Progressive pitch/rake handsaws

[pmcgee]

Matching the number of teeth to the width of the kerf is really important for effficient sawing.

... length? of the kerf ... ?


Thanks for the input all. I'm happy to get down and try some things and see how they work out in practise ... but I'm also happy to put forward a dumb question or stupid idea ... even if 6 months later when I've actually learned something it becomes clear that it was a no-brainer or unnecessary, etc
So, of course, I appreciate your patience and help.

Re sharpening saws in general, it just seems such an achievable and rewarding goal - like sharpening chisels and plane irons or just creating a 'flat' surface - that it would be unthinkable not to try learning it to some degree.

Comparing to sharpening chisels etc, I like to freehand it and it feels ok - but I definitely benefit sometimes from using a guide for the secondary bevel. In a similar way, I've tried (a bit of) handsaw sharpening by eye, but I would like to put some thought into a way to guide the sharpening in a more formal/exact manner. In the background I'm thinking about the chainsaw grinders that can set a rake angle and a 'bevel' angle - not that mechanism, but the repeatability.


Set is an interesting topic too (... next post)
Paul.

[pmcgee]

Ron Herman in the video, and possibly Adam Cherubini ... someone I've read recently, argue for relatively little set.

In addition, although you say you have corrected a saw you have sharpened before, Herman presents the test cut and adjustment if necessary as a standard part of the sharpening practice.

I am trying to grab a small clip to show where a saw was:
(i) sharpened - and cuts off to one side,
(ii) touched back with a file - cutting straight now,
(iii) deliberately 'off-set' - just 12 teeth, and
(iv) touched back again.

Done ... now to upload or link. -> https://vimeo.com/39990881
I cut down on the quality to try to attach it to the post ... I'll fix that when I can.

Paul.

[FenceFurniture]

All valuable and very useful info for all of us Paul. Good on you. A greenie for your efforts thus far.

[pmcgee]

Thanks, but I'm just (a) curious and (b) a loud-mouth

A clearer clip (otherwise the same) ... https://vimeo.com/39992426

Will take a few minutes before it is viewable.

Cheers,
Paul.

[IanW]

... length? of the kerf ... ?

Woops, sorry for creating confusion. I was thinking of the width of the piece of wood you are cutting, so yes, "length of the kerf" would be a much better choice of words....

......Comparing to sharpening chisels etc, I like to freehand it and it feels ok - but I definitely benefit sometimes from using a guide for the secondary bevel. In a similar way, I've tried (a bit of) handsaw sharpening by eye, but I would like to put some thought into a way to guide the sharpening in a more formal/exact manner. In the background I'm thinking about the chainsaw grinders that can set a rake angle and a 'bevel' angle - not that mechanism, but the repeatability.

Set is an interesting topic too (... next post)
Paul.

This is how I deal with the various angles of saw teeth.

1. Rake angle, or 'back slope' on each tooth. This angle is set when forming the teeth initially, or re-forming after some heavy-duty 'jointing' to bring the teeeth level & straight. (Note: some saws are 'breasted', meaning the tooth line is convex, not straight, but that's rare on small saws, so leave that for "Advanced Saw-filing 201").

The easiest way I know to keep the rake angles constant is to take a short piece of wood about 6-8mm square & 35-45mm long & drill a small hole in the centre. Draw a line across just to one side of the hole, at the desired rake angle, then jamb the end of the file into the hole so that the 'trailing' side is parallel with your line. Now if your saw is set up in the saw vise with the teeth parallel to the tops of the jaws, and the stick is kept horizontal as you file, all should be well. Teeth can be formed from one side, so you need only one guide stick per tooth type (pic).

A tip when tooth cutting: Don't try to form too much of the tooth at one time, or you will end up in a right mess. Just take one good pass per tooth, watching the flats between them as you go. If some flats are a bit wider, it indicates one or both gullets either side are too shallow. Take corrective action on the offending gullet by putting more pressure on the file towards the 'wide' side, and an extra half-stroke or whatever it takes to bring it back into line.

Once all the teeth are formed , I dispense wth my guide stick fgor the sharpening step.

Next step is to set the saw, and people like different sets. I use the Eclipse types, which aren't perfect, but do a god job once you learn to be absolutely consistent with each squeeze.

After setting, sharpen. For a ripsaw, you need no more guides, because the teeth are filed straight across to form 'chisel' points. The file should sit nicely in the formed gullets, and if you take a light, even stroke, removing the same amount of metal from each side, all will be well. Most people file the back of each tooth facing away from them, then turn the saw round & file the remaining teeth. I have a tendency to lean just a little more on the trailing side of the tooth as I file, & have to concntrate hard to keep even pressure. If you don't, you will change rake angles substantially over a couple of sharpenings, and that can make the saw quite rough & aggressive, particularly larger teeth. And if you aren't constant, you can end up with one set of points lower than the other. This, IMO, is the main reason for ripsaws veeing to one side or the other, and isn't corrected very well by stoning the teeth on the side it's cutting towards. Check by sighting along the you can see if the two sets of teeth are level & perpendicular to the saw plate. Best to joint & re-sharpen if it's badly off.

2. For crosscut saws, there are one or two other angles you need to worry about, depending on your preferences. The most important is the bevel angle. There is some difference in terminology used here, & I'm not sure who is correct, but I'm following the first book I read, and referring to the angle applied to crosscut teeth in a 'horizontal' direction as the 'bevel' angle. This varies from 15 degrees to 45 in some cases. I use about 20 degrees on small saws. The easiest way to get this angle consistent is to mark a series of angled lines every 25mm or so along the tops of the jaws of the saw vise -(well, easy for me becaue I use wooden vises). Because sharpening is done from both sides of the saw, you need two sets of lines angled in opposite directions. Just align your file with these lines as you go & you should be able to keep the bevel angle within a degree or two without difficulty.

3. Fleam angle: This term is often aplied to what I have just referred to as bevel angle, but the book I read uses it for the third of the angles applied to crosscut teeth, and since we need to be clear about which angles we are talking about, it's a useful distinction, so I'll use that here. To achieve fleam, you tilt the handle of the file down from the horizontal, and again, the amount varies depending on the preference of the filer. One reason to apply fleam is to minimise the change in rake angle cause by applying bevel, but I've yet to read a convincing argument as to what it really does for smaller teeth, so I would like to be enlightened if there are really important advantages to be had. In my experience with small saws, applying fleam is more trouble than it's worth, because it makes the whole operation more complex & more difficult to keep consistent. So I use either very little, or none at all (i.e. keep the file horizontal, but angled to give the bevel) and find they cut just as well. If you do want fleam, then just judge it by eye, but try to be consistent, particularly from siide to side, or you will find that one set of teeth end up smaller than the other.

Sharpening saws is just a matter of practice & care, keeping in mind what you are trying to achieve, as for any sharpening operation. To be really good at it, you probably need to sharpen a few saws almost every day for a long time, which most of us don't do, of course. However, with care, most people can do an acceptable job after a few tries....

Apologies for my long-windedness, but I'm trying to be helpful by explaining the points that have troubled me in teaching myself these last (many) years.

Cheers,

[ch!ppy]

Re sharpening saws in general, it just seems such an achievable and rewarding goal - like sharpening chisels and plane irons or just creating a 'flat' surface - that it would be unthinkable not to try learning it to some degree

.

definitely!

Comparing to sharpening chisels etc, I like to freehand it and it feels ok - but I definitely benefit sometimes from using a guide for the secondary bevel. In a similar way, I've tried (a bit of) handsaw sharpening by eye, but I would like to put some thought into a way to guide the sharpening in a more formal/exact manner. In the background I'm thinking about the chainsaw grinders that can set a rake angle and a 'bevel' angle - not that mechanism, but the repeatability.

if you can find one you can get old metal saw clamps that have an attachment that is a guide where the various angles are set. i have one for the old disston saw vice/clamp i use at home (as opposed to on site) sometimes when i am first teaching an apprentice in the beginning (dont bother with buying a metal clamp, home made wooden saw clamps are just as good, even better in some ways because you make them to whatever length you choose),...i dont think it would be worthwhile trying to obtain one nowadays, i suspect they would cost FAR too much and their beneficial use is outweighed by the advantages of doing it freehand..no doubt a cheaper home made guide would work the same and be a fraction of the cost .it would be a little complicated to make but definitely doable...at any rate i find it only usfull in showing/teaching someone the fundamentals because at the beginning it can be a little daunting for a young bloke to get his head around all the angles and how to file a saw, i generally move onto freehand shortly after for a couple of reasons..with the guide its slower, which in the beginning doesnt matter because you are slow anyway, but it doesnt take long to speed up, also and more importantly it files across the the front and back of the tooth evenly which might sound ok but in reality you need to apply varying degrees of side pressure to the front of the tooth ,depending on its shape and form, the guides dont allow that so easy so your not sharpening it correctly (similar sort of fault a machine has btw)

IanW discription of using a piece of timber on the end of the file is a fairly commonly accepted method, if you need an excuse to buy a paddle pop this can be it! you use the stick on the end of the file in the way he describes

funny you mention the word mechanism, reminds me in olden days someone that was good at their job was called a mechanic, i assume instead of calling them skilled, craftsman or the like, disston saws use to write something about it on some of their saws for Mechanics not Botchers or something similar, today we would use the term 'not butchers' lol..reminds me of that charles bronson movie where he is a skilled assassin Mechanic


about filing/stoning the sides, seems to be a bit of confusion or opposing comments here at the moment, Ian said earlier its best if that step can be avoided, and the method mentioned by Ron Herman i wouldn't advise either, of course i havnt seen the whole video so i may be taking it out of context, but what he is doing in that short clip looks more like a party trick to me, not what you should actually be doing to your saw, also the file he uses looks way to aggressive to me, so much so that the large file tooth actually hung up (got stuck) on a saw tooth, altogether poor advice imo.

So if you dont mind i will give yet another method that i think is better, take it or leave it as you want...firstly try to avoid using a file on the side of the saw at all, you wont need to in all but extreme cases and it really shouldn't come to that if you have set your teeth with care, the last thing i want to do is ruff up the side of the saw and or teeth with a file. Ian said you should, if you can get the saw to run straight by setting correctly at the beginning is what you aim for, sometimes it will run straight, but in reality it doesn't always turn out that way which might lead to some confusion. i use a long oil stone and after filing the bevels run it along the length on both sides (long because it works like jointing the sides, if short then it makes it possible to dip into the teeth a bit which you dont want), jointing the sides (both) after you have filed removes any feather or burrs which can sometimes be the cause for the saw running out of line, (some teeth can get larger burrs than others while your filing) if you file away on just one side it might just be a temporary fix as down the track the burrs come off the other side and the saw will wonder again, burrs can be deceiving too, often someone has come up to me saying ''look how sharp i got my saw'', because it feels deadly sharp when you run your fingers along the edges, but in reality it is just the raggedy edges of the burrs you are feeling, a light jointing of the sides with a long stone is often all it takes (your set isnt out as much as you think) to removes the burrs and infact makes the saw sharper where it counts although you wont feel the raggedy edges, they are deceptive and mostly just scratch up the timber as the saw is pushed through

chippy

[ch!ppy]

Woops, sorry for creating confusion. I was thinking of the width of the piece of wood you are cutting, so yes, "length of the kerf" would be a much better choice of words....



This is how I deal with the various angles of saw teeth.

1. Rake angle, or 'back slope' on each tooth. This angle is set when forming the teeth initially, or re-forming after some heavy-duty 'jointing' to bring the teeeth level & straight. (Note: some saws are 'breasted', meaning the tooth line is convex, not straight, but that's rare on small saws, so leave that for "Advanced Saw-filing 201").

The easiest way I know to keep the rake angles constant is to take a short piece of wood about 6-8mm square & 35-45mm long & drill a small hole in the centre. Draw a line across just to one side of the hole, at the desired rake angle, then jamb the end of the file into the hole so that the 'trailing' side is parallel with your line. Now if your saw is set up in the saw vise with the teeth parallel to the tops of the jaws, and the stick is kept horizontal as you file, all should be well. Teeth can be formed from one side, so you need only one guide stick per tooth type (pic).

A tip when tooth cutting: Don't try to form too much of the tooth at one time, or you will end up in a right mess. Just take one good pass per tooth, watching the flats between them as you go. If some flats are a bit wider, it indicates one or both gullets either side are too shallow. Take corrective action on the offending gullet by putting more pressure on the file towards the 'wide' side, and an extra half-stroke or whatever it takes to bring it back into line.

Once all the teeth are formed , I dispense wth my guide stick fgor the sharpening step.

Next step is to set the saw, and people like different sets. I use the Eclipse types, which aren't perfect, but do a god job once you learn to be absolutely consistent with each squeeze.

After setting, sharpen. For a ripsaw, you need no more guides, because the teeth are filed straight across to form 'chisel' points. The file should sit nicely in the formed gullets, and if you take a light, even stroke, removing the same amount of metal from each side, all will be well. Most people file the back of each tooth facing away from them, then turn the saw round & file the remaining teeth. I have a tendency to lean just a little more on the trailing side of the tooth as I file, & have to concntrate hard to keep even pressure. If you don't, you will change rake angles substantially over a couple of sharpenings, and that can make the saw quite rough & aggressive, particularly larger teeth. And if you aren't constant, you can end up with one set of points lower than the other. This, IMO, is the main reason for ripsaws veeing to one side or the other, and isn't corrected very well by stoning the teeth on the side it's cutting towards. Check by sighting along the you can see if the two sets of teeth are level & perpendicular to the saw plate. Best to joint & re-sharpen if it's badly off.

2. For crosscut saws, there are one or two other angles you need to worry about, depending on your preferences. The most important is the bevel angle. There is some difference in terminology used here, & I'm not sure who is correct, but I'm following the first book I read, and referring to the angle applied to crosscut teeth in a 'horizontal' direction as the 'bevel' angle. This varies from 15 degrees to 45 in some cases. I use about 20 degrees on small saws. The easiest way to get this angle consistent is to mark a series of angled lines every 25mm or so along the tops of the jaws of the saw vise -(well, easy for me becaue I use wooden vises). Because sharpening is done from both sides of the saw, you need two sets of lines angled in opposite directions. Just align your file with these lines as you go & you should be able to keep the bevel angle within a degree or two without difficulty.

one tip you might like to try is painting the teeth using a dye, there are various ways of doing it, from as simple as using a black marker pen from the newsagent (i dont like to use them if i can help it because i dont like the feeling of running it across the teeth and it wrecks the pen, but it does work) or get some indian ink and a small brush, can dilute with metho if you want, or get some proper metal dye or in a pinch some food colouring (bit too transparent though) or i have used the red plumbers primer for PVC in a pinch out on site, usually on site i just use my eye though..something black is best though...or, not so many of them around anymore but if you have a gun shop near you get some sight black if you have plenty of saws to sharpen, its spray on and more than you need for just a few saws, but if you have plenty its worth it

anyway, whatever you use, after the initial jointing and shaping of the teeth (if they needed it), paint the teeth with it, then, lightly joint the blade, you now end up with a bunch of shiny flat spots on top of the teeth, then you can file the teeth as you do ,not sure from your description if you do them from the front toward the handle or the other way around, but either way you now have a visual guide on how far you need to file the tooth, when you have no more shiny flat spots showing on top you stop and move on to the next tooth..this way all teeth points will end up the right height..i think this is a tool/method that makes it easy to get even teeth height, some teeth will need none or just one pass with the file others more, once the shiny flat is gone you know its done

3. Fleam angle: This term is often aplied to what I have just referred to as bevel angle, but the book I read uses it for the third of the angles applied to crosscut teeth, and since we need to be clear about which angles we are talking about, it's a useful distinction, so I'll use that here. To achieve fleam, you tilt the handle of the file down from the horizontal, and again, the amount varies depending on the preference of the filer. One reason to apply fleam is to minimise the change in rake angle cause by applying bevel, but I've yet to read a convincing argument as to what it really does for smaller teeth, so I would like to be enlightened if there are really important advantages to be had. In my experience with small saws, applying fleam is more trouble than it's worth, because it makes the whole operation more complex & more difficult to keep consistent. So I use either very little, or none at all (i.e. keep the file horizontal, but angled to give the bevel) and find they cut just as well. If you do want fleam, then just judge it by eye, but try to be consistent, particularly from siide to side, or you will find that one set of teeth end up smaller than the other.

its curious why your book mentions fleam angle as the slope angle (the latter of which is what its generally called now), i was watching the series Tudors (about henry the VII etc) recently and noticed the doctor bled the patients, as they did in those days, and one of the gismo they used to bleed animals and sometimes people were called fleams, basically they look just like a large single saw tooth, so i guess it could apply because adding slope makes the saw tooth look like a 'fleam' (although to be fair a normal saw tooth w/back bevel probably looks closer), but generally nowadays in saw sharpening 'fleam' angle is interchangeable with 'bevel' angle, both being the same thing, bevel does sound nicer though..when you dip the handle to introduce that angle, its generally called 'slope' nowadays (calling it fleam is probably going to cause confusion), which is an angle that your really only going to get from hand sharpening and a practice that was on its way out, if not all but gone in the later part of the 1800's (industrialisation) except for ppl that sharpened their own, although in a few scarce examples (not counting bigger logging saws)of commercial saws with sloped filing reemerged in commercial hand saws in the early 1900's that i can think of, it was used in some disston saws and probably a few others that i cant think of atm in the early 1900's...using slope can be useful, i use it in a few saws i have, it makes a stronger point to the tooth because you miss the back of the tip of the tooth in front filing that way, which may mean it lasts a tad longer, additionally it allows you to put a sharper bevel angle on which can be useful IF the steel of the blade can take it, many cant, and it clears the sawdust a little more effectively, about the same as if you were using a size up in teeth (e.g a 9ppi saw acts about like an 8 or 7ppi saw in its efficiency to remove waste, so i quite like using slope but it does make filing more complex and much easier to muck up, so from that aspect it can be more bother than its worth. i did an acme 120 saw not too long ago and reckon i went through 7 or so files! bugger of a thing

cheers
chippy

[IanW]

one tip you might like to try is painting the teeth using a dye......

Chippy, I use layout dye (aka a blue marker pen) when cutting new teeth on small-toothed saws, but don't find it helps me as much on larger teeth. It can also be useful to paint the back of each tooth when sharpening xcuts, to make sure I have filed to a point, & not left a flat on the outside of the tooth. Another 'trick' RayG gave me is to mark every second tooth before setting (with a very fine marker), which helps me to avoid mistakes when setting. Especiaally on 15 tpi & smaller saws, I find it too easy to set two consecutive teeth the same, or skip two instead of one, especially if I have the least distraction!

...its curious why your book mentions fleam angle as the slope angle (the latter of which is what its generally called now).....

Well, as I said, it seems to have been called different names at different times, which is why I was careful to explain what I meant by it. Indeed, the name does come from the gadget used for that idiotic practice of blood-letting, that persisted for so long! You get the fleam shape by angling the file, so it probably makes sense to use that term as you have used it, & 'slope' for tilting the file - I'm happy with that. Now, if we can just get everyone else to stick to the same terms, that would be great.

However, you have not really convinced me that slope does much, and I can't see how it changes filing the front of the trailing tooth - the file cuts a 60 degree profile whether you push it across horizontally or with the handle tilted up or down. I can accept that it will increase the size of the gullet a bit, which may improve efficiency. But I get the impression you would agree that it's not doing much for small-toothed saws?

Cheers,

[FenceFurniture]

I can accept that it will increase the size of the gullet a bit, which may improve efficiency.

Let me see how well I'm picking this up I'm going to describe three movements (one per dimension/axis) of the file in relation to the tooth to get the file in the correct final position, although I think that you are doing these three actions in separate filings for accuracy and repeatability. Is that right?

1. Put the file edge in the gullet, with the file perpendicular to the saw plate. Roll the file over (rotating the file along its long axis, which will also be the Y-axis) until it's against the the tooth. This will establish the rake angle.

2. For a Cross Cut, rotate the file horizontally (through the Z-axis) for somewhere between 5-20 degrees (depending on saw, timber etc) using the contact point with the saw as the pivot point. This will establish the bevel angle which will essentially create a tapered knife edge and is required to slice the fibres off in CC work.

3. To establish the slope, angle the file downwards (through the last remaining dimension, along the X-axis).

I think I can see how this last step might assist clearance in a bigger saw (probably rip or CC) because it would create a sloped exit channel for the dust to slide out rather than being pushed against a squarer wall. The effect of this would be more noticable in a thicker saw plate.

OR ??

[ch!ppy]

yeah, you are more or less on the money

its different for a rip saw though, the back of the tooth gets filed on the slope .if you filed the front (at an angle) then you got, well a cross cut still e.g with a rip, with sloping gullets its usually (in as much as this usual, pretty uncommon for a rip to be filed with slope) the back of the tooth that gets filed, as does the gullet still, depending on your definition of a rip saw some ppl may say its no longer a rip because the tip of the saw tooth ends up as a skew angle (if viewed from the toe of the saw, the tips of the teeth look the same as the tips of a CC, e.g higher on the outside edges and you could sit a needle in the furrow of the teeth). i would still class it a rip saw though as the front of the tooth hasnt been filed with a bevel, the tooth is still a chisel, but more like a skew chisel, this type of rip saw can have a smoother entry and cut to a standard rip

true though, the benefits diminish as the teeth get smaller and results are probably subjective particularly if the saws are slightly deferent brands, steel, age, thickness a etc, i might file some identical saws (BS) with different angles for the sake of it...kinda surprising ppl havnt done it already really (maybe they have, i dunno, i dont read the net much), in this day and age where say a dovetail saw is used only for dovetails or tenon saw is used just for tenons, ppl are almost making saws like high performance race cars now lol suited for a single job only..i'm surprised someone doesn't (or hasnt tried) put just a small 5 or so deg bevel on a dovetail saw, making it an aggressive CC, DT saws wernt always just rip and if you think about it cutting a DT it isnt strictly a 100% rip cut, its slightly across the grain, albeit end grain mostly

[IanW]

....i'm surprised someone doesn't (or hasnt tried) put just a small 5 or so deg bevel on a dovetail saw, making it an aggressive CC, DT saws wernt always just rip and if you think about it cutting a DT it isnt strictly a 100% rip cut, its slightly across the grain, albeit end grain mostly

Been there, done that, Chips - great minds obviously think alike, & all that.

My idea was exactly as you say, to make a sports car into a ute. I used my 'hybrid' saws for a while & felt very pleased with myself. Then, out of curiosity, I decided to run a few tests with different amounts of fleam vs 'pure' rip pattern, using several sets of saws matched for size & tpi. I made rip & cross cuts, in hard & soft woods counting how many strokes it took to reach a set line. Much to my surprise, I found very little difference in speed of cut either with or along the grain, for the same tooth size. There was a bit of difference betweeen the larger teeth (12 tpi) in thicker stock, but for 15 & 18 tpi saws, the difference was very minor or zero, averaged over multiple cuts for each saw.

Yeah, I know, I have too much time on my hands, sometimes (also known as avoiding what I should have bene doing ), and this was not a truly 'scientific' test. For starters, I knew which tooth pattern I was using, & that could have influenced the way I used the saw. I also used a limited range of woods, & these were generally 'easy' woods to work with, anyway.
However two differences did stand out:
1. Rip saws generally gave a more ragged exit side of the kerf, more or less, depending on the wood being cut.
2. It was harder to rip a dead sraight line with a croscut, which I put down partrly to the slightly greater set I use on crosscuts, allowing a teeny bit of wobble (& also influenced by those sharp tooth corners, too).

That was one experience that influenced me to stick with with both rip & crosscut saws, though you could say the sharpening angles I use for rake & fleam on all of my crosscuts are general-purpose angles. Another factor was that when I started making saws seriously a few years ago, I discovered how much the grip angle contributes to the comfortable feel of a saw. Most of the cross cuts I make with small saws are with the wood held in a vise or on a bench hook, i.e. close to bench-top height. Here, a less vertical grip (i.e. angled up a bit more towards horizontal) keeps your wrist at a comfortable angle. When sawing dovetails & tenon cheeks, the work is generally held up higher, well above bench height, so a more vertical grip is comfortable here. A few degrees makes a big difference to the 'feel' of the saw. So I decided that if I was going to have saws with different handles, I may as well use straight rip & crosscut filing on them, too, which is one reason I have more backsaws in my toolbox than really necessary.

I would say it's better for someone like myself, who doesn't sharpen saws every day or two, to stick to a minimum number of filing patterns, and let's face it, rip is just so much easier to do (so half of my saws are reasonably well-sharpened. ) It doesn't mean I don't use rips for crosscutting occasionally, or vice versa, but when doing critical stuff I do prefer to use use the more 'appropriate' tooth pattern, even though I know it's partly in the mind...

Cheers,

[IanW]

although I think that you are doing these three actions in separate filings for accuracy and repeatability. Is that right?

Well I don't do it as 3 separate actions, Brett.

There are two separate jobs to be done when making new teeth from scratch, or re-forming a badly out of whack set.
Job number one is to make a set of even teeth, which you do from one side of the saw only, using the file held horizontal & perpendicular to the saw plate.

Job number two is to sharpen said teeth, which is usually done from both sides, so that you file the backs of the teeth leaning away from you. You also inevitably file the front of the preceding tooth, of course. Theoretically, you could sharpen a ripsaw from one side only, but it's more consistent to do it from alternate sides, partly because it's hard not to introduce a slight angle, and partly because it's easier to push the file consistently with the teeth pointing in the same directions. You run a greater risk of cutting cows & calves if you file all of the teeth from the same side. I've no doubt a very experienced person could do it from one side, but I can't.

When sharpening crosscut saws, you introduce the fleam & slope angles (using Ch!ppy's terminology) in one operqtion. Fleam is introduced by angling the file in the horizontal plane & slope by dropping the handle down. The desirability of the latter is a moot point, as you can see, and is an added complication, so when you are learning, perhaps best left out. The generally-accepted way to file the fleam is to angle the far end of the file to your right, with the handle to your right, when filing the teeth leaning away from you. When you turn the saw round (handle end now to your left) you have to do the opposite, i.e. point the file to the left.

Because of simple geometry, filing the back of each tooth also files the front of the preceding tooth here, too, so that by the time you have completed both sides, you have made each tooth into the vein-piercing shape that gives us the word, fleam, as Ch!ppy pointed out above. But when filing at an angle like this, it is even harder to keep the file cutting evenly on both sides, which can mean some pretty funny-looking fangs when you first try to do it. Old hands like Chippy can probably do it in their sleep, but I still occasionaally end up with such a poor job that I have to re-joint & try again!

Cheers,

[pmcgee]

Thanks again for this discussion.
I'm afraid I was re-assaulted by the lurgy yesterday.

Re sloped gullets there seems to (have been) some ongoing discussion re this on/between ebay sellers. See this guy below ... he is totally mad and great value as far as the reading goes. His sharpened saws sell for consistently high prices - so he has quite a following. If you search through completed sales, look for an ACME 120 to get the more arcane stuff ... cant files, sloped gullets, ...

eBay Australia: Buy new & used fashion, electronics & home d

[ch!ppy]

The generally-accepted way to file the fleam is to angle the far end of the file to your right, with the handle to your right, when filing the teeth leaning away from you. When you turn the saw round (handle end now to your left) you have to do the opposite, i.e. point the file to the left.

Because of simple geometry, filing the back of each tooth also files the front of the preceding tooth here, too, so that by the time you have completed both sides, you have made each tooth into the vein-piercing shape that gives us the word, fleam, as Ch!ppy pointed out above. But when filing at an angle like this, it is even harder to keep the file cutting evenly on both sides, which can mean some pretty funny-looking fangs when you first try to do it. Old hands like Chippy can probably do it in their sleep, but I still occasionaally end up with such a poor job that I have to re-joint & try again!

Cheers,

G'day Ian

can i ask if there is any particular reason why you file in the way (direction) that you do, I realise that its probably the most common method but i am wondering if you have a specific reason is all or whether its just the way you have adopted after being shown that way, i might be able to offer a different insight is all

cheers
chippy

[IanW]

G'day Ian

can i ask if there is any particular reason why you file in the way (direction) that you do, I realise that its probably the most common method but i am wondering if you have a specific reason is all or whether its just the way you have adopted after being shown that way, i might be able to offer a different insight is all

cheers
chippy

Chippy, I guess the main reason is because I watched my father do it that way, and as you say, most of the sharpening info in books & on the net show it that way as well.

Given my limited sharpening experience, I'm very willing to listen & learn, so go for it.......
Cheers,