Tenon Saw for Schools

[Jim Koepke]

Are rip saws as accurate enough when cutting shoulders?

A rip saw works fine for me on crosscuts. I do like a crosscut saw because it can leave a slightly smoother surface.

This is where filing your own saws can really be helpful. One of my most used saws is filed with just a little fleam. With a lot of old beat up saws to experiment on you can try different rake and fleam combinations to find a few that work best for your students.

It could also be a good subject in class to let the students try the different set ups.

jtk

[Tony Wilkins]

Coming from an institutional job, I'd definitely order new and keep the old to see about refurbishing them -- win/win. I'd hit up Rob Lee to see if you could get a deal on the Veritas carcass saws for education/volume.

If/when you get around to sharpening the old saws (and eventually the new) you could go for more of a hybrid filing to make them more rip friendly while still doing a great job of cross cutting.

[paul cottingham]

They are accurate, but the cut will be less smooth than a dedicated crosscut saw. Remember, whatever saw you buy, they will be a little grabby and ragged in their cutting until they are broken in.

[Sam Stephens]

i would also learn how to sharpen the saws sooner rather than later. I'd suspect the bends/kinks in the saw plates could be tempered by students using sharp saws w/ a relaxed rake rather than dull saws w/ aggressive rake.

[David Eisenhauer]

I think the advice that leans towards the rip configuration may be due to the fact that (in general) a rip saw is easier to get started in a new cut as opposed to a crosscut configuration and, I would think, you would like to see the students have some early success when learning a new skill to keep their interest up. Sometimes when faced with too much adversity right off the bat (does that translate to Irish? Is Cricket only an English sport?) kids loose interest. A rip saw can perform crosscuts without any issue and many use only a rip saw in their shop. With your time constraint, I think you will probably need to order your saws soon and not have all the time in the world to look into refurbishing your older saws. Either the Veritas or the Pax will work, see if either one will cut you a deal of any kind.