Saw file guide

[Bushmiller]

Martin

You have done well in both application and research.

Like Ian, I am surprised that your saw rips well, but if it does so be it. I have found that a crosscut saw seems poor when ripping compared to a rip saw that actually crosscuts passably, albeit rather roughly. I have been using hand saws intermittently for building work in the last few days and if the rip panel saw was not to hand I tried to finish the rip cut with the crosscut saw: Very unsatisfactory!

This is from a 1912 Disston publication regarding their two no-set saws:

Disston no set saws. 1912 catalogue.jpg

The No.77 uses conventional triangular files unlike the ACME No.120.

Regards
Paul

[MartinCH]

Hi Ian and Paul


Yes the saw interesting in that it ripsl.. this thread on woodnet use's similar wording to describe the saw and remarks on the "stellar ripping"
Mike Wenzloff and the Remarkable No. 77 Backsaw

I guess this means that there is not really a justification for multiple saws - no need for high TPI, the taper saw already cuts smoothly and no need for a rip and a cross cut saw. I have not told my saws yet....


Have a small project suggestion -modify a tapered rip Disston D8 to this teeth configuration. Interesting to see if ripping a half reasonable proposition. The disston 77 saw may have been a bit ahead of its time. I don't think when American was making the town of Tombstone they worried much if the timber was dry...

indexing saw for smaller TPI
- one could use coping blades. The peg style clamps I seem to be fond of should be able to hold on the restricted space of coping saw blade...

You could avoid "making a saw" by changing a blade in existing saw. That completely different and you have not broken your promise..

[MartinCH]

The original disston 77 taper saw copy had raggery teeth. Remade with the mark 2 indexing saw. The new indexing saw was a substantial improvement in usability and depth accuracy but reduced the teeth spacing- (higher TPI). While still cutting smoothly, the saw has become slow.. too slow for me.
]

Later model disston 77 had 8 TPI spacing disston 77.jpg with 12 tpi for the first inch. Going to remake the saw again at 8 tpi.
Not sure that I need to tighter spacing at the start, but sense the indexing saw is already set for fine space will do that way.

It seems disston was of the opinion this style will prove clean cut at low TPI.. Low for a carcass saw that is.
Note...

Going to run out plate this will be the fourth retouching of this plate - original , first go, this version that that is too fine and now this version

Oh well - prototyping...

[Bushmiller]

Martin

That version of the No.77 is not seen often. We have to remember that the saw makers of the early 20th century were constantly trying to re-invent the wheel in order to win market share. Many of their ideas were little more than gimmickry. I think this version of the No.77 falls into that category. Don't misunderstand me as I absolutely think it works well: I just question the necessity of it. If we are able to start a 5ppi rip saw with progressive teeth (so beginning with 6ppi at the toe) why would they think we would be unable to start an 8ppi saw? I appreciate that you are talking crosscut as opposed to rip and that may have some bearing on all this. However, all the Docking saws were 4½ppi and there is no issue starting them

In addition, the low angle that we typically use with a back saw allows easy starting of a cut. Having said all that.....I applaud your efforts and look forward to seeing the result. I may have to put a no set saw on my wish list of odd balls to make.

Regards
Paul

[IanW]

Just a personal observation to add to what Paul said, I found starting those "extreme fleam" teeth to be quite easy. The knife-like teeth cut a clean groove on the first stroke with little tendency to skate to one side as a 'regular' crosscut profile can do, and I could start with confidence right on my line. My saw was 12 tpi though, & maybe 8tpi is not so easy.

I wasn't aware that Disston produced the larger-toothed model, & like Paul, I wonder what advantages it offered over the finer-toothed model? The fact that the 77 had such a relatively short production life and started disappearing from the catalogues whilst hand tools were still in regular use indicates to me that they probably didn't take the world by storm. My own theory is that the file-eating hardness and the extra difficulty of maintaining the odd fleam angle accurately would have diminished the enthusiasm of many who tried them. They were excellent saws to be sure, but probably not sufficiently more excellent than a well-maintained 'ordinasry' crosscut to justify the extra expense & bother.... ?

Cheers,

[Bushmiller]

My own theory is that the file-eating hardness and the extra difficulty of maintaining the odd fleam angle accurately would have diminished the enthusiasm of many who tried them.

Cheers,

Ian

I have never understood the philosophy behind the "safe back" cant saw file, which was only used on the earlier ACME 120s, but not on the No.77 model. It meant that only the face of the tooth was sharpened. Perhaps that was because sharpening both the front and back of the tooth made for a very weak piece of steel with that 45° fleam. However, once they dispensed with the tall tooth and returned to the conventional 60° tooth, the tooth had both a 45° face and back.



Regards
Paul

[IanW]

Paul, as we've noted on other occasions, the reasoning behind some of these things is lost in time & we can only guess at 'what they were thinking' back in the day. The latter half of the 19thC seems to have been a time of feverish invention, with many ideas that were rushed into the patent office before the ink could dry on the drawings. But as with biological evolution, the fittest survived (or were bought-out by the competition!) whilst the less-fit quietly went extinct. We can speculate on why the no-set saws ended up in the latter category, or why Disston changed their tooth pattern, but the 'fossils' just don't tell us the full story, do they?

Cheers,

[MartinCH]

Would not make too much of the disappearance of the saw. Disston marketing was niche - specialised to some work in cabinet making with only "expensive" dry timber.
Niche products are easy to disrupt - so lets say there a world war and then a flu pandemic and some how in all this your company ends up with excess production of niche product. Rationally you decide to stop production.

As time goes on while the stocks sold, staff move on to other roles, production machines are moved to other lines and items are stored in the vacant space.

Now it is "trouble" to restart the line and no ones job depends on it. What could happens is, customer asks for product, there is none in stock, an ever bright salesman instead of saying the truth, white ants their own product with a line like this - "The Disston 4 is just as good and cheaper". Well regardless of technology/profit/benefit to customer the product is goner. It is rational.

Not saying this is what happened. But niche products are often dropped as they are relatively small in the companies profits by default. There are many reasons to rationalise products.

Some additional observations

The image is poor, but it still tell the story. Tried a cut that starts with heel of the saw in the timber. This you might use for example on blind dovetail. With the cross cut saws I have this does work at all in hardwoods. The saws are too difficult to push without the sawing momentum. The dots are from the teeth of my carcass saw and it didn't move with reasonable push.
The tapered 45 flem saw however did move.

But I have used this odd sort cut to make some stopped dados in softwood and memory says the approached worked ok.

cut.jpg
The next observation is that it seems to impossible to bind these teeth due to uneven tooth line.

Deliberately reverted my saw to ragged toothline and smooth aggressive saw returned. Have concluded that lower TPI would suit this configuration, but it is possible that ragged sharpening is better for these tapered 45 degree flem saws- consider a hand stitched rasp, the teeth are not dissimilar...
This idea does not suit is my current aesthetic sense of what a saw should look like. However maintaining a sharp ragged edge is much easier proposition than jointed and carefully sharpening even teeth.

PS not expecting anyone with an antique 77 or wenzloff saw to mess up their toothline.


Also, have retrieved a saw from rust oblivion. It is from an odd brand called "Simonds". Has anyone hear of this brand???
This particular saw is intended for modification to high flem teeth. The saw is already tapered.

The purpose is to test how it compares to may disston D8 in rips and resaw..
The saw is to be modified to 45 degree flem configuration.
Currently the saw is 10 tpi which may be bit high for the test.


simonds.jpg

[Bushmiller]

Also, have retrieved a saw from rust oblivion. It is from an odd brand called "Simonds". Has anyone hear of this brand???
This particular saw is intended for modification to high flem teeth. The saw is already tapered.



simonds.jpg

Martin

I think you have a Simonds No.10½ if it has a Beech handle?. More information on Simonds here.

Regards
Paul

[IanW]

....... It is from an odd brand called "Simonds". Has anyone hear of this brand??? ......

I thought that might jolt you awake, Paul....

Martin, I suspect what you have discovered is that sharp is trumps with any saw, but go easy on the "ragged" teeth idea. I'm sure you are working towards perfectly even teeth eventually, if only for pride's sake, but in the meantime getting your saws to cut well is the number one priority. I would suggest the 45 degree fleam configuration is a bit less susceptible to tooth height variation than 15-20* fleam, but that's purely theoretical, I've never set out to try & demonstrate that. What I have proven to myself over & over is that uneven tooth height on a conventionally-filed rip saw is definitely 'bad', it makes the saw feel very rough, particularly in hard woods & it gets worse the closer to perpendicular to grain direction you are sawing. The saw will still cut quickly if sharp, but it won't do so as smoothly as a sharp saw with even tooth heights. A really well-sharpened saw can be deceptive, it will sail through the wood so smoothly you think it's not cutting 'til you note how far it's moving per stroke.

I think crosscut teeth are a bit more forgiving because only a small, sharp point of a high tooth is cutting a bit deeper so it's not creating anywhere near as much resistance as the full width of a high rip tooth. And the knife-like tips of 45* fleamed teeth would probably cause even less drag. And it's just as well because for someone like me, who doesn't file saws every day, it's harder to file crosscut teeth as evenly as rip teeth. If I'm having a bad day, I'll end up with 4 or 5 teeth on a 10" saw that are a bit high or low against a straight edge. I'd feel that immediately with a ripsaw, but it doesn't seem to affect the crosscut anywhere near as much..

As for starting, your demo looks rather extreme - those deep tooth impressions suggest to me that you are bearing down on the saw too much. When starting, the saw should be under no more than its own weight - in fact with anything other than a light saw, I tend to ease the weight off on the first stroke or two. If you are starting the saw on the back edge, with just a couple of degrees of clearance, it should start easily, if it wants to bite hard at such a shallow angle, it indicates something is wrong (and that something is often too little negative rake if it's a ripsaw).

Putting too much pressure on the saw is the number one "mistake" of beginners - I can still remember my dad admonishing me for "leaning" on saws, but in time sawing becomes so intuitive it's hard to deconstruct what's actually involved. When coaching a beginner, I have to observe closely what they are doing & think hard how my hands do it 'cos the conscious part of my brain long ago ceded the job to muscle-memory. You are obviously trying & experimenting keenly & I think you'll find it all coming together for you pretty quickly.

Cheers,

[MartinCH]

"Martin, I suspect what you have discovered is that sharp is trumps with any saw, but go easy on the "ragged" teeth idea. I'm sure you are working towards perfectly even teeth eventually, if only for pride's sake, but in the meantime getting your saws to cut well is the number one priority. "

Ian - I have not managed to do a rough cut yet with disston 77 style filling. I have tried. I didn't like the performance of the even teeth, the cutting pace slowed dramatically.
the teeth don't bind, and the is "uneven" set to cause the saw to deflect and jump in the groove ton generate roughness. It might be possible to cause the saw to track badly if one side is consistently high, but setting the saw like that is challenge.


"As for starting, your demo looks rather extreme - those deep tooth impressions suggest to me that you are bearing down on the saw too much. When starting, the saw should be under no more than its own weight - in fact with anything other than a light saw, I tend to ease the weight off on the first stroke or two. If you are starting the saw on the back edge, with just a couple of degrees of clearance, it should start easily, if it wants to bite hard at such a shallow angle, it indicates something is wrong (and that something is often too little negative rake if it's a ripsaw)."

Ian , I was trying to do something that not typically done as far as I know with handsaws. Plunge cut vertically down. I use the heel of the a saw when I do this, as you you need to pull the chips out. On hardwoods this is impractical as the horizontal push force is too large.

''Putting too much pressure on the saw is the number one "mistake" of beginners - I can still remember my dad admonishing me for "leaning" on saws, but in time sawing becomes so intuitive it's hard to deconstruct what's actually involved. When coaching a beginner, I have to observe closely what they are doing & think hard how my hands do it 'cos the conscious part of my brain long ago ceded the job to muscle-memory. You are obviously trying & experimenting keenly & I think you'll find it all coming together for you pretty quickly.''

Yes I know that sort of learning. I might be exaggerating but memory serves correct at age 6 or 7 it was explained that nails go in with one strike and that's the only way it happens. Sore thumbs stimulates that remberance. There was a long interlude, but the motions are automatic.

[Bushmiller]

I thought that might jolt you awake, Paul....

Ian

You are so right there. I was nearly late for work attempting to reply before I headed off.

I think Martin's saw is a panel saw of about 24" in length, but could be 22". Some of the 10 series saws had a different medallion placement and in some years the grip was wheat carved. That saw has only three saw screws indicating it was less than 26" at the toothline. I couldn't see the medallion clearly, but I think the description is Simonds Saw and Steel (as opposed to Simonds Mfg.) If I am right in this, it was made between 1923 and 1926. The medallion placement is correct for that time and the handle too is in keeping for those years with no wheat carving.

Regards
Paul

[MartinCH]

Paul, your know more about my saw that I did - handle is beech, medallion 1923-26 (Simonds Saw and Steel Medallion) length 22 inches 10 TPI. 10 1/2 it is.
The Simonds is a nice looking saw. Not refiled yet. Pending better skill..

Ian - after considerable persistence I have formed teeth that are almost right and consistent. There remains subtle angle changes but they are small. It is not quite at a professional standard, but close. I have started to spot when the angle is slightly off as I file.
Will probably take one more teeth forming pass over it tomorrow and then refile for 45 degree flem at around 8 TPI and see how it saws then...

[Bushmiller]

Martin

You hinted at Simonds being an obscure make and it is true that it was not so well known in Oz, but for just over twenty five years Simonds was second only to the giant Disston company in the manufacture of hand saws worldwide. Probably they were on a par with Atkins. However, while Disston and Atkins fell by the wayside, Simonds still exists, although not in quite the same configuration as far as product is concerned. They are still a major manufacturer of bandsaws.

Regards
Paul

[MartinCH]

Paul,

I was stirring the pot a little. I had read though most of the key points in the 29 page thread on this forum. Was aware of the enthusiasm.

Thanks again for identify the model.

Regards

Martin