Bow Saw - Build or Buy?

[Robert Engel]

I'd like to learn to use a bow saw.

For you guys who've done it, I'd appreciate some inputs/hindsights on building vs. buying.

If I build one I want to use leather cords like the authentic ones had.

[Jonathan Martell]

If you have access to decent hardwood, I'd build one. If you have to use it every day, you may find a metal one to be a bit nicer to use.

I was planning on building one last summer, but never got around to it. Please post pics if you decide to make one

[Mike Holbrook]

Check out bowsaws at Wood Joy Tools. Glenn makes excellent saws at a bargain price. I have his 400mm saw which I have universal and jigging Japanese Turbo-Cut blades for, allowing me to use it for: XX, rips, turning...Glenn's winding/tensioning system is the best out there and IMHO the winding system is what separates the ok saws from the great ones.

Should you decide you want to build a saw, Glenn also offers parts: blades, handles, strings...for sale.

[Stewie Simpson]

If your going down the track of making your own bowsaw, do a search on parachute cord. It wont stretch like leather does.

Stewie;

[steven c newman]

Or, get the shoe laces from an old work boot, the kind of laces that are leather

There is a Youtube vid out there, from GE HONG, that shows how he makes his saws. Of course, his is more of the Frame Saw kind.

[Pat Barry]

If your going down the track of making your own bowsaw, do a search on parachute cord. It wont stretch like leather does.

Stewie;

+1 - leather may have been original (maybe ??) but the problem is that when it stretches it loses tension. Stewie's idea makes sense because the cord he is talking about will remain elastic

[Brian Holcombe]

I have one from Woodjoy. It's very well worked out and I like the turbo cut blades. My only issue, and this is definitely unique to me, is that the handle absolutely kills my hand.

[Hilton Ralphs]

My Marples Bow Saw just has a turnbuckle to tension the frame. Not particularly romantic but it's easy to adjust and doesn't stretch.

[Marko Milisavljevic]

If you are as clueless as I am, make sure you understand the difference between products marketed as "bow saw" (like from WoodJoy) and "bow saw" (like from Gramercy) so you don't buy the wrong product for the task you are trying to accomplish (like I did). WoodJoy and Highland Woodworking are selling frame saws that use wider-ish blades like bandsaw. Gramercy is selling a turning saw that uses narrow blades like coping saw. You won't get very far cutting sweeping curves with Gramercy, or intricate details with WoodJoy.

[Jim Davis]

Anyone know when these began to be called "bow" saws? Until now, I always read of these being referred to as turning saws. Doesn't really matter I guess. None of the old and ancient books I've looked at mentioned "bow" saws. Bow saws were always those firewood makers with the pipe or tubular frames. Wood-framed saws with turnbuckles were "buck" saws--for bucking small logs to firewood lengths.

Jim--Old and puzzled

[Hilton Ralphs]

Wood-framed saws with turnbuckles were "buck" saws--for bucking small logs to firewood lengths.

This would probably explain why my Bow Saw (not) has that horrible thick blade.

[Mike Holbrook]

"Bowsaws" in the last century or two were a standard tool for cutting most types of wood for trades people in european tradesman internships. I believe Tage Frid and Frank Klaus were both taught to use bowsaws for most hand sawing chores, whether the cuts being made were crosscuts, rips, curves or even tight turns. Here in the US the trend has been more toward the conventional hand saws made by companies like Disston & Atkins. The bowsaw in the US developed more into speciality tools. From what I have read the difference has to do with what apprentice carpenters/woodworkers were taught to use in the different countries.

Glenn at Wood Joy Tools has a uTube video on bowsaws worth watching. He shows an old classic bowsaw, european design I think, that is apparently his model for the saws he makes. The two piece wood tensioning system is demonstrated. The piece of wood that resides between the strings spreads the winding pressure better. The second piece of wood which slides through the piece in the string allows a greater degree of adjustability. Glenn uses a thicker waxed string that does not stretch or kink as much as many strings used for the job.

Brian are you sawing with one hand? I think the saws Glenn makes are better used with two hands. I think Tage & Frank usually used bowsaws with two hands. I prefer a US design hand saw for one hand sawing and the Wood Joy saws for two hand sawing. I often find it easier to make medium to long cuts with two hands.

[Jim Davis]

By way of approaching an answer to my question about when these saws began to be called bow saws, I searched "Woodworking Tools 1600-1900, by

Peter C. Welsh. In the entire article there is not one mention of "bow" saws. Turning saws, at least one mention, but not bow saws, as one word or two.

It seems that using the term "bow saw," (formerly applied only to steel tubing-framed saws used to cut brush, limbs and firewood) to mean what have previously been called turning saws is a recent misuse that is taking hold in the absence of knowledge of tool history. It blurs the meaning, such that even in this thread a buck saw was thought to be a bow saw.

Perhaps only retired editors, such as I, give a hoot.

[James Pallas]

I have an interest bow saws at this time also. I had said in another thread that I had watched and had some instruction in their use by a person I thought to be a master of their use. Let me qualify this by saying I was about twenty at the time and he was 70 or close to it. Now I am close to 70 so it was a long time ago. He would come to restoration sites to make all kinds of things stair brackets, railings fret work for cabinets and the like. He had many "bow saws" and referred to them as such just to deferentiate between western saws and his saws. He had frames that he could turn the blades easily and ones that the blade was nearly fixed. He would at times change the frame on the same blade and continue his cut, from a tight reversing turn to a long sweep on the same work. I'm not the expert here at all, I am simply saying and describing what I saw and heard. I would guess that George or some of the Hays shop guys could explain a lot about the ins and outs of this type of saw. He did say that he used reworked band saw blades for most of his blades.
Jim

[Mike Holbrook]

Jim, not trying to contradict what you are finding, just to explain a little further what I wrote and why.

I had the pleasure of taking a few classes from Tage Frid at, what at the time was Highland Hardware now, Highland Woodworking. Tage was a fan of the bowsaw or bow saw. My dictionary defines bowsaw or bow saw the same "a narrow saw stretched like a bow string on a light frame". In his books Tage spells the word bowsaw, as does Glenn Livingston at Wood Joy Tools. Joel at Tools For Working Wood tends to spell bowsaw bow saw and Joel does a good deal of research into woodworking history, maybe bow saw is more correct? So bowsaw is just the spelling I am familiar with and hold a certain nostalgia for.

As my memory serves me there was a sort of dark ages for hand tools when machine/electric tools were "asserting' themselves. As I remember Tage was the first guy I found in woodworking who tried to encourage/revive the use of hand tools, back in the day. Tage, according to the Introduction to Book 1 of his three part series on woodworking "On being an apprentice" section, says he was born in Denmark apprenticing in a cabinetmaker's shop in Coppenhagen when he was very young. Tage in this book on joinery tended to show two ways to make most joints, by machine and by hand. In his classes Tage tended to almost beg his students to just try a bowsaw. He felt it was a much under used tool in the US at that time. Highland started carrying the only bowsaw they could find for sale at that time, largely I think due to Tage's teaching. I bought one of the original saws Highland sold after one of Tage's classes, it was horrible. Tage use to suggest filing bow saw blades just for rip. I think the reason was there were no good bowsaws or bowsaw blades available, so Tage came up with a work around. Tage is the guy I heard the explanation of bowasws vs hand saws from, admittedly it was many years ago and my memory is far from perfect. I think Frank Klaus has had some similar references to bowsaws, having learned in a similar european apprenticeship.

There is an article Tage Frid wrote that is still relatively popular on the internet "Sawing by Hand, bowsaw is best: keep it sharp". I think it was run by Fine Woodworking some years ago, there are other references to his thoughts around too. Some of the info I find uses pictures that are the same as the ones in his book on joinery so I will not link to them in case they are somehow illegally compiled....

At least in my warped mind, Tage may have helped to revive the use of the european version of this saw in the US some 40-50 years ago. Certainly, Tage was the man to peak my interest in the bowsaw and woodworking. So please forgive any misleading information an old man may have erroneously interpreted from another even older classic woodworker whom I may, rightly or wrongly, hold in high regard and fond remembrance.