I have to admit...

riven pine...

David Weaver

would be divine to work with.

about 3 years ago at home depot, someone loaded stair treads into one of the bins with the pith in the center and perfectly quartered white pine on both sides.

Of course, I bought only what I was going to use in the near future, cut the pith out and had absolutely wonderful pin straight wood for drawer sides. They were $11 each and guitar neck straight outside of the pith.

Went back a couple of months later, and there was some kind of fingerjointed tiny wood crap in the bin Haven't seen anything like it since other than large SYP boards, which often have clear quartered sections in them, but the latewood in SYP once dry is a real bear when combined with the soft earlywood (and even when perfectly sawn, it's a bit homely).

Any wood...

John in NM

Can be divine to work with. Like I said, nice old growth stuff is fun, but its not easy to find any more and its not as if you can pay a premium to get it around here. In other parts of the country I'm sure you can get some good stuff still.

Re: I have to admit...

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

Poplar is the wood of choice for drawer sides. It will be cheaper than clear pine.

it has to be quartered....

David Weaver

..to look really nice, though.

Quartered sycamore would also be really nice without being hard or heavy.

Not sure what John can find where he is, but I could do some horse trading here to get a sycamore log pretty easily. Clear pine wouldn't be as easy to find - there's little of it here with a clear stem.

Re: it has to be quartered....

John in NM

When I was worried about the appearance of a drawer side, I would use soft maple (it was cheap back then, cost only a bit more than poplar).

Down here I could probably get clear pine pretty easy when I can find a local mill running. Logging here is very small scale, but it has been so for decades and there are still some nice trees around. I think the local mill closed though, I'll have to check. Smaller operators are starting and stopping all the time around here - I think they run for a while until they get tired of the huge amount of work it is to produce lumber.

The local white pine is nice stuff. Its cones make great fire starters too, they practically stick to a wall when tossed.

However, for reliable source, I'll just be using poplar. Maybe leave it out in the sun for a day after milling the parts, get rid of all that green and purple color.

speaking of nothing related...

David Weaver

..i owe you a couple of pencils, don't I? I'll check my email to see if I can still find your address.

Re: speaking of nothing related...

John in NM

Sure, if you have them that would be great. Ping me if you can't find the address.

Re: I have to admit...

Jack Dover

"around the corner" saw blades

Just FYI, these blades are for coarse work only, a hardware store coping saw feels like a very fine tool compared to them. They're also a bear to sharpen and use, they have progressive size teeth and they're on a 700mm frame (the biggest frame I have ever seen)

Sure, knew all that...

John in NM

Just a joke that anyone who's seen his demos with the blade should get

I love watching him cut dovetails with that huge frame saw too.... years of practice and it doesn't even look clumsy like it would be if I tried that!

Re: 90 degree bend blade...

John Aniano in central NJ

John and Jack,

I've seen one of those blades up close and they are pretty simple. Looked to me like a maybe 1/2" wide narrow kerf bandsaw blade that was heated at the center and bent on a long diagonal around the sharp edge of an anvil. The transition through the 90 degree bend was over the length of this diagonal which was around 4" long. Anyone with a decent torch and sharp edged anvil (and skill) would be able to make one of these. It wasn't rocket science.

I've never tried making one, but then again, I have no anvil. If I did, I would have tried...

David W., are you up for making these as well as chisels?...

John

sure...

David Weaver

..they can be bent to that shape without trouble. I have one of the aforementioned 700mm saws, as well as a couple of shorter saws.

Even spring of it's sandwiched and then twisted (like a blacksmith will twist hot steel to make a spiral) over some distance will have memory, so I think this is a simple matter of holding the ends of the blade correctly and then turning it past 90 degrees to a point that it's past its elastic limit and retains 90 degrees. Should be very forgiving at spring temper.

I'll order a couple of the inexpensive carbon steel blades (vs. the turbo whatever and a half) and bend them.

Re: 90 degree bend blade...

John in NM

I did experiment with turning one end of my coping saw blade in the frame. I think the bend needs to be sharper than I got doing that, but with practice it would probably work if someone wanted to try it. As Jack said though, it really worked for Klausz because the blade was coarse and long, one stroke is what I remember seeing.

However, I was kinda joking for a reason - the previous debate over seconds saved with a bandsaw over a fretsaw. I found that pretty funny myself, but perhaps I'm the only one with that kinda warped humor.

As Jack points out, that saw of Klausz's was not a precision tool, and I never thought it was supposed to be, myself.

I always took the purpose of his demo to be to get people to focus on how easy and quick it can be to make this joint and how it need not be perfect to work well. I think that is a lesson that the internet woodworking world could stand to revisit often - better to make stuff imperfectly than to never make it at all (and then argue incessantly about how one makes it perfectly, having rarely done so!)

Re: sure...

John Aniano in central NJ

David,

Sorry to have started you down yet another rathole! But you have a forge and anvil and I do not...

I could send you some vintage Disston saw blade stock. I think it's high carbon steel for the meat cutting trade. About 1/2" wide. Cuts wood nicely.

I've also got some very thin kerf 1/2" bandsaw blades. 0.016" or 0.020" or so kerf iirc. Also for the meat cutting trade, specifically cutting frozen sushi. Narrow kerf = less wasted meat = more profit. I use them for cutting bow blanks of pernambuco - again, less waste = more bow blanks.

John

Actually..

David Weaver

...that's a generous offer, but I, too, have bandsaw blade stock left from the historic era when I actually had a bandsaw

I'll give that a shot. It's usually a bit less springy and more slack than spring stock, but I have some spring stock in .02" inch, too.

I'll also look to the cost of the import frame saw blade stock as when there is a chinese blade available, it's usually toothed western pattern and very inexpensive, and nice dry plain steel that files well.

I'll try the bandsaw blades first, though - it can pretty easily be filed back (the teeth) to a gentler rake so that it's not intolerable. I already use some of it in a frame saw to cut guitar body blanks since I have no bandsaw - works great.

Hahaha!

John in NM

I love the sushi blade!

How come Japan Woodworker never marketed that!?! It could have been a whole new internet woodworking "thing"!

For pros!!

David Weaver

That sushi bandsaw blade and butcher stuff is for pros....that ain't no japan woodworker stuff!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnWFJnfKh1s

I do recall the first dovetail video that I saw was charlesworth's and mentioned dissatisfaction with his handsawing results and used a meat and fish blade to cut tails (just not fish tails..). Presume they are just blades with less aggressive teeth and no significant set since the meat or iced fish can lubricate the cut as it runs through.

Re: For pros(?) - vendor for fish blades, etc...

John Aniano in central NJ

Hi all,

These are not "only for the pros"!

Below are two links to the vendor from which I buy both the "fish blades" and the slightly wider kerf regular bandsaw blades. I like the KerfMaster blades they sell. Both types of blades work well in even very hard tropical woods - I cut ebony and pernambuco with them all the time. They will dull eventually and with a narrow kerf (0.014" or 0.016") can be prone to follow the cut, so keep this in mind if you try them. The KerfMaster comes in a 0.022" kerf and is less likely to bind or wander.

http://www.spectrumsupply.com/foodbandsawblade.aspx

http://www.spectrumsupply.com/band-saw-blades.aspx

John - no affiliation, just a satisfied customer.

Re: For pros(?) - vendor for fish blades, etc...

David Weaver

Somewhat kidding when I said that (for the pros) due to Japan Woodworker's reputation in the japanese tool community for reselling (sometimes at astounding markups) tools more on narratives and showiness.

Vs. a meat and fish blade that you'd expect to see in a fish place or in Pennsylvania in deer season.

I little bit too functional and not flashy enough for JWW.

try 1 is the failure....

David Weaver

...that probably makes try 2 a success..

I have a skip tooth type bandsaw blade that's 1/4 inch or so and about 4 or 5 teeth per inch. The teeth are far apart, but that's not the problem. The problem is that it's 20 thousandths and doesn't have the rigidity to stand up for itself, and it's not very hard, which compounds that problem.

I'll have to find some blade stock that's about 30 thousandths thick and fully hardened. I do have that on hand, but 700mm is a lot of teeth to cut in and set, so I'd rather look around for a chinese-made carbon steel turning blade of the right length or longer (not hard to cut them down).

Drilling through the blade to affix it to the saw confirms that the plate is very soft and bendy. It needs to have some conviction to make the turn. Bending is easy - put one end in a vise, and sandwich a clamp about 6 or 8 inches away and just twist slowly (observe the points of hold at the vise and clamp to make sure the bend is uniform and not creating a snapping point right at the ends- as in, not making a kink at the two end points of the open section.

The whole setup must be keyed to softwoods - hardwoods are going to prevent the blade from efficiently making a turn - the blade has to kind of half cut and half force its way through the turn. Much set is necessary (which can be seen by the ragged back side of the cut when klausz uses that saw).

Re: 90 degree bend blade...

Jack Dover

I own one of these blades, used to have a few, now it's down to just one. Trust me they're not just "bent on the long diagonal". I get that it was a joking remark, but I'm going to reply to David's post with some details about this type of a blade.

Interesting, but...

Jack Dover

the issue here is that the original form of a blade before bending is not a band (i.e. a long rectangle). You can easily see that a rectangular blank isn't going to work by doing some paper folding: just cut a piece of paper and try creasing it so that two lower edges are at a right angle to each other and that they stay like this while being stretched. https://www.holzwerken.de/werkzeug/saegen3.jpg -- doesn't show that the first few inches don't have enough steel to file a tooth.

The actual blade has a shape as if two bands were connected sidewise for a couple of inches at ends, kinda like a stretched out Teris Z-piece. Not sure whether it was stamped out and then folded, or maybe an L-corner was ground to shape. Then a horizontal part is ground to a taper for a few inches and doesn't have teeth on that tapered part.

No doubts you can figure how to fold a blade in your garage. However I don't think it's going to be something that produces a result comparable even to crudest coping saws. Let's consider how it works.

So we made a vertical and about to enter it with a horizontal part. You would have to force about an inch of a ~1/8" wide tapered steel plate that doesn't have any teeth in a vertical kerf horizontally before the first tooth on a horizontal section will get engaged. It's possible on some really soft woods, but I can't imagine doing it even in poplar. And even on softwoods it breaks a good chunk of wood out, so big that a knife line doesn't really stop it and a blowout goes well below a base line. Blowouts are actually visible on that video everyone is so amazed with, Frank just puts it on the inside face, but it's still visible even at 360p. If I would need something faster than a regular coping saw for a finer piece I'd use a sharp turning saw just for its long blade.

That being said I'm having troubles finding good joinery blades for my frame saws: thin plate, wide, 15ppi or higher, minimal set, both in cross and rip patterns. Ideally it'd fit a Highland Woodworking's classic frame (their universal blade is too thick, overset and too coarse), but I would even make yet another frame or two just for such a blade. I have an old Jorgensen miter box blade that lost its teeth, but I'm not really good at re-toothing, also it was impulse hardened, so the rest of the blade is probably be too soft. I was about to try what you did for that resaw frame, but if you or anyone else knows a US-based source for such blades I'd really appreciate a link or contact info.

limited ability for clean cutting...

David Weaver

...I gather that the saw that frank uses depends on soft pine and the ability to tolerate blowout on the inside of the cut.

I found another use for my frame saw that I hadn't thought of before today while playing, and that is as a base for portaband bimetal blades. In the world of making chisels, I like the portaband to break down steel, but it's really hard on the teeth on a bimetal blade.

However, they can be cut into segments and there's enough in one portaband for the 700mm frame saw and for another smaller frame saw. This alleviates one of the bigger pains in breaking down old larger files - cutting them, and in the case of a bimetal hacksaw - it works well, but it's hard on the hands. If the swap over is done with a portaband, you get only a little cutting before something goes amiss and teeth fly off - the end is near at that point - $7 each for the blades. $1 in bulk for the lenox hacksaw blades. My stinginess makes me choose hand punishment.

So far in cutting a few things with the portaband blade in the ece frame saw, nothing broken - no broken teeth, much less hand pain, long stroke - you can feel what the blade does vs. having a 10 amp portaband go from smooth to click click.

on to your issue of needing joinery blades - 1095 stock isn't cheap the last I got it, and the stock that I received had a mill edge (which needs to be ground off unless you want to ruin a large file in one shot - the edge is rolled or something and work hardened or scale covered - whatever it is, it's file murder).

15 tpi is a pretty quick toothing job from a blank plate, but it's not a quick setting job. All of the chinese blades that I've found (a little softer than what we're used to but not rubbery and very easy filing - I Like them a lot) are shorter, so I have no ideas.

what plate thickness are you thinking..

David Weaver

...for your frame saw?

When I made the resaw, I used heavier plate obviously, but it's suited to the purpose. I have .03, I think, 2" high, but that's too thick for joinery and not thick enough for resawing anything large (got the pleasure of hand filing a 47" blade with giant teeth into it to find that out, and still have that blade hanging waiting in case there's ever a reason I'd use a lighter resaw, but also have a big bandsaw blade to try that, too....

Anyway, I'm thinking that .025" 1095 is probably about right unless you can get spring temper 1080 or something. I'm not sure the big "whee" about the need for 1095 everywhere as hard as practical is that great, but rather a fascination with trying to stretch sharpening intervals because the people buying the saws can't sharpen them. I prefer something a step softer so that you can sharpen it all the time without killing files so fast.....

I need a nap and am not getting to the point, though - 1095 cost is way up. It was about $70 for 10 feet of the big stuff when I made a frame saw, and now that same coil is $150. I think I sold the remaining amount of that coil for not much (it's too big for your use) and am sorry that I didn't buy additional widths to make frame saw blades. We're shopping in an area that's usually sold as "shim stock" and anything that resembles frame saw blades is not much of a market for the steel.

I can tooth saw blades without issue when I have nothing else to do, but have had my fill if there is a blade with teeth in it already for the same or less than 1095 stock.

Same thought about the ece blade that came with my saw - it was overset, the steel is soft and rubbery and it can be made to use, but the chinese blades are much more "plain" and even if they are only about as hard to file, they file crisply and quickly.

Re: Interesting, but...

John Aniano in central NJ

Hello All,

Jack is correct, the F. Klaus style blade is bent sharply along a maybe 4-5" long diagonal at the center. One end of the blade is at 0 degrees, at the other end it is 90 degrees. The transition from 0 to 90 is short, again, maybe 4-5" maximum at the center. The steel will have to be hot forged around an anvil sharp corner to achieve this. I really doubt it could be cold forged. A typical bandsaw blade is too brittle to be cold formed that severely.

I think there may have been a Roy Underhill episode where this type of blade is described, shown and used to cut super fast dovetails. I'm not sure how to find such an episode if it indeed exists. Winston to the rescue?

John