paul womack
>Getting the knowledge to correctly evaluate an old saw, and then fully restore it is a non-trivial exercise.

Very satisfying, but non trivial. I think it took me about 3 years to go from "I quite fancy learning about saws" to actually doing a decent job, but I did it in a very "spread out" fashion. My first attempt at sharpening a 14 tpi cross cut had such a bad result I didn't try again for 6 months.

If you simply want a good saw, BUY ONE. You can learn later.

You can either buy new (LN, LV, Mike Wenzloff and many others, in this new Golden Age), or get an old (some might say classic) saw restored by an expert.

I believe Daryl Weir sells "super tuned" old saws on eBay, and Mark Harrell (TechnoPrimitives) provides a similar service.

BugBear