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Thread: Saw drift

  1. #1
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    Saw drift

    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.

  2. #2
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    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

  3. #3
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    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

  4. #4
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    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.

  5. #5
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    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

  6. #6
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    Maybe a video could help diagnose any possible issues with technique?

    How about other saws, and other boards?

  7. #7
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    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
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
    - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

  8. #8
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    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.

  9. #9
    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.

  10. #10
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    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.
    Attached Images Attached Images

  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by Warren Mickley View Post
    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...g%2C+Robert%22


    page1.jpgpage2.jpgpage3.jpgpage4.jpg
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    Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things.

  12. #12
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    Thanks for those pages. I found myself practicing the registration mark on a sticky pad. :-)

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by Richard Hutchings View Post
    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.
    Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things.

  14. #14
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    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 .
    ~mike

    happy in my mud hut

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rob Young View Post
    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.

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