Rip Tenon Saws.......

[lowell holmes]

I've only had good dealings with Ron. I was not aware I was shilling for him

I bought a saw kit from Ron. I had questions while putting it together. He provided me with a
16"X4" toothed saw plate and loose brass back.
I had questions during assembly and Ron not only answered the questions, he followed up.

I now have a gorgeous 16" tenon saw that I could not have if he had not been there . It cuts fast and true.
I proved I can sharpen and set saws.

I think I will go admire my 16" saw with the curly maple handle.

[Stewie Simpson]

Both the Veritas and the LN saws are effectively disposable saws because they each have milled spines vs. folded. Full discourse I have and use both. The milled back does not tension the saw plate the same as a folded back and if the saw plate is "kinked" or curved there is little you can do to straighten it. Mark Harrell has an excellent article on straightening saw plates at http://www.badaxetoolworks.com/retension-a-backsaw.php . Of the two saws I would buy the cheaper Veritas knowing if anything happened to it I could replace with out a big loss of investment. Then once I was ready to buy a top line saw go for a Bad Axe or other saw with a folded back.

ken

1-4-2017.

I agree with the other posters about the LV saws, They may not be pretty but they perform every bit as well as the high dollar saws. I have a saw till full of Gramercy, LN, Bad Axe, Adria, and even a few old Disston saws. I reach for one of the LV saws about as often as any of the others. For the cost of one Bad Axe you can fill your till with the LV's and unless you like eye candy never need any other.

My problem is I like eye candy ,

ken

Gary C. Base your decision on the maximum $$ your prepared to spend.

[Derek Cohen]

Both the Veritas and the LN saws are effectively disposable saws because they each have milled spines vs. folded. Full discourse I have and use both. The milled back does not tension the saw plate the same as a folded back and if the saw plate is "kinked" or curved there is little you can do to straighten it. .....

Hi Ken

There are pros and cons to both types.

I have several vintage saws with folded backs as well as several modern saws with milled backs. I cannot tell the difference in use.

None of the new saws should ever come with a kinked or curved plate, and I have never caused this to happen this in many years of using backsaws. But, should one kink a saw with a milled back, I would find a way to remove it. I have made a few and the plate is held in the slot with Loctite. This can be released with a heat gun or soldering iron.

Most of the vintage saws with folded backs I have restored required resetting the backs as they had moved. This does not happen with milled backs.

I'd be interested to read what Pete Taran has to say, especially since he is the most experienced here with vintage saws and saw making. I have one of his IT dovetail saws (which became the LN dovetail saw), and this has a milled back. The other question is why are backsaws predominantly milled today? Is this because the technology was not available in years past (likely, I imagine).

Regards from Perth

Derek

[ken hatch]

Hi Ken

There are pros and cons to both types.

I have several vintage saws with folded backs as well as several modern saws with milled backs. I cannot tell the difference in use.

None of the new saws should ever come with a kinked or curved plate, and I have never caused this to happen this in many years of using backsaws. But, should one kink a saw with a milled back, I would find a way to remove it. I have made a few and the plate is held in the slot with Loctite. This can be released with a heat gun or soldering iron.

Most of the vintage saws with folded backs I have restored required resetting the backs as they had moved. This does not happen with milled backs.

I'd be interested to read what Pete Taran has to say, especially since he is the most experienced here with vintage saws and saw making. I have one of his IT dovetail saws (which became the LN dovetail saw), and this has a milled back. The other question is why are backsaws predominantly milled today? Is this because the technology was not available in years past (likely, I imagine).

Regards from Perth

Derek

Derek,

I'm sure it is cost and ease of manufacture driving most modern saw makers going to milled backs. In use I agree you would never feel the difference nor are you likely to kink one but....there is always a but, I have knocked my Adria DT saw off the bench resulting in a slightly kinked saw plate at the toe. If it were a folded back it might be repairable or maybe not, as it is I live with the kink by losing use of about 25mm of the toe when I use the saw. Stuff happens especially to OFs who no longer move with full grace and fluid motion.

ken

[Derek Cohen]

Ouch!

It sounds as if it would be worth the effort to remove the back and hammer out the kink. Remove the handle, clamp the plate in a vise, heat the brass, and tap the ends back-and-forth. The tapping is to break the glue joint. Once repaired, use Loctite Red (loosens with heat) to attach to the brass back.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[lowell holmes]

Derek,

I Stuff happens especially to OFs who no longer move with full grace and fluid motion.

ken

I can identify with that .

[Pete Taran]

Since Derek asked I'll opine.

With no apologies, I'm the guy that pioneered the milled back. No one had done it that I'm aware of before I started Independence Tool with Patrick Leach back in 1996. The reason was simple. Folded backs are inferior. Show me an old backsaw with any amount of use on it, and I'll show you a backsaw with the toe driven down on the blade and the back near the handle lifted from its mortise. Harvey Peace recognized this problem, and on his perfection line of backsaws, put a bolt through the handle and spine to prevent it. It did serve to keep the spine properly located in the handle, but still allowed for the spine at the toe end of the saw to get pressed down on the blade.

The solid brass back has none of these disadvantages. Once set in the back and assembled, it's not moving, ever, not one bit. I rarely did warranty work on my dovetails saws, but the one I remembered was a guy who dropped his saw off a step ladder onto the concrete floor. It hit spine first, like they always do, and then snapped the open handle off at the narrow part of the grip. I replaced the handle, but the blade and back were as perfect as the day I put it together. A few swipes with a file to remove the spot on the back where it hit the floor and it was good as new.

As to the ease of manufacture, milling a .020" slot in a piece of solid brass is no easy endeavor. It took me quite a while to figure out the best type of saw blade and feed and speed rate to get it to cut without drift. I'm convinced that if that sort of precise machining technology was around when Disston was making saws, he would have done the same thing. There are just too many problems with a folded back to accept it as the best there is.

Finally, I don't know what people use these days for setting their saw blades, but I used the strongest industrial epoxy that was available. It was cured in an oven at low temps and it was on there for life. I once drilled some holes in the back and blade and tried to pull it apart, and the brass tore before the epoxy let go. The only way to get that blade out is to heat up the back with a torch and carbonized the epoxy and remove it while it's hot. It was not meant to be a reversible process.

To those who say that does not allow the tool to be repaired, that was not the point of the exercise. The point of the exercise is to make a high quality tool that would stand up to ordinary use and abuse and still do the job as intended. Resting an anvil on your saw blade is not ordinary use and abuse. When people drive their car into a bridge abutment and destroy the front end, you do not see people attempting to rebuild the car. It was not designed for that kind of trauma and it is sent to the junkyard. So it is with tools.

Happy Sawing!

lifted.jpgpeace.jpg

[Derek Cohen]

Thanks Pete.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Phil Mueller]

Thank you Pete, appreciate the insight.

[Ron Bontz]

I think both Neilsen, or Veritas would be a good choice.
Thank you, Pete, for chiming in on the folded vs milled back question. When asked, I always tell folks what I think. That is, all backs, molded, laminated, folded, or slotted have their pros and cons. So much is a subjective preference. And yes I can and have made folded backs. I am familiar with the saw style you speak of. My problem with that particular design is the tendency to crack the handle. I remedied it by incorporating a removable set screw in the toe end of the milled back. It prevents that moment about the axis, to sort of speak. That also prevents the plate from shifting back and distorting the plate. I do not consider a plates ability to shift in the back an advantage. ( another subject ) I should also note I compressed the spine a bit in a jig I made/ had made just for that. A slotted back has an advantage of a consistent reference point being designed to seat all the way down on the plate.
With regard to the comparison of vintage spring steel vs. modern spring steel....I agree the modern spring steel is superior to vintage steels in uniformity and quality control, but I would also have to ask which modern spring steel we are talking about. One can easily say they use "Swedish Spring steel" RC 52 and sometimes include "finest" The reality is "Swedish spring steel is just a generic term designed to provoke thoughts of superiority. Last time I searched I could get a spring steel of rc 52 in 1075, I believe, but not 1095. 1095 being 48-51RC. Correct me if I am wrong, but aren't the vintage saws based on 1095? So are we really comparing apples to apples? There is 107x, 108x, 1095, and other alloys out there being used. Most of which come from Japan, India, etc. NOT Sweden. Perhaps some one out there has a source I can not locate, or are buying spring steel from Sweden by the barge. I couldn't say, but being a cynical old cuss, I always question the validity of marketing claims. I am after all from the "show me" state.

early Richardeson, I believe.
IMG_2565b.jpg
IMG_2572.jpgI used a slotted brass set screws on other saws so I could sand them down flush for the sake of appearance.

[Pete Taran]

Ron,

The stuff I bought and continue to buy is indeed made in Sweden and is 1095. I have a Rockwell duplex tester for both superficial and C scales, and the claims are legit. Since I'm close to the distributor, I go and cherry pick through their stock and get the highest C scale stuff I can find. There are slight variations in the range, I always pick the highest they have.

Just say, one small advantage of living in the decaying rust belt.

[steven c newman]

Had to send my 14" No. 4 Disston out to get sharpened....just got it back today. Why send it out? I can't see 11ppi well enough to sharpen them.

Disston folded Steel back had been blued, at the factory. Handle was a bit blocky, reshaped to better fit my hand. Might give it a test run, later.

[Kees Heiden]

More opinion

I think makers now and back in the day choosed the method that fitted their capabilities best. In the 18th/19th century milling machines were still a thing of the future, let alone the very thin slotting cutters used nowadays. So they folded the backs. They probably got very good at it and turned them out in rapid succesion. But it remains a labor intensive job. I have folded a couple of backs from brass and steel, with a big press, but also with hammer and anvil. Not easy, and after getting the spine nice and flat, there is still a lot of filing and sanding work to get rid of the dents.

Nowadays milling machines and good quality cutters are everywhere. I'm sure it takes a lot of experimentation to work out the process, but then it is a lot quicker to produce them. And it is cheaper then the purchase of big hyfraulic folders and presses, I'd guess. So, for a modern day boutique saw the milling process makes life easier.

What's better? No idea really. I don't think the folded backs shift under normal use. It happens when saws are dropped, or when they are shaken around in toolboxes, but that is not normal, carefull use. It is no problem though to tap them back in the original position, every craftsman can do that in their own shop. It is also nice to be able to retension the blade when a clumsy move in a tightening sawkerf buckeled the blade. No rocket science there either.

For me the only reason to go for folded backs (and qs beech) was my wish to reproduce some antique saws.

[lowell holmes]

Buy yourself a pair of +3.25 reader glasses. Then, you will be able to see them. I know!

[Ron Bontz]

Kees,
Are you familiar with the process of folding/ hemming steel via rollers? I have spoken to more than one fabricator/ metal worker/ machinist with regard to what type of process may have actually been used to form the vintage backs. The steel is run through a series of rollers becoming progressively tighter to roll/ fold the back. Perhaps even while still hot. This would allow a continuous feed of steel from the oven, through the rollers and then snipped off at a particular length. I have never seen any absolute verification of the exact method that was used only assumptions and conjecture. Although I have no doubt large press brakes were around then. Certainly no CNCs. If some one else has, please point me to it, as this is a topic full of subjective opinions. Once set up a relative inexpensive method of making them. ( All other things being equal. ) As one metal worker in particular pointed out, if you look closely at pretty much every vintage folded back, there is a slight arch in the back which would be normal in that process. I found this to be true on every folded back I checked. Quite a few, btw. I would also add, the modern folded backs do not tend to be as heavy a gauge steel as the vintage backs and those of the same gauge do not posess the same strength as well. ( Perhaps one of you engineers out there could test this. ) Thus reducing the spring force gained from the fold. I have often wondered if Disston and others folded them hot and then tempered them to create more of a spring steel as opposed to the mild carbon steel currently being used. Who knows for certain? I certainly do not. Just thought about it extensively while developing a small folded back process of my own. I play around with the idea of offering both from time to time, but too many irons in the fire already and life has a way of interfering.
PS. Sorry for such long post. It is a quiet day at the F.H. today.