Hand saw repair?

[Mike Holbrook]

I have been working on getting my nest of hand and back saws in better shape. I watched Ron Herman's DVD on tuning hand saws again. Then I started testing how straight each cut. Oddly enough the ones with perfectly straight, professionally tuned, blades cut way better. I have several saws I like that do not cut straight no matter how much I try to get them to.
I have been thinking about making a wooden box to hold 3-6 saws and shipping them to a professional to have them worked on. These saws have waves/kinks that are easy to see sighting down the blades. I would not call them badly bent. Two or three saws look relatively straight but I feel more problem than I can see while I am using them. A saw I just bought that I thought from the pictures and sellers description cut very straight actually cuts consistently off on both the top down plane and the side to side plane. I can feel it rubbing while it cuts. I can see a little weave sighting along the blade but it does not look that bad.

I am good sharpening my saws but I am not comfortable trying to bend or hammer a nice saw blade back into shape. I am hoping fellow posters may have suggestions concerning a professional who is good at working out those kinds of issues?

[Jerry Thompson]

Contact Mike Allen, mikeallen1010@roadrunner.com, 858-220-5611. He restored my father's D-8 and did a wonderful job.

[Mike Holbrook]

Thanks Jerry,
I believe Mike is a poster here. I would like to support a fellow Creeker's efforts. I will give him a call. Maybe he can give me ideas about how best to ship nice vintage saws. It has taken years of research, experimentation and long hours on auction sites to acquire saws I like. I would hate to have them damaged or lost. They have become a little like family, which is why I have beeb avoiding doing this for a year or two.

[george wilson]

If a saw won't cut straight,the main problem is usually that the teeth are not set equally on both sides. Sometimes the teeth are all higher on one side from incorrect sharpening technique. These problems are greater than having a little bend in the blade.

It is amazing how craftsmen who have been sawing for many years may have no idea how to keep their saws in correct fettle. I was summoned to the Housewright's site one time. Their pit saw would not cut straight,and no one had any idea why. That included the supervisor. I looked at the saw and found that the teeth were over 1/8" higher on one side,and the setting was lop sided. I explained to them what to do. Several days later I was summoned again. They were about HALF way there! I explained again what was needed. It was as if they did not have eyes to see. A week later,they asked me to come look again. This time,they finally had gotten the teeth right,and the saw was sawing straight!

[Mike Holbrook]

George, thanks for the response.The Ron Herman video discusses "tuning" a saw. Ron advocates running a file over the sides of the teeth to correct the issue of a saw tending to run off one way or the other. I think Ron's idea is this corrects a problem with too much drag on one side or the other of the cut. Ron does not cover crooked cuts from top to bottom, just right to left.

It sounds like George is saying to check to see if the setting or filling job has made the teeth uneven too. I am not sure if he is correcting how even the teeth are across the tops or tips of the teeth or along the sides. Probably the teeth have to be even in both dimensions? I put a level, thinking it was straight, against the tops of the teeth of a couple saws, but had a little trouble seeing anything that looked anywhere near 1/8" out.

The saw I bought most recently is a Disston D115 that the seller said was sharpened by Wenzloff. I have a Wenzloff half back saw plate that I got in a Wenzloff saw building kit. I had the plate sharpened by Wenzloff. The teeth on the two saws do look similar in shape. The teeth on the D115 do feel a little rougher on the sides in places. There is also a small wave in the front 1/2- 1/3. I guess I could be adjusting to a different handle too.

I am wondering how George actually repairs this type issue? Maybe this is one of those cases where we have to have an exact example, which is why I gave some detail on one specific saw.

[Jim Matthews]

Filing one side reduces the saw's "pull" to that side.

It also makes the kerf more narrow.
If the kerf is the same width as a kink
or domed spot on the saw plate,
it will drag.

I put a little paste wax or canning wax on saws that misbehave.
In extreme cases (mostly ripping) the lumber will try to pinch
closed. A small wedge driven into the kerf may help.

FYI - When making long rip cuts, I mark a parallel set of two lines
so I can keep between them. While I will try to get close on crosscutting,
I leave plenty of margin on the rip cut.

Lastly - my saws cut better when I don't bear down on them - that's when things go wrong for me.

[Jim Koepke]

I put a level, thinking it was straight, against the tops of the teeth of a couple saws, but had a little trouble seeing anything that looked anywhere near 1/8" out.

I think George was talking about a saw with much larger teeth than the common handsaw.

The teeth do not have to be much more than a thousandth or two in height to cause the saw to cut more to one side. Same with the set.

One problem I have had is with rip saws. Someone suggested you can file the teeth all from one side. Well of course you can. It is just that the teeth filed that way tend to pull the saw to one side.

As always,

YMMV!!!.jpg

jtk

[george wilson]

Yes,pit saws have HUGE teeth about 2" tall when they are new.

[Mike Holbrook]

Jim, I think the D115 XX may suffer the affliction you mention. The set on the teeth is minor, not sure whether: they were not set much to start with, have seen significant filling on the sides or just show wear. The other Wenzloff filed saw plate I have shows distinct marks on the top half of the teeth that appear to be from setting them. I see less marking all concentrated on the very tops of my D115's teeth. The D115 also exhibits less visible fleam. Whether through wear or filling the D115's blade does seem to hang in its narrow kerf more than normal.

I'm just not sure whether or not I can fix the issue without causing further serious wear.

[Jim Matthews]

Do you have a saw set?

Adding a little set to both "sides" can't make things much worse
on a saw that doesn't cut. I follow the steps Ron Herman mentions
in the video - but don't stone or file the teeth afterwards.

I'm pretty lazy about sharpening, so I don't raise a burr
on the teeth like the Big Dogs.

I will trade more "strokes" to get a finer cut.

I'm looking for a sawn face that I can plane true.

[Kim Malmberg]

Mike,
If you own a saw set, use it. Start by identifying the side where the set is wider than the other. How? Well, sometimes you can see it by just holding the saw upside down and sighting down along the tooth line. If not, a saw set to just touch the teeth on one side might either leave a gap or bend a tooth on the other side. So this will tell you which side is incorrectly set, if that is the reason why your saw tracks to either side.
If the saw leaves a very wide kerf you might want to start all over again and reduce the set before resetting. This can be done by placig the saw on a straight metal or hardwood surface and hammering the toothline (lightly) with a wide faced hammer, or by pressing the toothline in a wise, or in extreme cases by desetting the teeth with a saw set. Desetting means setting the teeth from the wrong side, but this has to be done with caution and a very small set, as the teeth might otherwise break.
If not, then your saw suffers from faulty teeth. As George says, if the teeth on one side are clearly longer than the teeth on the other side then the saw needs some jointing, so that the top of every tooth on both sides is flattened. And the the teeth needs to be sharpened to a point.
I own several user saws which have slight bends and curves in the saw plate. This never causes me problems, But if I sharpen or/and set my saws incorrectly I will know it instantly, because nothing I try to compensate with will keep my saws from wandering offline.

[Mike Holbrook]

Yes, I have a couple saw sets, I bought new SOMAX 250's blue & gold which I hope will handle most saw teeth sizes. I have only experimented a little with them to date. I found it difficult to judge how much bend they would put n a given saw tooth. Saw teeth size and shape are so different that I expect there is a fair amount of trial and error involved in figuring out how to use a specific tool on specific teeth. The reading I did seemed to confirm my suspicions. I prefer as small a kerf as I can get away with.

I think some people set their saw teeth with a screw driver or older tools. Tools For Working Wood apparently 'hammer sets" the teeth on all their saws. I believe the reason for this practice is to reduce the kerf size. I have the Grammercy Sash Saw and Dovetail Saw so I am growing accustom to light sets and thin saw plates, although they can be a challenge to get started sometimes. I will also confess to having a hard time seeing saw teeth well enough to file or set them. I just bought new Progressive Lens glasses which are helping. I also bought a floor lamp/magnifying glass that helps. I guess I need to get out a couple old throw away saws and experiment with saw setting tools.

I'm still not eager to try straightening saw blades. I have 2-3 saws I like that have blade issues that I think are significant but may be repairable by someone who is use to doing it. So I will give Mike Allen a call.