Small Handsaw Usefullness, A Century Ago

[Stew Denton]

I tried the little 16" 10 point cross cut saw that I have been restoring today, and I was extremely pleased.

For a carpenter that did small odd small carpentry jobs, I could see how it would be very useful in a carpenters tool box, along with a similar sized rip saw. You want to be able to carry a lot of tools to do odd jobs, to be able to face different types of tasks, but don't want to carry a ton of weight. This would have been especially true a century ago in the small types of towns I grew up in, and maybe in a lot of other locations as well.

Back then the carpenter would have had to walk to where the job was every day. He had to carry his tool box to the job, and he didn't want to go back home to get a tool, so his tools had to be flexible and be able to handle many types of tasks. Thus the small odd job carpenter probably wasn't going to carry several 26" to 28" saws, a big jointer plane, and several jack, smoothing, and fore planes. He knew what jobs he was going to do that day, so brought specialized tools he needed, and would have left out others. If he was building a small shed, his bigger saws would have come along, not the 16" saws, but for a lot of jobs the 16" saws would have been just fine.

You can see why Stanley marketed their #6 as a shorter jointer plane. A #4 and a #6 with a couple of different shaped blades, and a Stanley 45 could do lots of different things. An older carpenter friend, of years ago, told me he did a lot of work with a Stanley 45 when building houses when working for his dad 50+ years before I knew him.

At any rate, I can see why a small saw would be useful for such a tradesman.

What do you think, was that why Disston sold the smaller, yet high quality saws?

What tools would you take in your carpenters tool box if you were a small job carpenter a century ago?

Regards,

Stew

[Winton Applegate]

Yah, I am not all that tall, 5'-8" and find a good height for a saw horse is much closer to the ground than the saw horses my Dad used (with his circular saw).
My point is with the longer saws I have to be careful not to hit the ground.

I could do about every thing bench plane wise with a #4 plane if I had to. I would rely heavily on making a straight edge or two on the spot out of the wood I had to work with to test the surfaces rather than use a jointer. And probably a scrub. I get a lot of use out of a scrub plane and it is quite small.

I think back to Toshio Odate and reading about how he did this vary thing with his master in post WWII Japan. Toshio carried the tool box for his master and they walked to the job sites. They made the work surface when they got there and it stayed with the house when they were through so it was there when they did more work in future years. They did a huge amount of work with very flimsy saws and relatively short planes.

[Bill Houghton]

Hmmm...not so sure. Kind of random thoughts here.

If carpenters commonly carried saws in the length now called "toolbox saws," wouldn't we see more of them in the wild? I've got some short saws - on which, by and large, the handles are in scale with the sawplate - but I've probably seen 50 or even 100 26" saws for every short one. I suspect the short saws were "manual training" - shop class - saws as much as anything. I've purchased three or four of the good examples i've found, not because I expect to use them; the handles are too small. No, I bought them because I continue, in the face of contrary evidence, to believe that one or both of my sons will get around to producing a grandchild at some point, and I'll need suitably sized saws when I start teaching him/her in the shop.

From what I've read, carpenters who worked on a job for a while - building a house, for instance - would have a decent-sized box that they carried or had carted to the job. It would be interesting to find out how much "fixit" work was part of a carpenter's work year, and whether carpenters maintained a separate box for that purpose; and, if so, how they carried their saws.

I've got a metal "carpenter's toolbox," long enough to accommodate handsaws and a two-foot level. Mine has a handle on one end, and one on the top. I've assumed that the handle on the end is to pull it out of the truck, and the one on top to carry it. I've seen catalog pictures of these with loops on each end for a strap, I presume to transfer some of the load to the shoulder. But I've never thought to load mine with the kit I would expect to carry to a fixit job, so I could see what it would weigh.

From the perspective of "get in, get the job done, get out," and imagining what decisions I would make were I a carpenter at the turn of the last century or before, I'd probably prefer to carry full-length saws in a separate carrier than to make cuts in twice as many saw strokes with a short saw. It's harder to maintain a good rhythm with a saw shorter than is right for my arm length.

Winton raises a good point. Some of the saw articles in Popular Woodworking have hinted at the idea that saw stroke and thus saw length should relate to the height of the individual sawyer. We know that average height has increased over the last century, and there were no doubt lots of 5'6" and even 5'4" carpenters at the turn of the last century. Where are all the 24" saws? I do see them at yard sales, but not many of them; and usually in lower-quality saws, implying purchase by a homeowner who knew s/he needed a saw, but was saving a few pennies by getting the shorter one.

[george wilson]

Short saws are not really that much different from Japanese saws if you think about it. And,it's not just because Japanese carpenters are smaller. Their saws have a useful stroke distance.

I prefer the normal Western size saws,but a shorter one will get the job done,too.

[Jim Koepke]

It wouldn't surprise me to learn that most of these shorter saws were made for much younger woodworkers.

It is a good way to keep the kids from messing with your good saws.

jtk