I just bought the Knew Concept fret saw, and I don't like it.

[george wilson]

I can saw very accurately with a jeweler's saw. But,it's still a saw,and leaves a sawn surface that at least has to be filed smooth.

When I made the marquetry guitar,I used a yew wood fret saw I made that had a 2' deep throat,to encompass the guitar body. I used 6/0 jeweler's saw blades,too. You guys try holding THAT up with your wrist for hours on end,sawing right to the line. Those tiny blades are like a hair,and will snap if you look at them wrong. In marquetry,there is no room for errors. If you deviate from the line,it will be seen on the background even if you go back and fix the one piece.

In the 18th. C.,marquetry sawers made their OWN blades from watch springs,filing their teeth with needle files. They did just fine.

Anyway,I made that saw as light as possible. But,it just HAD to have strength enough to tension the blade. That took getting used to.

A regular jeweler's saw or normal off the shelf fret saw? I never gave a 2nd thought to using anything more "advanced". What's the fuss about saving a teeny amount of weight ?

[David Weaver]

I've only had one occasion to do deep work with a fret saw and it was something that I can't recall, furniture repair or whatever, and for it I bought the very deep fret saw that LV has. I noticed that it, too, was heavy in use, but to some extent, a saw with a 6 inch blade (or whatever) and a foot of clearance is always going to be a little bit unwieldy. I like the german fret saws fine, though, and kept one of that style. They're very easy to get tight if you use your body weight to set them by putting the fixture on the top of the saw on the edge of the bench (rather the rod that sticks out of it) and then placing a hand on the frame and handle and leaning on it before tightening the top screw. You can get so much tension like that, that you can pull the fretsaw blades right out of their clamps if you're not careful.

For a while, I used that style of saw for dovetails (and the KC aluminum saw for a little bit, too), and preferred the german type for general use because, well, you didn't worry about breaking it because another one would be $15, and the use of it was simple. Clamp the blades in the ends without tension, and then lean on the saw and tighten the screw at the top of the saw. If any surface (on the saw) doesn't hold like you like it to, just scuff it, and it will.

I still prefer a coping saw for dovetails of any size, though, as it seems a lot of people do. I can get decent enough blades anywhere for cheap, including at HD and go straight down through the pin waste or tail waste and then straight across without much regard for the saw.

[Derek Cohen]

Derek: THIS thread is not a trainwreck!!! Try reading the silly saw nib thread!!! Even supposed woodworkers like Shepherd thing the round nib is for starting cuts. It's just amazing.

George, you're right. I am overreacting .... just a smidgeon, mind you. Some of the comments, however, were just ignorant, and I should not be reading these while writing reports.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[george wilson]

Aggravatin,ain't it?

[Stewie Simpson]

Hi Derek. Is it not unreasonable to question some of the comments you make as being potentially biased if your close friends with the owner of the toolmaking business.

As for Chris Schwarz and his tool reviews. A bias would potentially exist with any review Chris does on LV tools. You just need to note his blog site major sponsor.http://www.popularwoodworking.com/wo...s-schwarz-blog

Stewie;

[John Coloccia]

It's designed around metal working and jewelry. I'm not sure why people are buying them just to rough out dovetail waste. I'd love to have their precision saw frame for cutting shell. Knew Concepts stiffness and tensioning mechanisms are clearly superior to regular coping and fret saws, especially many of the ones you can buy today. The typical coping saws being sold are of very poor quality and often lack the ability to properly tension the blade no matter how tight you make it, though some don't seem as bad as others. Still, stiffer is better.

If you can afford it, and you want a better saw, it seems silly to worry about what some other woodworker or blog thinks about it. The one thing I don't like is that I typically use very thin blades, and they break a lot in shell. With my regular saw, I can keep using the same blade until it's too short. Then again, if I could reliably get more tension on it without over tensioning it, it would probably break less and cut smoother with less effort, so maybe it's a wash. These days, I farm out most of my shell work because I think it's a complete waste of time when my suppliers can do it faster and better with water jets and things like that. If I started doing more custom work, I'd certainly try one.

But even the most expensive titanium saw is what, $200? Some people, maybe even some in this very thread, have probably paid that and more just for a stupid sharpening stone. I think I paid more than that for one of my bandsaw blades. I don't think it would benefit me and my work at this time, but if I did I'd certainly pick one up and try it.

[David Weaver]

stupid sharpening stone

many!! though I wouldn't suggest it for other people unless they have the same fascination that I do with stones. If someone has the same fascination with jeweler's saws, then that's in the same notion of spending gobs on a specialty sharpening stone, but like those interested in stones, the users of the saw in that context would be few. That's sort of my point. If you're into that kind of thing, by all means spend the money. If you're not, then spend it somewhere else - on the things you're into.

The utility of the KC saws for actually accomplishing completion of work vs. other saws (be it on a results basis or a time spent basis) has been completely overstated over the last couple of years. Just as it would be overstated if I suggested people should buy kyoto mountain stones for any of their harder carbon steels. For doing the work, it makes no difference.

As far as guitars go "what do you mean I can't have the doves on the fingerboard?". Does anyone cut them with a scroll saw instead? They all appeared to be water or laser cut on every guitar that I had, but I never ordered any super duper mosaic scenes on a guitar, either. I'd be surprised if much of that stuff that's coming from custom shops doesn't originate in a drawing and get cut by a machine.

[dan sherman]

It always amazes me how the simplest of threads turns into a pissing contest......


The OP never stated that he purchased The KC saw because he thought it was better or faster than a cheaper saw regardless of it being a fret or coping saw. All he said is he bought the saw to speed up cutting dovetails. As others have said, sawing out waste can be easier/faster than chopping it out in certain scenarios. It's sad that almost no one tried to help the guy figure out his problem.

[John Coloccia]

As far as guitars go "what do you mean I can't have the doves on the fingerboard?". Does anyone cut them with a scroll saw instead? They all appeared to be water or laser cut on every guitar that I had, but I never ordered any super duper mosaic scenes on a guitar, either. I'd be surprised if much of that stuff that's coming from custom shops doesn't originate in a drawing and get cut by a machine.

Ha ha...why yes, I was talking about your sharpening stone fetish, David LOL

Certainly all of the big guys have their pearl cut on machines. I doubt if many cut them in house. It's really just best to farm it out most times. I believe PRS actually sends their fingerboards to the same outfit to be cut as well, and they just glue them in when they come back. They probably use Pearlworks. A lot of people do. They really are the best at this sort of thing and they've been doing it forever. I'm fortunate that I have a shell supplier just a short drive from my house...Masecraft. I believe they'll do custom runs too, but I've never tried it. I just buy the raw material, dot inlays and abalone rosette pieces from them.

I tried using a scroll saw. It's just not gentle enough, IMHO, and the parallelogram movement really screws things up as well. I didn't have a fun time. It also seems to want to constantly lift the MOP if you're not careful. It was a miserable week trying to get it to work for me. Some of the linear motion ones, especially the ones you can slow way down, look like they'd do a great job. Knew Concepts makes one of those too, though it's quite expensive. If that was my thing, though, I'd surely look into buying one. There are people that do inlay full time.

But most little guys just cut out any custom work by hand with a jewelers saw and bench pin. It goes pretty fast. It's crazy for repetitive work, though, because it's so cheap just to buy it if you have any sort of volume. I not only purchase my logo, they also inlay it for me in my truss rod cover. It saves me a lot of work, and I don't remember what I pay for them each, but it's not a lot. Maybe $15 each, or something like that, in batches of 5 or so. Maybe that's off a bit, but it's really not even worth worrying about on a guitar.

[David Weaver]

It always amazes me how the simplest of threads turns into a pissing contest......


The OP never stated that he purchased The KC saw because he thought it was better or faster than a cheaper saw regardless of it being a fret or coping saw. All he said is he bought the saw to speed up cutting dovetails. As others have said, sawing out waste can be easier/faster than chopping it out in certain scenarios. It's sad that almost no one tried to help the guy figure out his problem.

I think we can read the first post and gather:
* He doesn't really have a problem, he already solved it (he's sending the saw back). He's only looking to find out if anyone else had the same problem

I think he can read the rest of the posts and gather:
* No, nobody else seems to have had the same problem (i don't know how many people on here have actually bought a KC saw, though)

I had something else break on my saw, but it wasn't the same thing. I bought one of the early saws that had plastic fixtures to tighten and the wings broke off and I took a loss on that selling it. That's sort of irrelevant to the OP's problem, it's not the same issue and the fixtures on my saw were not like the fixtures are on the saws now.

[David Weaver]

Ha ha...why yes, I was talking about your sharpening stone fetish, David LOL

Certainly all of the big guys have their pearl cut on machines. I doubt if many cut them in house. It's really just best to farm it out most times. I believe PRS actually sends their fingerboards to the same outfit to be cut as well, and they just glue them in when they come back. They probably use Pearlworks. A lot of people do. They really are the best at this sort of thing and they've been doing it forever. I'm fortunate that I have a shell supplier just a short drive from my house...Masecraft. I believe they'll do custom runs too, but I've never tried it. I just buy the raw material, dot inlays and abalone rosette pieces from them.

I tried using a scroll saw. It's just not gentle enough, IMHO, and the parallelogram movement really screws things up as well. I didn't have a fun time. It also seems to want to constantly lift the MOP if you're not careful. It was a miserable week trying to get it to work for me. Some of the linear motion ones, especially the ones you can slow way down, look like they'd do a great job. Knew Concepts makes one of those too, though it's quite expensive. If that was my thing, though, I'd surely look into buying one. There are people that do inlay full time.

But most little guys just cut out any custom work by hand with a jewelers saw and bench pin. It goes pretty fast. It's crazy for repetitive work, though, because it's so cheap just to buy it if you have any sort of volume. I not only purchase my logo, they also inlay it for me in my truss rod cover. It saves me a lot of work, and I don't remember what I pay for them each, but it's not a lot. Maybe $15 each, or something like that, in batches of 5 or so. Maybe that's off a bit, but it's really not even worth worrying about on a guitar.

I'd do the same thing if I were in your shoes. I know george has talked about scroll saws sanding the sides of pieces in an unwanted way, i guess I'm not surprised to hear that in practice it doesn't work like one would want.

Years ago, I bought a guitar from a custom maker and they touted their inlays. They'd gotten some machine that cut custom inlays (this was a place with about a half dozen employees, I guess they could justify it), and I noticed that everything they did had the same inlays after that (they didn't charge me much extra for the inlays, though, and I could tell that at what they charged me there's no way someone could do all of that work by hand).

I had two banjos from them, too, and the first one had some pretty poor quality engraving on it (but it was done by hand). They also bought some kind of computer engraver, and that was the end of the "bad" engraving, but I'd rather have had that done by hand, anyway. Most customers probably don't care.

[Sean Hughto]

https://www.toolsforworkingwood.com/...item/MS-PSG.XX

[david charlesworth]

I don't know if anyone has mentioned this yet, I find a jewellers saw infinitely preferable to a coping saw for small dovetails. Over here we have a tradition of 5/16" drawer sides and of course on small furniture much less. Dressing table mirrors for instance.

I can select a blade that fits down a saw kerf, even a Japanese Dozuki kerf perhaps. (There are some great skip tooth blades about.)

The only Jewellers saw I found that was easy to tension, was the cheap German model with the screw tension adjuster at the end opposite the handle.

Knew concept saws have significantly stiffer frames, which makes them a better tool in my opinion. The lever tensioning device is quicker and more convenient. The blade holding method is vastly superior. No more wondering if the blade is kinked. I think the designer should be applauded for his improvements to this humble tool. Some of the saws have detents at 45 degrees in either direction. I know one can bend a blade like Rob Cosman, but just swivelling is also good!

I appreciate one slight snag, the price is on the high side, but when was innovation and product development cheap?

PS I have actually bought two!

best wishes,
David

[george wilson]

John,I never use a scroll saw.We only ever used the one at work for cutting inside saw handles. I always cut inlay material by hand. But,I thought I was going to get a young "apprentice" last year. I thought a scroll saw would be a safe saw to use. I had a Hegner scroll saw that I got cheap. It was variable speed,but had that miserable walking beam action that moved the blade in and out. I got rid of it when an old Delta with straight up and down motion came along. Caution: They have a fragile pot metal part that can break. I made a steel replacement once.

The Delta does go straight up and down,though. And,the blades were a huge pain to change on the Hegner. Much easier on the old Delta.

My apprentice didn't work out. Maybe now that I'm older,and don't want to sit in the position to hand saw inlay,I might use the Delta some day. I'd like to put a variable speed control with a foot operated rheostat on it. One I can stop without reaching for a switch.

[Adam Cruea]

I bought a KC coping saw to cut a pumpkin out of padauk for my wife (hand to cut curves and a stem and stuff).

Worked just fine for that, although I did snap a few blades when they got caught. But then again, I don't really think a coping/fret saw is for dovetails. I just lop the waste out with a chisel, but I also don't do the huge tail, little pin DTs.

That's just my opinion. Much like belly buttons and rectums, everyone has them, and some stink. Mine is probably not an exception to that rule.