Reducing Set

[Daniel Sutton]

I used a hammer and anvil. I used very light blows, going down each side if the plate. I didn't lose any teeth and almost all of the set was removed.
The saw I was working on had a lot of tooth issues so I wasn't too scared to hit it. I made my hammer blows with half of the head on the teeth and half on the plate. It was a slightly rounded face hammer on a flat anvil face.

[Noah Wagener]

To me the Wenzloff method does not make sense the way he explains it. He says that paper does not compress so aren't you just thickening the vise jaws? I would thick you would want the paper on the plate but not the teeth to act as a stop for the vise. What i think actually happens with his method is that the teeth are brought flush to the plate but return to some medium position between flush and the over set you were trying to correct.

[Mike Allen1010]

I've had limited success w/ metal vice to reduce set. I've also tried clamping tooth line between flat steel bars, etc. My experience is will make the set consistent, but will still have significant spring back/set remaining.

IMHO best solution if restoring old saw which typically requires significant jointing, teeth re-profiling anyway, is to just sharpen through the exsisting set and then add back only what is appropriate ( 20% of thickest portion of plate-heal@tooth line- for hardwoods and 25% for SW is solid starting point). As your experience and degree of taper ground into the plate increase , less set is preferable.

Consistent, accurate set and tooth height are key for excellènt performance. Angles matter but execution of set and tooth height are what seperate a well tuned saw from one that has been "sharpened".

Should track layout line w/ no "steering" required. When you have it right really very fun and easy - just like well fettled hand plane- some tuning required.

All the best, Mike