my life in the machine shop. They look like they will do so much but, when push and shove come together they don't have the beef.

[Johnny Kleso]

Yeah the Broching Head where hardly used any place I worked but come in handy when you need a square corner..

You said Sharper that might be the best tool if you could make a cutter to stand up to the saw material..

You can set the feed to the TIP you want and let it go :)


EDIT:

Machine shop shaper is way different than a WW shaper for all that dont know....

[Derek Cohen]

I am speechless. Almost wordless.

That is just amazing.

I want one.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Chuck Nickerson]

I'm with Derek on this. I'd bet you could sell plans.

Chuck

[harry strasil]

I went a different route for toothing saws, its a small hand operated machine that cuts a piece out like a regular toother.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v81/irnsrgn/wood/toother001.jpg

It's rather smallish and cuts when you pull the lever and the cutter is moved by an eccentric that is rotated by the handle.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v81/irnsrgn/wood/toother003.jpg

I used a lathe tool bit ground to 60° and it moves only a small amount, the table is milled so that it has an elevated edge to slide against to keep the edge straight, and there is a small adjustable indexing tooth to the right of the cutter that engages the teeth for spacing after the first few teeth are cut.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v81/irnsrgn/wood/toother002.jpg

I file by hand using a Disston No. 3D saw vise.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

That is very cool Harry did you build the thing yourself?
I like the way you guide it.

[harry strasil]

Yes, it was a matter of necessity also, the only saw sharpener in this area died and his tools went to a step son who is only interested in sharpening circular saws. I would only let the saw sharpener tooth my saws anyway, after I used the first 2 he did, they would cut circles really well, I figured out what was wrong, his machine toothed and set the teeth at the same time and it put more set on one side than the other. I remedied that by my paper and vise squeezing thing, which I still do to keep the kerf narrow so there is almost no flop. Also he would not adjust his machine to file the angle I wanted as it wasn't in his operators manual, so I learned how to file my own out of necessity.

[harry strasil]

I had a revelation or an eye opening experience when you stated you used a threaded rod to set tooth spacing, so I am going to make several short rods so I can index the first few teeth, currently I am using short sections of salvaged teeth from several cut up saws to index with. Thank you for the idea, its so simple its complicated as usual. DUH

[harry strasil]

I am a self taught machinist or half-fast if you will and having no formal training I developed ways of doing things that are outside the box and strange to a good machinist. One of the hardest for people to understand is when they ask me how deep to cut threads, I tell them to divide 1 inch by the number of threads to get the spacing between threads and as you normally set the compound to 29° so you cut on one side and scrape the other, and threads being an equilateral triangle, the distance between is also the depth at 29°.

I also built a self centering steady rest that is accurate over its capacity of 5/16 to 5 inches. its just a prototype, but works well for what I designed it for, centering the end of a long shaft to drill a center hole.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

HA HA That's cool~!! 29° is close enough for Guv'mint work.

I remember learning to use thread wires and micrometer to calibrate my depth of cut to the Class thread pitch called for. It works easier than I'd have thought prior.

[george wilson]

Nice little device,Harry. A lot less complicated,and much more compact than many others.

[Dan Andrews]

Cliff and Harry, If I could just hang out with each of you guys for about a year I shure would learn a whole lot. Amazing.

[Denys Sushko]

What is your impressions from this machine with experience from 2009? I'm intended to make my own :)

[Tony Zaffuto]

Harry's machine and inventiveness, to me, seems simple great! Around 2010, I bought a complete Foley handsaw sharpening outfit, with full set of ratchet bars, etc. for around $400. I got more than $400 worth of fiddling around with it, BUT Harry's comments about the guy who did his sharpening, rings true to my own experience with the Foley-that being the saws seemed to "gain" a bit of curvature to the saw plate. I suppose I could have fiddled a few more months and worked through the issue, but my time was better spent doing other stuff.

So to answer your question, I think building a device similar to what Harry did may be just the ticket.

[Patrick Chase]

So to answer your question, I think building a device similar to what Harry did may be just the ticket.

From a practical perspective, yes.

From a "sheer impressiveness" perspective it's hard to beat Cliff's machine, though :-)

[Kees Heiden]

It is impressive! But also a bit ludicrous when you just want to make a few saws. Handfiling the teeth isn't that much work.

[george wilson]

What am I missing? Harrys little device is for punching teeth,not sharpening them. Am in too much of a hurry to read all of this as I'm cooking some lunch.

[Denys Sushko]

one for beginning :) in future who knows?

[Jim Davis]

It is impressive! But also a bit ludicrous when you just want to make a few saws. Handfiling the teeth isn't that much work.

But annoying having to remove all that metal with files, especially since good saw files are hard to find or afford these days.

[Kees Heiden]

The machine on the first page uses files too! That punching jig from Harry Strasil looks very usefull. But just let's be honest, how many saws are you going to make in your life? I have made 5 backsaws and had to retooth 2 or 3 antique ones. The amount of filing and the loss of files is very small compared to making a dedicated saw teeth punch.

And from a commercial point of view, we had better use up as many files as possible! That'll create a market for new ones.

[Stewie Simpson]

http://i1009.photobucket.com/albums/af219/swagman001/small%20handle%20tiger%20myrtle/_DSC0097_zpsj08oejqk.jpg (http://s1009.photobucket.com/user/swagman001/media/small%20handle%20tiger%20myrtle/_DSC0097_zpsj08oejqk.jpg.html)

1 file only was used to shape and sharpen new teeth on 2 x 14" saw plate blanks.

[Stewie Simpson]

Harry's machine and inventiveness, to me, seems simple great! Around 2010, I bought a complete Foley handsaw sharpening outfit, with full set of ratchet bars, etc. for around $400. I got more than $400 worth of fiddling around with it, BUT Harry's comments about the guy who did his sharpening,rings true to my own experience with the Foley-that being the saws seemed to "gain" a bit of curvature to the saw plate. I suppose I could have fiddled a few more months and worked through the issue, but my time was better spent doing other stuff.

So to answer your question, I think building a device similar to what Harry did may be just the ticket.

Tony. That is a normal condition after using a Toothing Machine.

Stewie;

[Tony Zaffuto]

Thanks Stewie! Good thing I didn't fiddle longer!

The other thing, saws that are machined file always seem to have a "tell-tale" scratch above the toothline, from advancing through the machine. Now, I have to add that I have had saws machine sharpened that were great, as well as some hand sharpened that were terrible. One of the funniest was a backsaw I sent out about a dozen years ago, to a guy that (at the time touted as the best-this guy was after TomLaw retired from sharpening). This guy had all kind of praise from the various forums, etc., so off my saw was sent. Received it back, but instead of just a touch-up, he cut new teeth & sharpened it, machine and all, as well as backward! So much for the stuff you "learn" from the net!

Net effect was that I can now competently touch up saws, though I might shy from a fine crosscut!