Est. 1998 — 27 years of woodworking knowledge
Bowsaw blade
P. Sylvestre
>I'm in the process of making a traditionnal bowsaw with a 24" blade made from bandsaw blade cut to lenght. I will use it for:
- cuttin tenon cheeks & shoulder
- ripping long board
- jigsawing
- maybe x-cut
I will order different kind of blade and i would like to know what are the best ppi and width of blade for each job.
Thanks.
Re: Bowsaw blade
Richard Rerra
>Garrett Wade has blades available in different sizes you might want to chech them out
Re: Bowsaw blade
Dave Anderson Chester, NH
>From my point of view you really need to make more than one bowsaw. One with a 24" blade is going to be very awkward, unbalanced,and difficult to handle when cutting joinery. The weight alone will be tedious and tiring. I think you will be far more comfortable with something in the 12" range for joinery. This size can also double as a turning saw for cutting curves like in chair seats. The size will also have less tendency to wander, unless you have wrists like Godzilla.
The larger 24" saw will be better for regular crosscutting and for resawing--obviously with different blades.
For a 12" saw I'd use something like 8-10 tpi for general use and probably a 12 tpi for joinery to get a smoother cut. 1/4" wide seems to work well for me.
Re: Bowsaw blade
P. Sylvestre
>I saw few persons cutting dovetails with a 24" bowsaw and that doesn't seem very awkward... but i may be wrong.
I forgot to mention; since the "cross-bar" tenons will not be glued in the mortise arms, i was planning to make a smaller cross-bar (14-15" long) and use 2 differents lenght of rope. That will give me the possibility to have 2 kind of bowsaw in 1... Is it feasible? I will see.
What do you think of a 5 ppi for resawing and 7 ppi for cross-cutting, both 3/4" wide and 10 ppi for turning curves (1/4" wide)
Re: Bowsaw blade
Dean J in MN
>FWIW --
My 24 inch 9 tpi frame saw is my tenon saw. My 28" 5 tpi is my general use saw, used to be my rip and crosscut saw but I've been using a 5 tpi handsaw for my rip saw as I found it hard to use with the frame tilted to make a long deep rip. I still use the 28" for larger crosscuts. The 24" (filed rip like the rest of my frame saws) is a good size for tenons, until I get that 20" tenon saw that is...
-Dean