Frame saw/bow saw source

Take a class *LINK*

Russ Allen - Chicago

>John,

At last year's galootapalooza (Chicago area) Gil Chesbro tought a bow saw making class. If there is enought interest, we could hold his bowsaw class again this year. Gil also teaches at John Wilson's shop and at

Tiller's International - both in Michigan.

John Wilson's page has his spokeshave class listed for February 12, 2005. I've taken that class there. You should take the spokeshave class first if you can- it comes in handly when making the bowsaw. Gil will also be teaching a saw sharpening class at Tiller's on October 23 of this year.

Russ Allen


previous bowsaw class

Re: Frame saw/bow saw source

deanj

>Woodcraft.com has a 28", and traditionalwoodworker.com has the 24"..

Both will require a little work on the blades, too much set. But it isn't hard work.

Cheers!

Dean

Re: Frame saw/bow saw source

Charles

>I got my bowsaw from Highland Hardware in Atlanta. It came with three blades and is made in Germany. It works well.

Re: Frame saw/bow saw source

Alan Hamilton

>John,

I got my bow saw, a big rip saw, from Adria Tools. He has a great selection, good prices and good service. Before you go to the Adria site you probably should put a piece of cellophane over your key board--you might drool looking at his saws and short it out.

Alan

Re: Frame saw/bow saw source

William Duffield on the Cohansey

>Pure speculation here, but I'll bet you could get a fine, handmade one from Dave Anderson, of Chester Toolworks, if you asked him the right way.

At least I know he has built several, but on this forum he also expressed some small doubts about the marketability of his, in light of the amount of labor involved in their construction.

Dave, I hope I haven't stepped over the line on this one, but if so, I apologize.

Re: Frame saw/bow saw source

John Meikrantz

>Thanks for all of the responses! How difficult is it to remove some set from an off-the-shelf frame saw? I've heard that mentioned before about the ones that Woodcraft sells.

Russ, I would love to make my own saw. Have seen several plans/web sites, and it looks doable, even for someone of my limited abilities. My question on making a bow saw is about the blade - where do you source that?

I sure hope to be able to make galootapalooza, and maybe build an infill there. Wonder if there would be enough time (and money!) to do a bow saw class too...

John

Re: Frame saw/bow saw source

Russ Allen - Chicago

>John,

The blade is made from a coil of bandsaw blade stock - the stuff you buy and then weld to the size you need. I measured the blade on the saw I built. It's 3/16" thick 11 teeth per inch. I'd imagine you could also buy the smallest length bandsaw blade if you didn't need 100 feet of it.

I put more information on Galootapalooza in the events message board. The bad news is that the infill class is full. We could ask Gil to teach the bow saw class again for people who didn't get in the infill kit class. There was no charge for last year's class. In fact, I think the infill class is the first one to have a fee (people taking the class have to buy a Shepherd kit- Ben graciosuly offered a student discount).

Russ Allen

Chicago

Re: Frame saw/bow saw source

deanj

>Removing the set is easy... If you have a saw set just use it to pull the set out from the other side (Don't overdo it and bend the tooth all the way to the other side or your blade may have missing teeth!) Or a hammer and a little anvil... tap tap.

If you screw up a new blade is cheap anyway. You'll need to sharpen after all that, but you would anyway. It's not difficult, and you have to learn to sharpen anyway! :-)

-Dean

Re: Frame saw/bow saw source

John Meikrantz

>I always miss the good stuff! I wonder if I can talk Ben into at least selling me a kit at the galootapalooza price...

For the bow saw, I can understand how bandsaw bands would make a good blade for scrolling or curved/contoured work, but I am really looking for a saw to do ripping and crosscutting for rough stock sizing or just general cutting/trimming jobs. Would bandsaw blade stock still work in that situation? I imagine the tooth pattern of a bandsaw blade is more like a traditional ripping blade.

John