Rake angle question

Just curious what rake angles other saw sharpeners use. As some of you know I am in the process of rehabbing about 4 back saws and have sharpened about 3 of them so far. Previously I just stuck with the recommendations of Vintage Saws, since I mostly had one saw to sharpen at a time. This time I had multiples so I experimented a bit. The rip was filed with a 4 deg rake which I think is just about perfect for my needs. On the X-cuts I have tried both 4 deg and 8 deg. The 4 deg was a little too steep, the saw wanted to grab all the time and the cut was not very smooth either. The 8 deg is much better, still grabs when starting but cuts very smooth and fast. Is there any significant advantage going higher than 8 deg, the most common recommended angle I have seen is around 12-15 deg range. For me that doesn't cut fast enough.
just curious what angles others use or recommend, or do you have saws with multiple configuration for various woods.

My sharpening is also mostly based on the instructions at VintageSaws dot com.

So far my preference has been more for about 8° rake for rip and 15° for crosscut. I tend to like a smoother cut over a faster cut.

This is one of the advantages of having a few saws for experimentation. There isn't really a right answer for everyone or every use.

Another thing that can cause a saw to be grabby is a tall tooth or two. This would be evident in the same place(s) along the saw plate.

jtk

I tend to like most of my rips with 0 deg rake. I find the rake on a rip is really aimed at ease, or lack there of, of starting the cut. But once you are at a point that starting the saw is no longer an issue I find that the speed with less rake is more important. I guess while in the cut one can notice the grabbyness of no rake but again I find that this is overcome with technique. While ripping I want it to go as fast as possible.

X-cutting I find is a different animal depending on the what the saw's purpose is. While cutting peices to finished length on a bench hook I want my main objective to be the smoothness of the cut with speed no longer as important. Therefore I like about 8 to 12 deg of rake on a x-cut saw. This helps with how smooth I am in an important slowish cut. Although I find the set of the teeth determines how smooth a finish there is on the cut. The rake just helps things go nice and smooth.

YMMV

For full size saws, I generally like 0˚ rake on the rip and around 4˚ rake on the cross-cut saws. Since I use hand planes (and, for cross-cuts, a shooting board) to clean-up the surface and to bring the board to final width/length, speed is more important to me than surface quality. (You haven't lived until you've used a 10 tpi Japanese saw [the coarsest saw I had at the time] to rip 6 four-foot lengths of 6/4 red oak -- that was when I decided it was time to "discover" Western-style saws.....) For back saws, where precision and surface quality is more important than speed for me, I like 4˚ - 5˚ rake on rip saws, and 8˚ to 10˚ on cross-cut saws.

Zahid,

I think this is a really interesting question, and as Jim mentioned being able to experiment with different rake, fleam, gullett angles and set configurations to find out what works best for you and the work you like to do, is one of the best reasons to sharpen your own saws.

For me, the best set up for crosscutting with backsaws is based on the hardness of the wood you are using and the size of the sawing task e.g. crosscutting finished panels to length (big), versus tenon shoulders (small).

For larger backsaw crosscutting tasks (8-12 PPI) in North American hardwoods, I like 12° of rake and 20° of fleam, with total set equivalent 15% of saw plate thickness. I like 20%-30% set for soft woods, depending on how wet they are.

I think you'll find 12° of rake to be a lot smoother crosscut than 8°, without much sacrifice in speed.

For smaller backsaw crosscutting tasks (13-18 PPI) or harder or tropical woods, I like 15° or rake and 25° of fleam. I find this gives a cut that is very easy/accurate to start, with a smooth finish in exchange for a small sacrifice in speed.

If you are finding your crosscut backsaws with 12° of rake to be slower than you would like, you might want to check:

A) Fleam angle; less than 20° will slow the speed of cut.

B) The overall thickness of the saw plate and corresponding curve. I find backsaws with .018" - .025" thick saw plates to cut significantly faster than some of my vintage Disston and Jackson & Spears backsaws which have plate thicknesses around .035". I'm not making a value judgment about what's "better", these are just the differences I see.

For backsaws set up for ripping, I like 5° Rake and 5° of Fleam.

Zahid, thanks again for an interesting question. These setups are just what I like, I'm very interested to hear what others have to say.

All the best, Mike

For Rip teeth, I file the front of the tooth 90° to the tooth line with a 3 to 5° fleam angle so the tooth cuts like a skew angle plane and with very little set, makes the saws go thru the material very fast and easy with no flopping around in a wide kerf, thus stays on the line easier. removing less material = less time and effort to make the cut.

Harry, I think you are the first person who has mentioned a slight fleam angle on a rip saw. I suspect with hand filing a slight fleam angle sneaks in inevitably. But it's an interesting idea, I think I need to acquire another saw to try this on, good thing Dawd's tool sale is coming up soon.