Made a stairsaw
Derek Cohen (in Perth Australia)
>A stairsaw has been on my to-do list for some time. I built this one over the past two weekends, about 6 hours in all.
The drive to build one increased recently after I completed a sliding dovetail plane. These two tools are meant to work hand-in-hand. For those unfamiliar with a stairsaw, they were used to cut the housings for stairs before the advent of the electric router. These days they are used for cutting the sidewalls for dados and sliding dovetails.
I am still in the process of filing the blade (donated by an ex-tenon saw). It is 10 1/2" long. The design allows the blade to extend and retract into the Jarrah body. It should be able to cut a sliding dovetail at least 1" deep.
A Question: I was thinking of 10-12 tpi. I believe that more typically a stairsaw is about 8 tpi. And rip or crosscut?
The design is a little different from the typical stairsaw. Not just that it is very Gothic! I wanted something longer (blades are usually about 6" long) and with a deeper blade to use against a guide (angled for a 1:6 dovetail).
Regards from Perth
Derek
