saw plates old VS new

[Zahid Naqvi]

I am very frugal when it comes to woodworking tools, purely functional when it comes to tool choices with no regard for brand names. That is why almost all of my tools are rehabbed old tools and some tuned up new tools. Hand saws are one thing I have not played around with much, other than learning how to hand sharpen them. I have one of those new Stanley back saws that comes with a very high end black plastic handle . The theory was the plate has got to be good enough and if I can put a nice wooden handle on it, it should serve my needs. Well I have had it for a few years now and it's been through a few sharpenings too. In general I have no issues. It's definitely "not" at the level of LV/LN or Wenzlof, but probably about 75% there. I had the opportunity to test a LV tenon saw courtesy of a local WWers and I could see that the saw was of top quality. Still the "jigged up" Stanley is good enough for me.

That brings me to my question. With my propensity to be frugal is it a better choice to hunt down old saws and look for something with a good plate or go buy a new one from the local borg. I probably will replace the handle in both cases (for some reason I prefer a thicker grip than stock even though I do not have big hands). Is there anything special in the older saw plates which it missing from the newer ones?

[Jonathan McCullough]

The older- and older-style saws have nice thick, heavy backs, so they seem to track with a bit more momentum and authority. The borg saws' backs are just enough to keep the thin sawplate straight, but they're so flimsy you can bend them with your hands. Some of the borg saws also have teeth that are kind of serrated and set about every 1/2 inch in a curious wave instead of properly filed and individually set teeth. Anyone's guess about the steel. Could be okay but I think there's probably a good chance of a lot of chrome, tungsten, vanadium to toughen them up for a life of abuse from Joe Nosepick ("this hack saw is for metal right? And deer bones?"). No idea on how much carbon or whether it's properly tempered--they're never blue so you can't tell, and I haven't been able to find a mass spectrometer or hardness tester at a garage sale yet. If they sharpen well and do what you ask I suppose it doesn't matter, but it's kind of nice to start out knowing you've got what's generally accepted as being the best tool that's constructed with what are known to be the best materials. As for the handles, I wouldn't mind plastic with foam grippy stuff as long as it were ergonomic. But we're wood workers, and well proportioned classic saw handles made from the right woods are striking, useful, comfortable, and something we can do ourselves--or at least admire if our interests are solely the use of such saws.

[Nixon Roger]

Another "frugal" guy here. I have a couple of Wenzloffs and several Disston #4's. If you like old tools and fixing them, you will love old saws. My Disstons aren't as pretty as my Wenzloffs and I can't sharpen like Mike & his boys but I enjoy them a lot.

[Johnny Kleso]

All of my users (main users) I have 20-30 back saws are Tyzack and Turner back saws I bought at eBay for less than $60 each of the 8", 10", 12" and 14" that where sold at WoodCraft during the 70s Thhe company is about or was about 100 years old and high quality..

As for CC and rip saws buy a nice Sears ovver a old beat up bent and rusty Diston..
Find the nice old saws on eBay that are not as colllectable you can find some really nice saws for not to much if you put in the time..

[Nixon Roger]

I found this rusty Disston at a flea market for $2.



After about an hour it looked like this:



Nice Disston #12 with nib. What does Sears have that is comparable?

[Johnny Kleso]

Sears at one time sold Atkins saws oof a high quality...
I cant find any right now at eBay but the point is I would not spend my time on an old pitted saw just because it WAS a quality saw at one time..

IMHO I would buy a Sandvik saw like this that sold at eBay for $12.50
Sandvik makes the highest quality spring steel (saw steel)
1.jpg3.jpg2.jpg

[Johnny Kleso]

Zahid,
Here is a pic of the 1950's Diston saws I started out with
tbl.jpg

Then you can not see so well the four Tyzack back saws at bottom..
I have bought about 100 saws over the last 10 years and have scraped, cleaned, filed and set then as well as refinsh handles..
When it comes to saws you want a bright shiny smooth and slick surface..
There is almost no difference in quality of steel and just a little in taper ground blades..
I worked at my last job mantaining the machines of a saw blade maker..
If you looking for saws to cut wood and not collect a Sandvik or older Sears saw in very good conndition is the way to go..

cabinet.jpg

[Jim Koepke]

That brings me to my question. With my propensity to be frugal is it a better choice to hunt down old saws and look for something with a good plate or go buy a new one from the local borg.

The last borg saw I bought was for my son almost 20 years ago.

It is not that great of a saw, but allowed my son to cut up pieces of wood. I still have the saw and it is at the bottom of the pile.

I have a few Disston back saws. Some were my dad's that he bought in the 50s or 60s. They work OK, but they do not seem to hold an edge as well as the older saws that I have picked up at antique stores and yard sales. My current favorite is a Disston that I think is about 16" and filed for cross cut. It cost me $6 in an antique shop.

Today I had to cut off some legs from a table in the greenhouse that had been attacked by carpenter ants. (If only they were union and I could get them to do carpentry to my design.) I used one of my beaters, an old Simonds "Warranted Superior" with about 5 ppi. Even without any thing to hold the double 2X4 legs still but my other hand the cuts all came out almost as square as if they were done on a bench with a hook. These were kind of wiggly and up in the air about 4'. I was impressed by how well that old saw does its work.

Some of the borg saws also have teeth that are kind of serrated and set about every 1/2 inch in a curious wave instead of properly filed and individually set teeth.

That is one of the new ideas in commercial saws. Instead of variable pitch or rake, they are going with variable set.

jtk

[David Weaver]

The FTJ tool sale was up this morning with some nice saws. I got a nice groves rip saw for $35.

I would say old saws are nicer. they won't crosscut as fast as a new saw with japanese teeth, but they sure do feel a lot better, and they are easy to refresh (and can be made to do a finer finish).

Unless you are really lucky, though, if you buy all old saws, you will end up with ones that you aren't too excited about.

But I would still buy old saws. they have a ring, tension and taper that new saws don't have. (we are talking about frugal buyer's saws).

I would find decent D8s or #7s, whatever your flavor is (whichever handle style you like), and plan to spend $10 at a flea market or $40 or a little more online if you're going to get from a seller who is honest.

What do you need? Panel or carpenters saws, rip or crosscut? Or do you need a whole kit of stuff that will do everything short of resawing wide boards?

[john brenton]

That's some serious big tooth/little tooth going on right there. Looks like the kind of sharpening job I would do. I was kicking myself for not picking up a pair of old new stock, top of the line Sandvik saws. I saw them online for cheap but decided not to because of the handle...but then I saw one in person and the handle was very comfortable.

IMHO I would buy a Sandvik saw like this that sold at eBay for $12.50
Sandvik makes the highest quality spring steel (saw steel)
1.jpg3.jpg2.jpg

[george wilson]

I would always opt for a good brand old saw. Even from the 50's is too late. The turn of the century or earlier will have better spring steel in them. We had a bunch of Garlick saws in Wmsbg. Before I became toolmaker,they used to buy them without handles and make handles for them. They were soft as butter. And,they were ground incredibly rough!!! No using their shiny plates to check for squareness!! There were several in the Cabinet Shop. I would not use them.

[Rob Streeper]

I recently acquired an Ames 2-S hardness tester. This tester measures superficial hardness on the Rockwell N and T scales. It is specifically designed for measuring the hardness of thin materials. In the process of using this tester on a number of saws I own, both old and new, I found some very interesting results. Here's the data and statistics.

Custom saw plate hardness measurements 011115a.jpg

The first table is for various samples of 1995 steel, commonly used by boutique saw makers. The second is data derived from testing of the products of three boutique saw makers. The third table is data from testing of a number of older Disston saws that I own. The last table presents the results of the statistical analysis of the data in tables 1 to 3.

The conclusions I draw are:

1) 1095 steel is a consistent product. Despite the fact that the test materials were purchased from different sources over a period of several years the hardness values for the products were all very similar with a remarkably low standard deviation of 0.34 Rc points. Plus these tight results show you that both my technique and my hardness tester are working well.

2) Of the custom makers, only one is using the equivalent of 1095 steel. The other two makers represented in my collection are using softer material. Maker 3 is using very soft metal, 40% softer than 1095, - likely because it's cheaper and/or easier to work with. Maker 2 is using something that is about 7% softer. The highly significant t values (t < 0.05) for these measurements indicate a high degree of confidence that the measurements are not due to chance.
Maker 2's saws work just fine for me, but I'm not using them for production work.

3) Disston's products varied in hardness over the years. The Disston saws in my collection were manufactured in the period spanning from post WW1 to post WW2. The variability is not too surprising because the concepts of industrial quality control were in their infancy in the early 20th century. Disston also used steel that is harder by just under 4%, or about 2 Rc points, than is 1095 but the difference is on the edge of statistical significance (t = 0.04).

Further, modern custom saws made with raw 1095 steel are not as hard as are older Disston saws. If the plate hardness is important and if Disston optimized his products we've actually taken a step backward in our unquestioning use of 1095.

[george wilson]

Are you really sure of the readings for the old Disston D8's and #4 in your chart? at 58 Rockwell C scale(I know you said your tester did N scale and T scale,but your results for 1095 steel are very close to the very consistent 52 RC I got from the 1095 I bought) ? It would not be possible to file saws that hard,and they would be so brittle as to snap off very,very easily,IF they were C scale numbers.

Are you aware that there are 3 different N and T scales? And,they are for specific types of steels,cast irons,and other materials? For example,there is a 15N,30N and a 45N scale. Differing T scales too.

I haven't worked with the N and T scales,so I really don't know what I'm looking at here.

[Rob Streeper]

Hi George,

Yes, I know about the different scales. The tester came with two calibration blocks and the readings were dead on despite the fact that the documents in the box indicated that it was produced in 1969.
I measured the hardness of each saw plate by removing the handle and testing the bright steel there after solvent cleaning. I made no special effort to polish the steel. On the Disstonian institute discussion of saw steel there are some hardness testing results but the values reported were for test points were near the teeth. It is also written there that the hardness measured was higher under the handles. I suspect that the roughness that is naturally to be expected in the region of the teeth caused the measured hardness readings to be low. Another possibility of course would be that the steel in the area of the teeth is softer, but why do that? I know that Disston hammer tensioned and tempered their plates but I've never read anything detailed about their procedures.

Cheers,
Rob

[Rob Streeper]

Please post responses to this thread: http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...-of-saw-plates
Another member suggested I start an independent posting for this subject.
Thanks,
Rob