OldTools Archive
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274425 | Nichael Cramer <nichael@s...> | 2021‑08‑27 | Saws/pros/etc [was: Re: No saw painting here] |
From: "Brian Ward" |
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274443 | Claudio DeLorenzi <claudio@d...> | 2021‑08‑28 | Re: Saws/pros/etc [was: Re: No saw painting here] |
Yeah, 12 points and above... you either must have ‘young eyes’, or good magnification. Maybe both. And bright raking light. On a 16 pt saw, a single erroneous stroke can ‘disappear’ a whole tooth, especially if you are using a ‘too-big’ file. Yeah, I’ve done it. But, if you know how to sharpen a 7 point, you can certainly do a 12 point. It ain’t rocket surgery, and the only way we get better at anything is by practice. Make mistakes and learn from them. So start with a junker, and sharpen it. I’ve even totally removed all the ugly teeth (all “sergeants and sappers”) on a junk $1 saw and cut in new teeth, using a home made template to cut in new gullets with a (gulp) mini-hacksaw (Paul Sellers has a free video on how to do it that is worth watching ...and trying). This saves your file- the corner of the saw file is the part that breaks down first, especially on old saws with irregular tempering. When you look at used saw files under magnification, you’ll see that the file teeth are broken off only along the very corner, and no where else. There’s actually a tiny flat along the corner of the file, otherwise you couldn’t sink the corner of the file into the saw plate. The smaller the saw file, the narrower the flat. Maybe we shouldn’t call them 3 sided files (since there are six sides if we include these tiny flats)? Once you have the depth of the gullet cut, shaping the tooth is easy. All galoots have junk saws lying around, right? Just start doing it, you can always bury your mistakes. No one has to know. But I’ll bet after a couple of hours you’ll be passable, and after a couple dozen hours you’ll be pretty good at it. Cheers Claudio |
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274450 | scottg <scottg@s...> | 2021‑08‑29 | Re: Saws/pros/etc [was: Re: No saw painting here] |
If I could afford a pro like Bob Page to do my finer tooth saws I certainly would. In fact I would hire him right on the spot if it weren't for ruinous postage both ways. Shipping is pretty cruel these days. I just returned an alternator to Rock Auto using their returns connection with Fedex. 10 bucks to ship a 15 pound thing in a box across the country. They'd have charged me 30-40. Even the post office would have wanted over 20 In my dim age here I have to do fine teeth by feel more than anything else. I use great light and magnification, but still it comes down to feel for me. I suppose that is partly "miniature training". When the work is so small your fingertips or even a tiny tool completely obscure it, working by feel is all you have. It can sometimes be surprising what you can do by not even looking. yours scott -- ******************************* Scott Grandstaff Box 409 Happy Camp, Ca 96039 scottg@s... http://www.snowcrest.net/kitty/sgrandstaff/ http://www.snowcrest.net/kitty/hpages/index.html |
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274452 | Claudio DeLorenzi <claudio@d...> | 2021‑08‑29 | Re: Saws/pros/etc [was: Re: No saw painting here] |
One more small point (accidental pun) on anything above 12 points to the inch: I’m not sure there is any benefit to filing cross cut? I just go to a simple rip pattern for the small teeth because even with magnification I ended up missing the tooth space I intended and screwed it all up. I had intended to just file all the teeth at 90 degrees first (ie rip pattern) just to start over with ordinary rip pattern teeth before filing facets into it to restore it back to the ‘factory’ crosscut pattern. Then I cross cut through a couple of bits of scrap just to see how it cut before doing anything else to it (so I’d have a baseline) and then realized, why the hell would I even want to? It worked just fine, since I was only using it to cut the shoulders of tenons anyways. So from then on, all backsaws 12 points or greater were filed rip pattern. On the bigger teeth, cross cut filing makes a big difference. On little teeth, I can’t feel or see any practical difference in performance, and it’s a lot simpler to sharpen. Ten minutes and you’re done, even less on a gent’s saw. This follows the first of the basic principles of all sharpening: It has to be a process that is fast, easy, and efficient, otherwise you won’t do it when you should. As soon as you feel the tool isn’t cutting as sweet as it should, you can sharpen up in a few minutes and get back to good condition without making a big deal out of it and ruining your work flow. And it you are doing miniatures like ScottG, get a $10 Zona saw with small teeth (I think its 24 tpi or something); (they don’t call them razor saws for nothing- I sliced through the skin of my knuckle in a moment of carelessness years ago). They really cut well, and the form factor is excellent, especially for model size projects (Jewellery boxes or doll house furniture and whatever) or if you are using really thin stock. Desktop dovetailed boxes made with 3/16 or !/4” thick stock look delicate but are very strong. Cheers Claudio |
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274453 | Brian Ward <bri@a...> | 2021‑08‑30 | Re: Saws/pros/etc [was: Re: No saw painting here] |
Generally, I've not found much above 12TPI crosscut to be terribly useful, though I have been thinking about making a 14TPI backsaw as an experiment sometime. This does, however, bring out an interesting facet of saw sharpening: I find the higher TPI saws easier to sharpen because all of mine are rip. Regarding magnification: Yeah, it's necessary. 10-15 years ago, I could get away doing it with just some reading glasses. That, uh, did not last. There is one more thing I'd mention about sending your saws out for sharpening that I'd like to mention in regards to that series of The Woodworker articles I mentioned. This was during a time when you could just take your saws somewhere to have them sharpened. I speculate (and nothing more than that) that our known professional sharpeners are better than your average service of years past. The people doing it today are focused on maximizing quality, but those in the past would have likely been doing it as quickly as possible. Though the teeth might look fine, it's easier to get uneven or not-quite-done teeth that way. Oh boy, I have one more silly related tidbit to add on this subject. I have a Pax saw (skewback, like a D8) that I believe was made in the 1990s or so. I traded a crappy free computer conference T-shirt for it at one of our BAG-a-thons (I don't know if any of the BAGs know that story); the owner was unhappy with how it was (wasn't) working. A quick examination revealed that it wasn't sharp, so I sharpened it, and now it's a champ that I use frequently, ugly handle and all. Years later, I watched a Ken Hawley video showing how these later saws were made, and I totally understand. The speed at which the worker sets and files the teeth is jaw-dropping; the thing is, he probably didn't have much of a choice. I am as slow as molasses (and have video to prove it). I don't think it's such a bad thing. |
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274468 | Claudio DeLorenzi <claudio@d...> | 2021‑08‑31 | Re: Saws/pros/etc [was: Re: No saw painting here] |
Re “professional saw sharpening shops” Most of the busy shops of the last century had Foley Saw Filing machines as well as Foley re-Toothers that could punch in new saw teeth. I’ve had bits and bobs or old machines in the past but the main drawback is that the template bars are almost always MIA when these machines were sold by the estate ( often only having the last used bar mounted in the machine when it was sold.). There’s an active group around that provides support for people interested in these old machines and someone was machining new template bars (or whatever they were called) for restoration projects. I doubt that many saw shops spent much time hand filing anything. Cheers from Waterloo Claudio |
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274469 | Michael Blair <branson2@s...> | 2021‑08‑31 | Re: Saws/pros/etc [was: Re: No saw painting here] |
> I doubt that many saw shops spent much time hand filing anything. While YMMV, the shop I used to patronize (retirement closed its doors -- around 30 years ago) I often chatted with the owner (3rd generation or so). He once talked about hand filing, marathon hand filing. On Fridays after work ended, contractors would bring in all their saws. All were to be ready by Monday morning. That was his family's weekend. I still mourn the closing of that shop. They had sharpened every conceivable tool with generations of experience! Mike in Woodland |
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274470 | Brian Ward <bri@a...> | 2021‑08‑31 | Re: Saws/pros/etc [was: Re: No saw painting here] |
Regarding Foleys and other saw filing machines: This is definitely true in North America, but the articles I was originally referencing are English in origin. I don't know how much we need to rehash it, but there's a historical refrain that automation was of prime importance in the US/Canada because skilled labor was in such short supply. I don't know how common saw filing machines were over in England (and the UK in general), but I sure can't seem to find any online listings for any, and all of the big-name manufacturers (at least that I know about) were American. Now, I'm only speculating here, but knowing how the general woodworking trade progressed in both places, it might not be a stretch to suspect that saw sharpening by hand might have been common in England at the time that the articles were written. Perhaps someone over on the other side of the Atlantic can provide some actual insight. Anyways, I guess I should give my not-too-valuable take on the Foleys. They are super neat to see in action. Was it Kirk's that I've seen? I don't know how much I trust one to sharpen a saw, but again, that is speculation without actual experience. (I'd need to run experiments, which is unlikely to happen unless someone around here has one and an abundance of time and patience.) Aside: For a somewhat related and perhaps amusing take on bandsaw sharpening, here is a July 1909 article from "The Wood-Worker" (not to be confused with "The Woodworker;" read a little and you'll see why): https://books.google.com/books?id=GSNaAAAAYAAJ&hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=RA4-PA31&lpg=RA4- PA31#v=onepage&q&f=false |
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274472 | Don Schwartz <dks@t...> | 2021‑08‑31 | Re: Saws/pros/etc [was: Re: No saw painting here] |
It seems that content may only be available to US users. I had to use my VPN to get a US IP address before I could view the content... Don On 2021-08-31 6:44 a.m., Brian Ward wrote: > Regarding Foleys and other saw filing machines: This is definitely true in North America, but the articles I was originally referencing are English in origin. I don't know how much we need to rehash it, but there's a historical refrain that automation was of prime importance in the US/Canada because skilled labor was in such short supply. > > I don't know how common saw filing machines were over in England (and the UK in general), but I sure can't seem to find any online listings for any, and all of the big-name manufacturers (at least that I know about) were American. Now, I'm only speculating here, but knowing how the general woodworking trade progressed in both places, it might not be a stretch to suspect that saw sharpening by hand might have been common in England at the time that the articles were written. > > Perhaps someone over on the other side of the Atlantic can provide some actual insight. > > Anyways, I guess I should give my not-too-valuable take on the Foleys. They are super neat to see in action. Was it Kirk's that I've seen? I don't know how much I trust one to sharpen a saw, but again, that is speculation without actual experience. (I'd need to run experiments, which is unlikely to happen unless someone around here has one and an abundance of time and patience.) > > Aside: For a somewhat related and perhaps amusing take on bandsaw sharpening, here is a July 1909 article from "The Wood-Worker" (not to be confused with "The Woodworker;" read a little and you'll see why): > > https://books.google.com/books?id=GSNaAAAAYAAJ&hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=RA4-PA31&lpg=RA 4-PA31#v=onepage&q&f=false > > > > > -- “What we are seeing is a decision by the government to get as many people infected as possible, as quickly as possible, while using rhetoric about caution as a way of putting the blame on the public for the consequences...” - Prof Robert West, health psychologist, University College, London "extremist individualism … an ideology that claims to be about freedom when really it means selfishness”. |
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