made my first saw

another pic 

Andrew Lunn

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pic#3 

Andrew Lunn

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Re: made my first saw

Jim Shaver Oakville, Ont.

>Great looking saw Andrew,

The handle looks great in beech....nice decoration as well...

Take care,

Jim

Re: made my first saw

Frank D. in Montreal

>Very nice job! I love the way it looks, including the decorations.

Where did you manage to get the steel?

Thanks for showing

Thanks Jim

Andrew Lunn

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Re: made my first saw

Todd O. Cronkhite Maine Native, Presently Away

>Liar! Liar!,Pants on fire! First Saw?!! WOW!! Beginners luck perhaps?

Andrew that is Sweeeeeeeeeeeet!! I really like the little carved scroll on the handle, nice touch indeed.

Why no nib?

You aren't gonna tell us the blade came from a Maryland grain shovel are you?

How 'bout a shot of it in action too?!

Todd O.

Todd O.

Re: made my first saw

Andrew Lunn

>Thanks for the kind words Frank. I bought the steel online from McMaster-Carr. You could get it from other suppliers, too, though, like MSC Direct, or at least one or two others who slip my mind at the moment.

Thanks for looking,

Andrew

Do you have a bow...

Scott Burr in Ben Lomond CA

>So you can play it? With all the notes on it I figured it's was for playing not sawing...8^)

Re: made my first saw

Andrew Lunn

>Hi Todd, thanks for the kind words. More work went into making this saw than is probably apparent from just looking at it, and probably would go some way to explain any beginner's luck that might exist--I was busy working on a kitchen for some time and had a lot of time to think about what I was going to do before actually attempting it. Which was probably a good thing, as I am someone who loves doing, and who over time has found that time spent thinking beforehand is never wasted. Even so, the first time I filed in the teeth I screwed them up and had to file them off and start over; and the first handle I made got ruined when I cut the slot for the blade crooked. Let's see, what else? Oh, I got ferric chloride on me. That was sweet. I bored a crooked hole into some brass rod while making split nuts. I'm sure there's a few more--so I'm not sure how much beginner's luck actually exists anyway. :) Or maybe you could say I was very lucky! Ha ha ha. I learned a lot, though, and had a great time. I was surprised at how similar most of the metal working was to woodworking--filing to planing, for instance. I did not make a nib mostly because I've never cared for them all that much and preferred the clean line along the back instead. I'll see what I can do about an action shot. Thanks for asking!

Andrew

Very nice. Great job with good details.

vlparisian in damp but warm Houston

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Are two saw nuts enought?

Tom Colligan

>Really nice work, Andrew.

You must have reason to have used only two nuts. Are you confident that that's all that's needed? Very nice saw though.

Action Shots for Todd!

Andrew Lunn

>OK Todd, here's some action shots. Really thanks for your interest. It's great to have someplace like this where you can share stuff and people don't look at you and say, "You what?" Oh, and I caught your remark about the shovel--someone actually has done that, haven't they? It sounds familiar.

Here's some shots of the saw cutting through some 4/4 red oak. The kerf is just wide enough for the blade to drop through, and to steer a very wee bit if you need to.

Take care,

Andrew

Pic #2 

Andrew Lunn

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Pic #3 

Andrew Lunn

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Re: Are two saw nuts enought?

Andrew Lunn

>Hi Tom, thanks for looking, and thanks for the kind words. There are two nuts right now because I wanted to do a medallion for the third, and I haven't had time yet to make one. But the saw works fine with two nuts. There's no wiggle or anything. (I posted some action shots below, per Todd's request) Over time I would imagine, like you, that more nuts are better than fewer, but I have seen some really old saws that have just two--don't know if they were still sound or not, though.

Thanks again, Tom

Andrew

Re: Pic #3

Todd O. Cronkhite Maine Native, Presently Away

>Very very nice Andrew! I like that nice tight kerf. Inspiring, very inspiring.

How did you lay out the teeth? Did you use another saw blade?

I have Leif's site bookmarked, very good info there, and he deserves alot of applause for not only his work, but for sharing it with us.

I made several handles over the years, and sure enough I cut the slots crooked, I bet your tight kerf saw will solve that problem eh.

T.O.

Re: Very nice. Great job with good details.

Andrew Lunn

>Thanks for appreciating the details. They were really important to me, and I put a lot of thought into them.

Andrew

Re: Do you have a bow...

Andrew Lunn

>Thanks...I think. :) I listen to music while I work sometimes, and that's about as close as I come to being musical at all. The musical notes were inspired by some details from Grinling Gibbons carvings.

Take care,

Andrew

Re: Pic #3

Andrew Lunn

>Thanks again, Todd. I started the teeth the first time by using a ruler and marking the teeth with a marker; the marks I made were too fat, though, and weren't really any better than just using the file from the getgo. So after a couple of passes in which I went too fast and wound up with some spacing I didn't like and couldn't readily fix, I used a cad printout from Leif's site of lines spaced 11tpi and just clamped it beside my blade as I filed. And filed for the first couple of passes much more carefully and slowly--those first passes are real important, and after them it's really not a whole lot different from sharpening any other saw.

Yes, Leif's site was very helpful and interesting, and I give him total kudos for sharing his experiences with everyone. Plus it's just a really cool site. Anyone who isn't familiar with it should check it out.

If you like making saw handles, Todd, you should go for it and make the rest of the saw along with it! Really, it's just a little bit of metal work and you'd have yourself a homemade saw. I think craftsman made tools are a really fascinating avenue to explore--you can do stuff that would probably be pretty prohibitive for someone else to do for you; put as much into it as you want, and then the best part is that you've got yourself a user--with just material costs wrapped up in it. And of course some time and effort; but hey, you're going to spend your time and energy somehow anyway, right? That's stuff you can't bank.

Andrew

A real art form - OT

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA

>our younger son's been playing saw for a couple of years, and tells us that it's a truly tricky instrument. I also learned from him that (a) there are specific musical-saw saws made, and (b) there are darn few players, which must mean that the sawmakers are selling to a VERY small niche market.

He's moved more into bass and cello lately, because he's been invited into about eight bands and it's very hard to hear the saw against all the other instruments.

Every time I hear saw, I wonder why it was necessary to invent the theremin. Just another example of people thinking they need electrons when hand tools would do the job, I guess.

Re: A real art form - OT

Andrew Lunn

>Hi Bill, thanks for posting. I've only ever seen a saw played musically at the end of that Tom Law saw sharpening video. I remember thinking that it did look rather tricky to do. A little like a trombone with its very fluid mechanism for finding notes--only trickier, I thought, because there's a lot more physical manipulation involved than with a trombone.

The notes on my saw were intended to be symbols of creativity, caught in a kind of creative wind curling out of the saw handle. Maybe a little unusual for a tool, but hey, it made me happy and was fun to do. I find those old decorated tools from europe real inspiring--I can live without the horns on the planes, but the carving on them gives them a lot of character.

Take care, Bill

Andrew

Re: made my first saw

Ernie Miller

>Sweet A Musical saw! looks great! The only thing I don't like is that it is not mine. Great work.

Re: made my first saw

Andrew Lunn

>Thanks for the kind words, Ernie.

Take care,

Andrew