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Thread: About sharpening handsaws

  1. #31
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    Quote Originally Posted by Eric Rathhaus View Post
    Scott Bob Smalser's posts are helpful. Here's a link: http://www.woodcentral.com/cgi-bin/articles.pl#smalser
    Oh absolutely agree. Thank you for dropping a link to article index into this thread, that is cool. i especially enjoyed the discussion to his saw sharpening post on the wooden boat dot whatever website, though the discussion here was also illuminating. Great resource.

  2. #32
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    Quote Originally Posted by William Fretwell View Post
    Many years ago I bought an antique cast iron saw vise.
    There is one for sale in Fairbanks and I don't want to spend that much. I am using a 2x2 with a rip in it. One of the sources I read about those says they should be concave in the middle so when clamped the pressure on the blade is even vise end to vise end.

    Quote Originally Posted by William Fretwell View Post
    The few minutes spent sharpening saves far more time in cutting.
    Have to get the right size files for the tooth size and the files don’t last that long but no real excuse for a blunt saw.

    Of all the tools you sharpen saws can be ignored the longest, not so planes or chisels.
    I agree that time spent sharpening is quickly repaid in time saved cutting. I agree the right size file is worth the money. Don't have enough experience to disagree with your third point. I am pretty fussy about plane and chisel sharpness, a littel lick when it is a chisel or plane is a bit off peak is all it takes.

  3. #33
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    I should mention I have set out to find out how many saws is a gracious plenty. With millions of saws made since 1850 and only thousands of folks in the hobby today we should easily have about 1000 hand saws each. Everything made before 1850 can go in a museum, 300 each of what's left is rusted to death, another 50 have heinous irreparable kinks, another 124 have outhouses and wild animals painted on them, another 28 have bottle openers bolted to the plate, I figure we still have, each, about 498 saws available.

    I don't need 498 saws in my till. How many is plenty? I can see two or maybe three rip saws, one or two for resawing wild grain, crosscut grinds run pretty much from 10 to 25 degrees fleam with a few outliers, so even if I had crosscuts at 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 .. 23, 24 , 25 degrees fleam, we are still talking 20 saws as covering all the bases. I already own 23 saws, so I can stop buying saws for me.

    I am going to continue to rescue perfectly good saws from the clutches of the outhouse painters for future generations of hand tool woodworkers. I haven't figured out how many to put in each till, or how to spread those tills around for future users yet... and I need to find someone to fix up my handplanes, because I have no knack for that.

  4. #34
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    Scott, here is a decent shop-built saw vise, developed by Dominic Greco.

  5. #35
    Quote Originally Posted by Scott Winners View Post

    How many is plenty?
    Six: Rip saw, crosscut saw, Tenon saw, sash saw, carcase saw, dovetail saw.

  6. #36
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    I agree the pressure should be even and slight concave might work, mine was too concave so had to be fixed with leather but you don’t expect so much for $5.
    ​You can do a lot with very little! You can do a little more with a lot!

  7. #37
    Andy Lovelock has a great video on youtube
    .

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-_MF2Mnxwc
    Last edited by Tom Trees; 03-27-2019 at 2:11 AM.

  8. #38
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    The till is getting organized. I don't want to admit how many saws total I have now. I seem to have a breeding pair of 8 point crosscuts saws in my till and they seem to have found each other.

    I did measure up all the saws I have bought already sharpened today and got those labeled.

    collect.jpg

    All the rest of my saws are going to need taken apart, derusted, I got some handles to repair, then sharpen.

    What is interesting to me is how similar the grinds are on all (four) these crosscuts at the right. 13 to 20 degrees of rake, not a lot of variety there. 12-23 degrees of fleam, no vertical fleam or gullet slope on any of them, all of them pretty close to 15 thousandths of one inch of set. (about 0.4 mm of set)

    The 8 point crosscut in there 8-14-23-0-015 is a post WWII Disston D-8 that I reach for a lot. It cuts clean and quick, not to slow, not too ragged, and the handle is super comfortable - and it happens to be real real close to the grind Paul Sellers suggests in his book for crosscut saws. I was planning to make one, but it turns out I already have one and like it.

    Sharp eyes will notice to the left edge 8-15-45-45-010. That is the grind in Leonard Lee's book he describes as about the most aggressive that is usable. He says it will cut through dry pine like a hot knife through butter, but it will need to be resharpened regularly and it will be very intolerant of variation in the grain. He was right on every count.

    Anyway, I was looking for something today with 30 degrees of rake on it to make am especially smooth cut, and I already have one at 20 degrees of rake, so I used the one that was sharp already. It made a pretty smooth cut, but it took a while.

  9. #39
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    All of my handsaws get a coat of Johnson Floor Wax to keep the Galveston County Texas rust off of them.

  10. #40
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    I am going to have to put this to rest for the season, unfortunately with an oopise.

    The good news is the last of the snow is melted and i saw my first honey bee of the season today, so I can get going on the outdoor chores. The bad news is I am not nearly as good at saw sharpening as I though I was yesterday.

    I came up with two saws, identical grinds except for rake angle.

    contenders.jpg

    So ten points per inch, each, one with 18 the other with 25 degrees of rake, both with 15 degrees of regular horizontal fleam, both with 15 degrees of point slope or gullet slope or vertical fleam, and both with a reasonable amount of set.

    Surely the 25 degree rake will make a smoother slower cut, but how much smoother (will I still need a shooting board) and how much slower? I did 4 test cuts, white oak underneath, then hard maple, doug fir and ash.

    demos.jpg

    Turns out I have wild teeth on both of those saws, because I have more aggressive grinds on several saws that are both faster in the cut and leave smoother faces. Frowny face. Shows up best on the hard maple...

    oopsie.jpg

    I am going to go read up some more and figure how to set teeth evenly. After I stain the deck and get two exterior window frames mounted and a caribou in the freezer and the freezer is running low on salmon too. And, and, have a great summer y'all.

  11. #41
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  12. #42
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    Lowell, can you give us some free text on what you linked to in the post above? When I click it takes me to an "enter your search string" page at Lee Valley.


    Found a new grind useful lately. LOML trimmed her lilac bush a few days ago and wanted some help with thicker branches her loppers couldn't handle. Then she told me lilac wood is good for smoking seafood and lamb, so I was all over that.

    I have a six point saw from the antique store, filed crosscut, the tag says "found in Livengood, check the teeth!!" I went ahead an bought it, it is a Disston and sons number 7.

    The teeth on this thing are freakish. if you watch _Ice Road Truckers_ you already know Livengood, Alaska is the first unincorporated area north of the Fairbanks North Star Borough, the paved road ends at the line between FNSB and turns to gravel at unincorporated Livengood. Livengood is a gold mining area, not a hotbed of small shops turning out museum quality joinery. I figured this was a firewood saw and grabbed it.

    Clearly hand filed by eye, this grind is super effective on live tree branches. Turns out lilac smoke is pretty good on potato wedges too, I'll be trying some lamb this week.

    Following my existing shop labeling system this one is 6-40-50-0-___ for 6 points per inch, 40 degrees of rake, 50 degrees of regular horizontal fleam, 0 degrees of vertical fleam and I haven't measured the set on the teeth.

    bruceteeth.jpgandsonsD7.jpg

  13. #43
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  14. #44
    Lowell, the link still goes to a search for ‘sink’ on the Lee Valley site.

  15. #45
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    Greg, did you search for a 'sink' on the Lee Valley site?

    For me it comes up draw knives.

    Looks like it is time to go back and see what was being searched in the first place.

    jtk
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
    - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

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