My Oiled Saw Cuts Easier, Other helps?

[Stew Denton]

Hi All,

I have been cutting/splitting up green firewood to make wood billets to use for jaws for handscrew clamp kits. I have used a Skill saw to make it easier to spilt. To do this I law the log segment flat and use a torpedo level on the ends first, using it to draw a Sharpie line vertically through the center of the segment. Once this is done on both ends I use a carpenters hatchet to take the bark off the sides between the endpoints of the two sharpie lines. I then draw a line on the sides of the segment between the two ends of the vertical lines and then use a circular saw lengthwise on the line I drew, and then turn the log over and again saw lengthwise on the opposite side of the log lengthwise

I then use a sledge and wedges to split the log in half lengthwise since the firewood is only about 11 inches in diameter maximum. If then lay one of the split segments in two brackets I clamp to two sawhorses and again draw plumb vertical lines on the ends, corresponding to how wide I want the billets to be, connect the ends of the lines using a sharpie and straight edge lengthwise down the segment, and using the circular saw then cut a groove lengthwise down the billet, I then draw in a second set of lines spaced for the width of each billet I need.

If the remaining uncut wood which remains under the saw cut, this wood remains since the segment is too thick to be cut completely in two because of the limited depth that the circular saw can cut, is not too thick, I use a hand rip sat to finish the cut and free the billet.

Cutting green wood, especially if is still part of a firewood log, is no picnic. The green wood wants to pinch the saw making the cut hard to do. In thinking about it, I thought of using wax on a plane bottom to make it easier to plane. It has been fairly chilly, and I can't remember where my wax is, so I sprayed the saw with WD 40, thinking it might make the sawing go easier in the same way wax makes planning easier.

Sure enough, the saw ran much easier. I then used 3in1 oil, since it doesn't smell as strongly as the WD40. Same result, makes sawing the green wood easier. (The good news is that I finally found my 4-1/2 point rip saw.) Ripping a partial thickness of a green log is not a 30 second job, but it gives a much better billet than does using wedges to split off the billet. Splitting does not give a nice billet like sawing does.

What techniques have you found that make ripping, especially of green wood, easier?

I did have to laugh at myself a bit though, as I told a fellow that I am sure that I am saving at least 2 or 3 bucks an hour this way.

Thanks and regards,

Stew

[Eric Brown]

Hi All,

I have been cutting/splitting up green firewood to make wood billets to use for jaws for handscrew clamp kits. To make it easier I have used a Skill saw to make it easier to spilt. To do this I use a torpedo level on the ends first, using it to draw a Sharpie line vertically through the center of the segment. Once this is done on both ends I use a carpenters hatchet to take the bark off the sides between the endpoints of the two sharpie lines. I then draw a line on the sides of the segment between the two ends of the vertical lines and then use a circular saw lengthwise on the line I drew, and then turn the log over and again saw lengthwise on the opposite side of the log lengthwise

I then use a sledge and wedges to split the log in half lengthwise since the firewood is only about 11 inches in diameter maximum. If then lay the split segment in two brackets I clamp to two sawhorses and again draw plumb vertical lines on the ends, corresponding to how wide I want the billets to be, connect the ends of the lines using a sharpie and straight edge lengthwise down the segment, and using the circular saw then cut a groove lengthwise down the billet, one groove for each billet I need.

If the remaining uncut wood to finish cutting the billet is not too thick, I use a hand rip sat to finish the cut and free the billet.

Cutting green wood, especially if is still part of a firewood log, is no picnic. The green wood wants to pinch the saw making the cut hard to do. In thinking about it, I thought of using wax on a plane bottom to make it easier to plane. It has been fairly chilly, and I can't remember where my wax is, so i sprayed the saw with WD 40, thinking it might make the sawing go easier.

Sure enough, the saw ran much easier. I then used 3in1 oil, since it doesn't smell as strongly as the WD40. Same result, makes sawing the green wood easier. (The good news is that I finally found my 4-1/2 point rip saw.) Ripping a partial thickness of a green log is not a 30 second job, but it gives a much better billet than does using wedges to split off the billet. Splitting does not give a nice billet like sawing does.

What techniques have you found that make ripping, especially of green wood, easier?

I did have to laugh at myself a bit though, as i told a fellow that I am sure that I am saving at least 2 or 3 bucks an hour this way.

Thanks and regards,

Stew

But you also save money by reducing gym time and besides the doctor is always saying "get exercise"

[Russell Nugent]

I wonder if adding an extreme amount of set would help with sawing green wood?

[David Carroll]

I wonder if adding an extreme amount of set would help with sawing green wood?

In my experience it does, Years ago, okay decades ago, I took a week long hand tools only timber framing class. For cutting house-scale framing joints, (large tenons mostly with an occasional large dovetail), the tools of choice were common handsaws, the crosscut was a 26-inch long 8 tpi saw and the rip saw was 28-inch 4-1/2 tpi. Both saws had a lot of set, compared with joinery saws.

Since house framing was often done with green wood, the added set reduced binding. A chunk of bees wax, or candle wax, will also help.

DC

[Richard Coers]

If you saw the wood you loose the advantage of the split following the grain and giving you maximum strength.

[Edward Weber]

If you saw the wood you loose the advantage of the split following the grain and giving you maximum strength.

I was thinking the same thing.
A clamp needs to be as strong as possible, so the grain should be uninterrupted throughout which is why riven is better than sawn for strength.

[Stew Denton]

Richard, the problem I ran into with splitting the wood, was that part of the grain would follow its way into the opposite "half" of the split line, but often only a segment 1" wide or less. Sometimes the ripped out section that the was lost from the "losing" half might be 1/2" to 3/4," and sometimes more, deep, often making that billet now very marginally thick enough, and often not thick enough at all, to be used to make the clamp jaws from. I had already cut the billets extra thick to take into account a poor split, but it often was not enough.

What would happen is that the segment that would run into the other half would follow lines of growth rings. A segment of maybe 6 or 8 growth rings wide would start even at the beginning of the split and then it would run deeper and deeper into the other half. Elm, for example has interlocking grain, which results from every other growth ring spiraling up the trunk, the the remaining growth rings spiraling up the trunk in the opposite direction. This is why elm has the reputation of being almost impossible to split.

What appears to be happening with the lumber I split is that a section of, again, 6 or 8 growth rings, or less, spiraling up the trunk in the same direction, but the remaining rings not spiraling up the trunk at all. Thus, it would not be possible to run the lumber so as to completely "follow the grain," as the grain does not all run the same direction.

If the split would be straight and all of the grain rip out one way, then I could follow the grain in making the jaws as you suggest, and I agree that such would result in better jaws, but that does not seem to happen with the freshly cut firewood that I have.

One thing that interested me in regard to splitting, the walnut I had was the worst with regards to uneven splitting, the oak was not as bad, but at least half of the logs split poorly, but not usually to the extent that the walnut did. Most of the oak uneven splitting, but not all, still left enough thickness to be used for the handscrew jaws, but not all. That is why I abandoned splitting the haves and resorted to using the hand saw.

That said, the one piece of soft maple that I had spilt perfectly. It looked like it had been cut at a sawmill. Each of the resulting haves was almost arrow straight and nearly dead flat. Part of it almost looked like it had been planed. Wish I had more of the maple, but I don't know if this is typical of the soft maple, or just the one piece I had.

Thanks and regards,

Stew

PS: for what it's worth, I found that you can buy replacement "Jorgensen" handscrew jaws on that auction site that are maple and US made. However, the prices are not cheap, and based on the prices I saw on several of the auctions, it looks like if I made all of the billets that I should end up with (I have just a little bit left to split/saw), that they would be equivalent to very roughly $300 on the auction site. I made extra billets due to the splitting problem and also I am assuming that I might mess up some of them, so extra billets seemed like a very good idea.