Set of Shopmade Dovetail Saws with etches

Re: Set of Shopmade Dovetail Saws with etches

Sandor in Bear, DE

>The saws cut wood like butter. The material is about as hard as any western saw I have. General purpose spring steel is rated at Rc48-51, so my guess is that this is what I have.

I have not used them enough to tell how long they will hold their edge.

The one painful thing about the Home depot material (sheetrock knives) is that they come blued (to help prevent rust). I wanted shiny saw blades so i spent a lot of time (2 hours?)sanding the blue off working through the grits 120, 240, 400, 600...

Try to pick a knife that does not have scratches from the manufacturing process as these are hard to sand out.

sandor

Re: Set of Shopmade Dovetail Saws with etches

Sandor in Bear, DE

>Thanks,

I did not heat treat the blades. They are straight from the sheetrock knives, except I sanded the bluing off and polished them.

They cut very well and were not too difficult to work. I chewed up a titanium coated drill bit drilling for the nuts so I know the steel is hardened. Blue spring steel is generally Rc48-51 so this is perfect for a tool that you sharpen with a file.

Sandor

Blade thickness

Sandor in Bear, DE

>One minor point: the sheetrock knive thickness is only like .018" whereas a typical Disston backsaw is more like .025"

Given that my saws are small (10" x 2") the thickness is about right.

To get thicker material you could go to http://www1.mscdirect.com/cgi/nnsrhm

or www.mcmaster.com but you'll end up paying for more material than you need for one or two saws.

Good luck!

Sandor

Re: Set of Shopmade Dovetail Saws with etches

MarkK

>A lot of new spring steel stock DOES come blued. I am surprised it took you so long. Maybe they put a thicker "coat" on it than the stuff I have from Precision Brand. My stock is about the same thickness but it took just a few swipes of 320 grit to get the blue off. And it is the same hardness as yours--which is REALLY nice as it holds it's edge very well, especially for some scrapers made out of it!

Those are some very fine says you made!

Blue removal time

Sandor in Bear, DE

>The bluing is very thin and comes off easily, but the underlying metal blades had deep scratches in them that ran the length of the blades. The scratches were uniform and must have come from the knife making process or the rolling of the original steel. Anyway, 95% of the time was spent getting the surface smooth enough to polish.

Those look great!

Scott Burr in Ben Lomond CA

>Excellent job on your saws Sandor. What did you use for the nuts?

I'll bet their a pleasure to use.

One more

Clay C in Miami

>Sat Cito, si sat bene

(Soon enough, if done well)

(Roman craftsman's response to the eternal client question:

"How long before it's done?")

(It's inscribed on a rafter of the shop where I work summers.)

one more question

Gary B

>Sandor,

did you cut the teeth by hand with a file or pay someone to stamp them out for you? thanks.

Gary

PS. the slitting technique for the brass back, is this common enough where I can have a machine shop do it for me? or is there some way I can do it myself? thanks

Great job. Thanks for caring enough to post.

Victor Parisian

>This is just one more reason that this is my favorite site on the web.

Victor - just getting in from a loooong day.

Teeth and all

Sandor in Bear, DE

>For the teeth, I printed out the teeth using a computer program and pasted the printout on the blade itself. Then using a dremel tool with a cutoff wheel, I roughed out the teeth (holding the dremel at a 30� angle to get the proper rake)

I then used a 4" three square file to sharpen the teeth as you would any saw. I have a Stanley 42X sawset that I modified for fine teeth saws(I ground the setting ram narrow)

As far as the slot in the back, most machine shope will have a slitting saw arbor and an assortment of blades typical of the one below. Alternatively you could try to plow the groove like you would for wood, but it might taking way too long. I would make a blade from a piece of hacksaw and make a wooden jig to hold it. Might work, otherwise figure on an hour of shop time and the cost might be near $70 (average shop labor/hr)

Sawmaking by Sandor

Raymond in Trenton, NJ

>Hi Sandor,

Those are great looking saws! Hard to imagine they started out as a taping knife from the Borg and pieces of brass and wood. Thanks for taking the time to post this and share your pics.

Have fun using them.

BTW ... what's next :o)

Raymond

Re: Sawmaking by Sandor

Joe Rogers, Northern Virginia

>Hey Ray, good to see you back on the web. What are you doing the 21st of Jan? ;-)JR

Hopefully shoveling

Raymond in Trenton, NJ

>Hey Joe,

Not that I rather be doing that than having breakfast with the "VA Guys and Other Traveling Visitors". If the shoveling thing doesn't work out, fret not. There's plenty more on the list to choose from :o)

Raymond

still alive in Trenton

Re: Teeth and all

paul womack

>For the teeth, I printed out the teeth using a computer program and pasted the printout on the blade itself.

Yes - this is by far the easiest way; it's as good as anything else for "plain" teeth, and better than anything I can think of for graduated teeth.

BugBear