saw making

[Derek Cohen]

Everybody hates lawyers until you need one.

Charles, would you agree that two lawyers are better than one



Regards from Perth

Derek

[TraditionalToolworks]

Wow, there's a lot in this thread since I last posted...where to start...

First, all of this saw stuff is subjective to our own personal tastes and Adam does explain what he likes, I have also tried to explain what I like, which is a slightly deeper saw plate and longer, with a slightly courser TPI, I find 14/13 a good place for me with rip/xcut, but many people prefer finer like even 20-24 tpi, so this is obviously a matter of preference. When I was first getting my first saws, I felt the Disston 68/70 was a good place to start, and why I used the Crown Gent's Saw for my first pistol grip saw handle, which I put onto the Crown plate after cutting the handle off.

Wood species. Another very subjective topic on saws. Most people these days want something special, with some type of extraordinary grain, birdseye, curl, etc...maybe this was started by Pete Taran as he was using curly and birdseye maple, and LN continues with that choice. I have a lot of figured hard maple, it is less desirable as many people want clear, but I bought a lot of shorts/narrows in bulk to build a bench and use for carcasses. I think it looks great, but it's not as desirable as birdseye or curly, those are typically on clear. I have various exotic woods including some ebony, which is through the roof these days. I still have some bronze also, which is through the roof.

As noted, Disston used a lot of Apple, and I have a theory on that. This being that in the days of lore, Johnny Appleseed was planting Apple trees throughout the east, and possibly that had something to do with the availability of that specific wood, and it just worked well for Disston to use.

But this is also true of LV, as Rob Lee always had Mike Wenzloff use Bubinga. Eddie used Bubinga for the Aria saws also as I recall. Long ago Mike had mentioned to me that Rob Lee liked it as it looked nice, was stable, and it is fairly easy to work if compared to some harder woods, and there is no worries about dangerous infections like with the rosewood family, cocobolo being the worst, and yes, more people seem to want that as it's beautiful wood which is often used on acoustic guitars, but many, many craftsmen have become ill/sick from working it. This is to say, Beech is XLNT stable wood, used on hand planes as well, but it's not very exciting grain wise so is less sought after for these boutique tools we have available today.

As a craftsman creating tools, one must provide what their customer wants, and Pedder hit the nail on the head, you please the customer, period. You use the wood they want, you try to make it fit their hand in the case of a saw, you do your best to give your customer what they expect/want. It doesn't matter what the maker thinks about the wood the customer wants, they want the wood for whatever reason and your job as a craftsman is to please them. Pedder has the correct attitude, IMO.

Derek states his favorite carcass saw is a 14" Grammercy, and that sounds like a saw that can do most everything. However, saws are just like handplanes, you really need a quiver if you use them, full size handsaws, dovetail saws for fine joinery work, larger for carcasses, etc...you end up with a quiver at the end of the day just like you would with handplance to handle each task you perform. Adam like the finer joinery saws. I suspect it is because he mostly crafts work that they work best for, and most dovetails and other joinery cut by hand don't use anything thicker than 3/4" (4/4) stock. Smaller joinery saws with high TPI do fine on that work. Someone cutting dovetails in 12/4 material are not gonna be happy with that same type joinery saw.

RE: Haters on the Internet

Let me assure you that I have more haters than any of you. I have been banned from the best of Forums, mostly for standing up for people's rights, freedom and violations of such by heavy handed moderators. I was even banned from Woodnet years ago...if I got banned again I wouldn't give much thought about it. This is to say, there are many people that do not like people like me, and that can't be more true of tradespeople. I am a DIY person, and worse I'm an engineer. This is the great divide on the Internet. Tradespeople who were not proficient on computers, who take offense at people like me who DIY and learn as we go, and more so not afraid to do something I have never done before. This really upsets professional tradespeople like machinists, woodworkers and welders to name 3 sectors.

We have a lot of great saws to select from, some more refined than others, some with less or more detail. This is what made Disston the megalomaniac he was, IMO, he was no different than Henry Ford, Rockefeller, Microsoft, AT&T, et al, it's tough to stop the growth, so you need to keep growing over time. This mindset seems to instill greed, unknowingly. This is just my view...

RE: Pax handsaw

To the gent that has a Pax, I keep saying that anyone can use any saw. If you are comfortable using the PAX, by all means continue on your crafting. I have so many handsaws, some I have built, more that I purchased, I have saws that Mike Wenzloff made me, I have tried many available saws, even if I don't own them, I have tried a few friends have purchased. IMO, we are pretty blessed to have the great saws available today, you whatever floats your boat. I could still use the first Disston 68 I bought from Walt Quadratto (sp?), darn do I miss that guy, such a standup guy, he used to sell me his machinist tools cheap if he found any, as he mostly focused on woodworking tools. That was when I was first getting into metalworking to build handsaws.

The last thing I want to say is that all of these newer boutique style handsaws have only inspired and helped other people create handsaws of their own and I see that as a huge plus for the woodworking community at large. This goes for Issac Blackburn selling parts, as well as Two/Three Guys in a garage (hope Dominick is still around here), this has inspired and helped people to create handsaws of their own. I have even had people thank me for the Crown Gent's saw I re-handled and a number of people have done just that and have re-handled many vintage saws, it's fun to make something you can build stuff with, IMO.

[CStan]

Charles, would you agree that two lawyers are better than one   



Regards from Perth

Derek

Yes of course!

[AHill]

But this is also true of LV, as Rob Lee always had Mike Wenzloff use Bubinga. Eddie used Bubinga for the Aria saws also as I recall. Long ago Mike had mentioned to me that Rob Lee liked it as it looked nice, was stable, and it is fairly easy to work if compared to some harder woods, and there is no worries about dangerous infections like with the rosewood family, cocobolo being the worst, and yes, more people seem to want that as it's beautiful wood which is often used on acoustic guitars, but many, many craftsmen have become ill/sick from working it. This is to say, Beech is XLNT stable wood, used on hand planes as well, but it's not very exciting grain wise so is less sought after for these boutique tools we have available today.

Even before LV was making saws, they were using bubinga as handles for their Veritas hand planes, so asking Wenzloff to use bubinga just kept the theme alive.  My Wenzloff panel saw handle is nothing exotic.  It's beech.  I took a class from Wenzloff several years ago at the Woodworking in America in Berea, Kentucky.  Super nice guy.  Everyone who took the class got a small panel saw kit.

[RonB1957]

Even before LV was making saws, they were using bubinga as handles for their Veritas hand planes, so asking Wenzloff to use bubinga just kept the theme alive.  My Wenzloff panel saw handle is nothing exotic.  It's beech.  I took a class from Wenzloff several years ago at the Woodworking in America in Berea, Kentucky.  Super nice guy.  Everyone who took the class got a small panel saw kit.

Well, it seems I have really come late to this party. I will have to go back and re read most of it. It's past my bed time.

Interesting comments about the neck area of the saws. When I re designed mine I increased the neck area some as it appeared weak to my eye. This was mostly due to increasing the diameter of the top arch to 1.25" to accommodate people with thicker middle fingers. Also, the lower hang saws put more stress on the neck area. I consider the lambs tongue as a stress reliever.
I would have to agree with the top 4 saw makers. They each have their styles. I am curious. Am I the only guy making dovetail saws with lambs tongues?? I don't get out of my hamster cage very often, but I will try to post a couple in a day or so when I can get a photo of them. Just finishing a few saws for the summer. Three different hang angles for comparison. Then we can all take a shot at critiquing them.  I'm old, but still curious.

Best wishes.

[RonB1957]

Hi Woodneter,

many of you will know, that I still make saws about 6-8 a year.
(Just for fun. Booked til the end of summer.)

Klaus and I owe this forum a lot, we got a lot of help and feedback here.

So just for your fun I post some pictures of my latest saw:










Hope you enjoyed it.

Cheers
Pedder

Beautiful saw as always, Klaus. Do you coat the brass with anything to help prevent those wonderful finger prints? I stopped polishing my saw backs some years back because I kept hearing they showed finger prints. So now I only go to 320 or 600 grit at the most. No buffing. Bronze seems to be even worse for tarnishing and prints.

[Pedder]

Hi Ron,

Thank you! I still have this pink ivory to make a handle from.

I don't and we never have coated brass. I sand up to 2000 and than some autosol and then I'm done.
The best stock for spines is nickel silver (used for flatware). it just doesn't get old. (See my ebony saw above).
But since our spine maker died in December i don't know if I can offer any nickel silver spines again
except the 5 spines he made for me in Summer 2020 and still wait for the ebpony to dry.

Cheers
Pedder

[TraditionalToolworks]

I wish I could taper spring steel like Disston could.

You could, and Mike Wenzloff used to taper in a similar fashion. Pretty well known that the banks of the river by the Disston factory were littered with used up sand stone wheels...I used to use one of them at the smithy I learned at. One thing about Mike, he was a master at using substandard tools and getting XLNT results. Many of his saws were slotted on a Mini-Mill. I bought one as the first mill, and ended up selling it to my blacksmith mentor. Mike used a jib made out of wood to hold the brass backs. IMO, Mike made great saws. I learned a lot from

I think the back saws getting made today are head and shoulders above where we were 100yrs ago. You guys are really leaning on 200yr old DT saw designs.  Disston's back saws kinda sucked.

I must be the odd one out, and I like the older 150 year old English saws, but agree...I only have a couple early 1900s saws that I like, one I do like a lot is from San Fransisco. Very few saws from the west coast.

I despise Henry Disston in the same way I despise Henry Ford, but I do have a fetish for collecting Disston 68/69/70 saws. But I don't really buy saws anymore. WaltQ got me hooked on those, it was the first saw I used to cut dovetails. It was the older style with the ribbed handle, those are my faves. And the 70 is a great little saw. I don't use them much, but those were always hard to find. Can't really tell you why I collect those, but I think they're kinda cute. Pretty primitive to a No 4 backsaw, IMO, the handles were not finished very well, the nuts were different (smaller) and the brass backs were plated so the brass wore off on most of them.

I do have one that is NOS, never used in the box with tissue paper, as it was shipped. There are probably others that have similar saws.

BTW, I have always liked your saws. I think like any tool, if you have something made for you buy someone you know of it makes the saw that much more special. I'm sure there are people that swear by  your saws, just like you do. They remind me of the dovetail saw in the Seaton chest, which seems appropriate for the work you do. I once gave a guy the Seaton Chest book for Galootaclaus, the guy never said a word, not sure if the book got to him or not...after that the price on them went through the roof and I don't even have one for myself, now I don't think I would buy one they got so expensive...

[Timberwolf]

Sometimes, on these various forums, I think people (all of us) are unaware of how we come across to others. Not bad advice for all of us to take.

.............
The written word is a poor way to convey your thoughts, compared to actual face to face speech.. where body language, facial expression, hand/eye movement, voice inflection, etc. play such a big part in good communication. Battles have been won and lost because of the written word.


But getting back to saw making, in the early days of this forum, Nordic made a jig for bending his saw backs..and he made some good saws!!! I have always thought folded backs made for a stronger saw. But folding a brass spine for a saw is not easy when compared to slotting one on a mill..

[john jesseph]

I feel as if your slotted saw plate has a problem, you are out of luck. I could be persuaded otherwise, but it seems like a folded back is superior if done correctly. Hard for me to differentiate saws other than feel and aesthetics if they are sharpened and set well. I have a couple that are slotted and glued. A LV saw, and an IT saw. They both cut dovetails etc just fine.