New saw handles

Re: New saw handles - other side 

Skip in Falls Church

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Re: New saw handles - other side

Jack Guzman from Maine

>Those are some pretty handles. Nice work---Jack

Very Nice Skip

Todd O. Cronkhite Maine Native in FL. Exile :~(

>you've really done a magnificent job on those handles. what would say was the hardest part was in their making?

I made a few attempts at making a handle and goobered them up when cutting the slot for the blade to go into.

Considered doing this on the side for $$?

Todd O.

Re: New saw handles - other side

Richard A. Gillespie, Jr.

>Nice job! I've got two saw handles I have to replace. Now I have to find a source of Apple wood. I know where I can find some Beech. Will that do?

Re: New saw handles

Joe Rogers, Northern Virginia

>Nice work as usual Skip...I feel so inferior.I am impressed with the grain now that you have finish on the handles. Bet they feel SOOOOOOO good.JR

Re: New saw handles - other side

William Duffield, on the Cohansey

>Beech will work. Disston made a lot more saw handes out of beech than they did from apple. At one time, the high end saws were apple.

I get apple wood from the local orchards. When they remove the old trees, they chop it up and sell it for firewood. If you can get it before they split it, you can often fine pieces big enough for saw handles. You just have to split it, saw it, seal the ends and let it season before you start working it.

Hey Skip, Great job! If I were Jim, I think I'd answer your question by telling you in no uncertain terms that that wasn't at all what I had in mind, and that you must immediately send all that misused and abused wood back to Michigan.

Re: Very Nice Skip

Skip in Falls Church

>Thanks for the compliment. I think getting the holes for the saw nuts placed right was the hardest part. I made templates for each of them - but managed to get the holes on the small back saw slightly off and the handle points a little bit more to the back of the saw than the original one did.

IMO making the slot is the most critical though. I used a marking gage to get the center line and a back saw to cut the slot. Then all you have to do is keep right on the line.

I've never considered doing anything like that for money - I just wanted new handles on my saws. :) But the biggest compliment (to me) that I got was about the last handle I made. My dad said (who I think could make just about anything)he thought it's beautiful and he'd never even try to make a saw handle.

Skip

Re: New saw handles - other side

Skip in Falls Church

>The center saw in the pictures I posted had a beech handle - but someone had stripped out the holes and the bolt turned in the hole before it got tight. I kept making repairs to it - and they worked okay - but I decided to just replace the handle. That way it matches the rest of the handles, as good a reason to replace it as any I guess. :) As Bill mentioned, beech works fine.

Skip

Re: New saw handles

Skip in Falls Church

>Thanks Joe. I could tell the grain would be beautiful. Jim picked a beautiful piece of wood for me to work with. They really do feel good in my hand, it's the best reason I can think of to make new handles.

Skip

Re: New saw handles - other side

Skip in Falls Church

>Hi Bill,

Hmmm, well, maybe the expoy you recommended stuck them to my hands. :) The epoxy patch really did seem to be the best way to solve the knot problem - thanks for the suggestion.

Skip

Re: Very Nice Skip

William Duffield, on the Cohansey

>I'm sure it's not the way Henry and Snos did it, but I had this crazy idea a while back (way way back, on Badger Pond) for cutting the kerf accurately, if you are rehandling only a few saws. I never got around to trying it myself, but no one ever gave me any negative feedback on the idea, so it just might work.

Anyway, I think my suggestion is worth repeating here. Laying in fron of you, you have a saw handle made for sawing, but with no teeth, a matching saw blade without a handle, and a flat bench top, lots of scraps of wood, and maybe enough clamps. Why not plane down a flat block of wood, until it is just half the thickness of the handle minus half the thickness of the saw blade, lay it flat on the bench top and clamp the saw blade down flat on top of it? Now, lay the handle down flat on the bench, and saw the kerf by pulling the handle over the benchtop and against the teeth of the fixed blade.

If you try this, you might want to saw the kerf into the handle before you fully set the teeth, since that would make the kerf a bit narrower, improving the fit, but it's probably not a critical issue.

They look great!

Scott Burr in Ben Lomond CA

>Very nice job Skip. I bet it makes those saws a joy to use.

Kerfing Saw Handles

Rob in Peoria

>How would you make the wider kerf for the spine? I'm getting ready to kerf my first saw handle and I'm stille stymied on that one...

Re: Kerfing Saw Handles

Skip in Falls Church

>I just treated it like a mortise. After cutting the kerf in the handle, I set my mortising gage slightly smaller than the spine, then centered the it on the handle. I marked the back and bottom of the spine then chiseled out the waste making sure that I kept to the angle of the spine to the handle. When that was done I did the final fit of the spine into the opening. I purposely left the opening a little small and pared it to fit the spine.

Skip

Re: New saw handles - other side

Skip in Falls Church

>Thanks Jack, now all I have to do is start sharpening that little rip saw I have. Unfortunately my time seems to keep getting sucked up by other stuff.

Skip

Re: They look great!

Skip in Falls Church

>Thanks Scott, I haven't had a chance to use them - but the handles are really comfortable.

Skip

Re: Kerfing Saw Handles

William Duffield, on the Cohansey

>Thusly:

That's a solid carbide 1/4" diameter rotary file in the drill press. The handle is mounted in an el cheapo Grizzly cross slide vise. You have to take it a little bit at a time, or the lateral forces will have a tendency to dislodge the chuck at the Morse taper.

Re: Kerfing Saw Handles *PICS*

L. Hanson

>First off - very nice job, Skip! They are some very stylish handles! WELL DONE!

Hope it's OK if I add some of my own experiences and maybe help out showing my version of the process.

That sounds pretty much like much the same thing I do - treating it like a mortise. I leave the receiving part of the saw a little large so there's material left to "clean up" after the mortise is made. I then drill holes, deliberately smaller than needed:

Then clean out the mortise with an 1/8" chisel and a 1/2" cheapie chisel that I've thinned for just such purposes

Then saw the slot for the blade:

Which saw I use depends on what the thickness of the blade the new saw is using. It doesn't have to be a perfect fit, IME, just close. The saw above is a crosscut "Warranted Superior" - for a saw with a recycled blade of approximately the same thickness. For the saw below, I used a saw similar to it to saw the kerf.

If your saw is well tuned, keeping the cut straight is not difficult - it's not much different than cutting a tenon by hand. After the cut is made, I do the final paring to fit the blade into the saw using the actual blade to mark out the backs location in the slot to ensure a tight fit, then trim the saw to it's final shape on the bandsaw. Total time from start to finish is about a half an hour, and is one of the funnest parts of the entire process.

I've detailed most of the process I go through in rather painful detail here for those interested in more reading on it.

Again, Skip - Nicely Done!!

Leif

www.norsewoodsmith.com

Re: Kerfing Saw Handles *PICS*

Skip in Falls Church

>Hi Lief,

Thanks for both the compliments (especially from soneone that makes such beautiful handles) and the information. I've looked through your web site a few times - it's great. I have only made a few handles - a couple before the latest four.

I've always cut the slot before I mortised for the spine, mostly because I could be sure where the saw was going. :) I usually use a thinner saw to make the cut then, if I need to, run a larger one through the slot to get the blade to fit. I used an 1/8" chisel to chisel out the mortise for the spine as well along with a 3/4" butt chisel to pare the sides while fitting the spine.

Skip