Tempted by Ron Bontz’s offer of “extra” saw parts at reasonable price, I acquires saw plates and slottedbrass packs for four back saws. This is my third generationof shop built back saws. I was motivated to keep trying because I reallystruggled with trying to achieve a combination of straight plates/tooth line (particularwith some of the thinner/longer saw plates) and totes I was happy with. My first generation were pretty much worthless. The second generation worked, and felt comfortable, but the tooth lines weren’t 100% straight, which just sort of ticked me off, hence this latest effort.

Here’s some pictures of the wood I was considering using for the totes.
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Ended up using from bottom to the top: Mexican Kingwood (superhard – never again!), Claro walnut (I would kill to have some pieces of this big enough for furniture – awesome to work with hand tools and to my eye very attractive), Brazilian rosewood and Spaulted Tamarind (which I picked pretty much because I like the look, even though the strength/density isn’t really suited for tool handles).
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The two larger saws on the bottom are .025” thick saw plate, which was much easier to keep straight, 18”and 16”long plates.

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The smaller two on the top are 14 “ long plates, .018” thick. I go with light-colored wood for ripsaws totes and darker wood for crosscut – helps me keep them straight on thebench.
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On this third attempt, I did succeed in getting 100% straight tooth lines (I didn’t take the time to get agood picture) and the saws feel and work fine.

I’ve restored lots of old hand tools and built my share of shop built tools. Compared to the amount of time it takes to tune-up an old Stanley steel bench plane, building these backsaws was a lot harder and took much longer. It took a lot of time and fettling; assembling the saws, checking the fit of the mortice and slot for the plate, disassembling adjusting and reassembling etc. I think it’s worthwhile to restore some vintage tools and build others. FWIW, if I were just getting started with hand tools, based on the time and effort it has taken me, I would’ve just bought joinery saws.

There are lots of tutorials from folks much more knowledgeable than me about building saws and I wouldn’t pretend to tell anyone else “the best way” to do it. FWIW, here are a couple suggestions that worked for me that I learned primarily by screwing it up, usually morethan once:

·When initially sawing out the outline of the tote, it was easier for me to get the tight angles in the profiles I was looking for using a coping saw, versus a bandsaw.

·There is no substitute for quality rasps in shaping saw handles! I have an old vintage Nicholson, handstitch Auriou, and a machine stitched rasp from TFWW, and I also used the Asian made floats (can’t remember their names).If I had it to do over again, I would bite the bullet and buy the hand stitched rasps, even though their price point is typically outside therange of what I generally spend on tools. In this instance – the speed, accuracy and smooth finished surface they leave make this job a lot more fun and enjoyable, plus if I ever get around to building those cabriole legs they should come in handy.

·One of the most difficult parts of the whole process for me is accurately lining up the holes in the totes and saw plate for the saw nuts. Using the smallest diameter drill bit practical to initially locate the holesin the totes in the drill press was my best option. The larger the diameter ofthe bit you use for this; the greater the error you inject into the process when you try to accurately locate the Forstner bits to drill out the recesses for the saw nuts.

·I was able to saw the slots for the saw plates by hand with the totes clamped to the benchtop using a carefully sized spacer block to locate the kerfin the middle of the tote. Originally I sawed the slot with the same thickness as the plate I planned to install. This makes for very tight tolerances in aligning the mortice for the saw back with that slot. Now I make the slot wider than the plate I plan to install; that provides a little more “wiggle room” to keep everything straight and aligned once you tighten everything up.

·I saw the slot first, and then use the slot to register the tip of a drill bit to drill out the mortice. Clamping the tote vertically in a machinist vice on top of the drill press was the best way for me to try and keep the mortice aligned with the slot. I recommend using a drill bit smaller than the width of the mortice and paring to the final layout lines with a chisel. I think this step was the single largest source of problems with my earlier efforts; if the mortice for the back isn’t perfectly aligned with the slot for the plate bad things happen!

·Lastly, I don’t Loctite the plate into the back until after I’ve inserted them into the tote to mark and punch out the holes in the saw plate for the saw nuts. If you had a drill bit that would work in spring steel, I think dry fitting everything together and drilling the holes in the plate while it’s inserted in the tote, might help keep everything aligned. This didn’t work for me as my bits didn’t really cut the steel as much as they just burned through it.

I punched the holes with a cheap hand punch from HF. I’d still don’t know how you perfectly center the punch to get the holes in the plate where you want them – I always ended up with lots of filing before the saw nuts would fit cleanly.

These are my last shop built back saws ever! I enjoy using them, but I enjoyed woodworking more than saw making. For me it wasn’t worth the time and hassle of building 3 generations of these compared to ponying up the $ to buy something from one of the many fine saw makers working today that works perfectly right out-of-the-box. Just my opinion, YMMV.

Thanks for looking,
All the best,

Mike



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