Random observations on saw sharpening(M

[Michael Ray Smith]

I've been slowly working on my saw sharpening skills for quite a while now. I'm still no expert, but I've advanced from my first truly disastrous efforts to a point of what I would call minimal competence (which, BTW, was the standard for passing the bar exam when I took it, but that's another conversation!). The problem for people like me -- just a hobbyist -- is the lack of an opportunity to work with experienced craftsmen who can show me what I'm doing wrong. I get great advice from George Wilson, Jim Koepke, and others on this site, but it's a far cry from, say, working as George's apprentice. I just finished sharpening a saw this afternoon, and I thought I'd post a few tips that people have given me on this board and a few things I've figured out for myself that might be useful to other novices like me.

1. This is one came from someone on this board, but I don't recall gave it to me. Make sure you have excellent lighting. I'd bet in past years, saw sharpening stations were set up next to outside windows or even outdoors in order to get good light. I bought a couple of cheap desk la mps with flexble goose necks and mounted them above and just behind the top of my vice (which, BTW, is wall mounted). Makes all the difference in the world when you're trying to see the flat spots on top of the jointed teeth.
2. Similarly -- good magnfication helps, especially if, like me, you're old enough that your eyes don't do well with close work. I got one of those magnfiers mounted to a head strap that I use all the time. You can spend a fair amount of money on them, but mine's the cheapest one I could find, and it works just fine. It has a monocle that swings down for extra magnification when you need it.
3. Another tip for helping you see what you're doing: Layout fluid. Use it. I bought a 4-oz bottle of Dykem blue on Amazon for less than $10, and it will last me a very long time. On the other hand, don't bother with the solvent they sell for cleaning up the layout fluid. It's a mixture of ethanol, acetone, isopropyl alcohol, and isopropyl acetate. (My guess: It's a waste solvent stream from some chemical manufacturing process, not something that is specifically formulated for this purpose.) You probably have some sort of solvent in your shop that will work as well or almost as well. Denatured alcohol doesn't seem to be quite as good as the Dykem solvent, but it's good enough. I'd guess fingernail polish remover, which is mostly acetone, would work fine, too.
4. Always joint the saw before sharpening, even if doesn't seem to need it. Go lightly with the file and stop as soon as every tooth has a flat spot on top. If the saw really didn't need to be jointed, all the flat spots will be the same width -- something I've yet to see. And even if it truly didn't need to be jointed, you'll need those flat spots for the purpose of the next tip, which was my single most important learning point.
5. Ignore the advice to use exactly the same number of file strokes on each tooth, at least for the time being. Blindly following that advice led to some of my biggest disasters. (It probably works if all the teeth are already uniform and if you take the same amount of metal with each stroke. Neither of those is likely to be true, at least at first.) Instead, focus on sharpening the teeth just enough that you remove the flat part created by jointing, and then STOP! Of course, that means on the first pass on one side of the saw, you have to anticipate how much of the flat will be removed on the next pass down the other side. Which leads to the next tip.
6. That said, a tooth here and there that's a bit shorter than the others probably won't make much difference. So if you go too far on one, don't worry about it. . . at least not until you find out it's a problem when you test the sharpened saw. Better to leave a small mistake in place that to try to fix it and make two more mistakes in the process. Your work on sharpening a saw needs to be very good -- there's not much room between "very good" and "terrible" -- but it doesn't need to be perfect.
7. I sneak up on the goal of removing the flat spots on all the teeth by making at least two passes from each side of the saw, usually more, rather than trying to get it just right the first time. Maybe I'll get good enough that I don't have to do it that way, but for now it's better than wasting away the precious metal on a vintage saw by having to do it over.
8. A post-sharpening tip. If you're like me, you use just a few saws for most of your work, and you use them until they're pretty dull. You begin to compensate for the dull blade, and that's what your muscles remember. When you first use your freshly sharpened saw, you'll like find that you're still trying to compensate. Now that it's sharp, let the saw do the work, like it should have been doing all along.

Figure out what works for you and go with it, even if you find some article on the web that says you're doing it wrong. If you end up with a saw works for you, and if you don't waste too much of the metal getting there, you did it correctly. The saw is just the tool, something to use to make things out of wood. Or, as one of the professionals on this forum once said, "We don't make money sharpening tools."

[Tom M King]

I would add: take long light strokes, rather than short heavy ones, or at least if you buy full length files. I see people in videos taking short heavy strokes, and it's kind of like fingernails on a chalkboard to me.

I count strokes when sharpening a chainsaw chain, but never heard of anyone counting on a hand saw. You're right. It wouldn't work very good on a handsaw.

When I'm teaching someone to sharpen a saw, or a Scout to sharpen an axe, the first thing I do is to rig up a white sheet of paper to catch the shavings on the off side (top of axe), so they can see exactly how productive their effort into each stroke is. They can see that a long, light stroke can produce exactly the same amount of shavings as a short, heavy stroke. Sometimes you need one or the other, but it's a good thing to learn early in developing a feel for a file.

[Sean Hughto]

Thank you, Michael. This is my favorite sort of post. Highly useful information presented clearly, and best of all - based on real hands on personal experience. Thank you! Thank you! Good stuff.

[Stewie Simpson]

What you have offered is very sound advice Michael.

Stewie;

[Bruce Mack]

Thanks Michael. I hadn't thought of the layout fluid.

[Kees Heiden]

Some comments, just my experience which varies a little from yours.

About light, the best light I can make is a raking light from a low lamp in front of me. That really makes the flats on top of the teeth pop. I switch of all other lights in the shop. Too much light can be a bad thing. I work next to the door and when the sun comes around and shines through the door, I can stop working. Too much light washes out all features.

I can still file 20 ppi without magnification (Na na, na na na ) But I have multifocus glasse now too, so I am afraid I am on my way to blindness too.

I never understood what marking fluid is good for, The shimmering flats gives me all the info I need.

I do all the filing from one side. Crosscuts too. No swapping saws back and forth. After filing I stroke the sides of the teeth with an old oilstone anyway to remove any burrs.

And yes, I agree, we should sharpen these saws more often.

[Michael Ray Smith]

Some comments, just my experience which varies a little from yours.

I never understood what marking fluid is good for, The shimmering flats gives me all the info I need.

Give the layout fluid a try sometime. Seeing the flats when they're still wide is easy, but the fluid helps me see that last little bit. On a more macro scale, it also helps me keep track of which teeth I've done so far, which I suppose isn't as hard if you're doing all the work from one side. But when I'm doing the first pass on one side, just hitting every other tooth, even the teeth I've already done have some flat left, and it helps me keep track of how far I've gone, especially if I take a break while doing one side. But like I said, the bottom line is finding something that works for you, even if something different works for someone else.

[Warren Mickley]

I have counted strokes since I sharpened my first saw. That was over forty years ago. I had not read any instructions about sharpening for my first saw; counting strokes just seemed like a helpful thing. If I had read your suggestion not to count strokes at that time I would have thought you were nuts.

Since that time I have jointed a saw only when it "seems to need it". If you have a saw with an unknown history that you are sharpening for the first time, I can see doing a routine jointing. If you are sharpening a saw that you have been using and sharpening regularly you can have very good idea if it needs jointing.

Of course we make money sharpening tools. That is part of the very fabric of our work.

[David Weaver]

There's:
* no replacement for experience sharpening saws. If you do it, you'll get better at it, and better becomes fast with good results
* no replacement for decent quality files. They don't have to be high priced files, just something good (bacho fits that right now for everything xslim and better if you can handle buying boxes of 10)

Everyone probably does it a little different. I only joint when it's needed, and not every time. It takes too long and you can tell when it's needed. A single touch up going up the tooth line of a rip saw with two strokes a tooth will keep something like a rip saw (where you want that keenness) in shape for a long time before a joint is needed.

I also sharpen all from one side of the saw.

One tip I'd give for people who buy rip saws that need some major tooth reshaping and get irritated with the screeching you get with large teeth. Forget about chalk or any of that nonsense, angle the file up (as in drop the handle a little) about 5 degrees until you're close to finished and you'll find the file cuts smoothly (and fast) without any screeching. You can remove the angle in two light strokes or so when you're near done. It's probably better for the file, too. Not a thing to do for regular maintenance, but if you run across rip saws cheap, they often need a bit of corrective work and screech and squawk is really annoying.

[george wilson]

I would lightly run a piece of chalk,blue if possible,down the teeth of saws before sharpening. This was enough to help me see which tooth I had just sharpened,without the bother of getting layout dye off the saw later.

I did not bother to use a saw vise. Just clamped the saw down close to the teeth in a smooth jawed machinist's vise(I had to grind the vise's teeth off). This eliminated any screeching. I could get about 6" of tooth filing before I had to move the saw.

This was only for back saws. A saw vise would be used for wider saws,but the vastly more rigid machinist's vise was more effective in eliminating screeching than a saw vise. I was concerned about the deleterious effects of screeching upon the FILE teeth than just the bother of listening to it. Thus,I used the more effective machinist's vise,a large Starrett vise.

Of course,finding a smooth jawed machinist's vise is nearly impossible. I removed the serrated jaws and ground them smooth with my belt grinder. I always hated the damage that serrated jaws did to work that was clamped in them. Copper jaws soon got distorted ,and got chips embedded in them,and so I preferred to grind the steel jaws smooth when I got a new vise.

[Dave Parkis]

Thank you, Michael. This is my favorite sort of post. Highly useful information presented clearly, and best of all - based on real hands on personal experience. Thank you! Thank you! Good stuff.

^^^This. Thanks!!

[David Weaver]

I would lightly run a piece of chalk,blue if possible,down the teeth of saws before sharpening. This was enough to help me see which tooth I had just sharpened,without the bother of getting layout dye off the saw later.

I like marking fluid, too. I forgot to say it. i can see the flats in raking light well, but I don't have to bend down for raking light with dykem on the teeth (necessary to me only when jointing, though).

[Kees Heiden]

Give the layout fluid a try sometime. Seeing the flats when they're still wide is easy, but the fluid helps me see that last little bit. On a more macro scale, it also helps me keep track of which teeth I've done so far, which I suppose isn't as hard if you're doing all the work from one side. But when I'm doing the first pass on one side, just hitting every other tooth, even the teeth I've already done have some flat left, and it helps me keep track of how far I've gone, especially if I take a break while doing one side. But like I said, the bottom line is finding something that works for you, even if something different works for someone else.

Like I said, my version is just a variation.
I tried the layout fluid, but I prefer to look at the shiny flats, not red or blue ones.

[Michael Ray Smith]

Like I said, my version is just a variation.
I tried the layout fluid, but I prefer to look at the shiny flats, not red or blue ones.

Well, we've already established that your eyes are better than mine!!

[Michael Ray Smith]

I would lightly run a piece of chalk,blue if possible,down the teeth of saws before sharpening. This was enough to help me see which tooth I had just sharpened,without the bother of getting layout dye off the saw later.

Not to mention getting the layout dye off your hands! As usual, George comes up with a darn-why-didn't-I-think-of-that tip.