a handsaw question and a grumble

[Larry Blanchard]

I picked up an old Disston D8 at a garage sale last weekend. It's in pretty good shape, but one thing puzzles me. It's a crosscut of 11 tpi, but every other tooth is only about 2/3 the height of the others. IOW, all the ones slanted one way are shorter than all the ones slanted the other way.

I thought it was an optical illusion and stood the teeth up on a flat surface to check. Nope, my eyes were working fine - they really were shorter.

This is so regular it must have been done on purpose. I have no idea why. Does anyone else?

Now the grumble (or rant).

Since I retired, I don't subscribe to FWW, I get it from the local library. So I just got around to the October 2003 issue. In it was an article on wood movement. Using a blanket chest as an example, the author says it grows in the summer and shrinks in the winter.

I get so tired of hearing that. So all you writers and aspiring writers listen up:

The entire @#$% population of the %@&# US does NOT live east of the $#%@ Rocky Mountains!!!

Out here in the good part, the humidity is high in the winter and low (or nonexistent) in the summer!

Would it be to much to ask that wood movement be explained as "it expands in seasons of high humidity and shrinks in seasons of low humidity"?

If any reader doesn't know which is which in his/her area, I suggest he/she take up a simpler avocation. Such as counting above 10 without removing shoes and socks :-).

I feel much better now :-).

[bridger]

sounds like a qc failure. expect it to cut crooked.

[Unisaw A100]

About your grumble, this issue has been bought up before. It's a syndrome that's very pervasive on news shows and shows up as, there's no life west of New York City.

Here in the second best region of the country (the west coast of Lake Michigan) we run fairly moderate humidity wise. Low in the winter and only slightly highish in the summer. Having grown up where a wet suit was required in the summer months I'm always amused when the locals bitch about humidity.

The up shot to all of this is, my lumber stays fairly straight and dry year round but better yet, my machines don't require constant wax on/wax off, even in a basement (hole in the ground with a house on it Larry) shop.

Of course we're still another three months off from having our first dinner served on the back porch and we'll only have three months to enjoy that tradition.

sigh...

Oh! I do run a de-humidifier during the "wet season" but still, want standing wet, go to West Texas/Nar'lins and other points middle and south.

UA100

[Ted Shuck]

This is so commonly seen on poorly sharpened saws that there is a name for it: "Cows and calves". It is not intentional, merely the product of poor sharpening technique or a file which is worn more on one side than the other. If the saw is filed from one side only, while filing the fleam angle on crosscut teeth, there is a tendency to file the rear tooth more than the front one. The rear teeth get smaller. If the saw is filed from both sides, but one face of the file is not as sharp as the other, the teeth on one side will be filed more than on the other side.

You need to joint the saw to make all the teeth the same height, reshape the teeth, then file them to a crosscut profile.

Ted, who just finished tuning up another saw last night...

[Larry Blanchard]

OK, that makes sense. I'd never heard the term, but I had seen it before, just never that regular - every opposing tooth!

That I did know :-). I've got more hobbies than time (or sense) and one of them is acquiring old saws. I keep swearing I'm going to sharpen them and sell some - I may live that long :-).

[Tom Veatch]

Having been bred, born, and raised in the Piney Woods of North Louisiana, I know precisely of what you speak. In fact, it's a major reason I'm now in Kansas. Summers where the relative humidity numbers are larger than the temperature marks a place that is uninhabitable. It still surprises me to hear locals, and especially Colorado'ians complaining about the humidity here. My skin still cracks from the dryness.

Tom Veatch Wichita, KS USA

[John Thomas]

Unisaw A100 wrote in news: [e-mail]:

UA100,

Y'mean *East* Tx, right?

Not much in West Tx but mesquite trees (yummmm. BBQ.) and oil derricks.

I've been in Dallas in August. 98F, 95% RH. ooh boy, that sucks.

Regards, JT

[Swingman]

Had to ... ain't no way "standing wet" applies to West Texas.

Funny ... RH in Amarillo (West Texas) this morning was 47%, the same as Oshkosh, WI. Nawlins was 68%, and here in Houston (East Texas), 100%.

IME, West Texas is almost always hot and dry with low RH.

AAMOF, it is one of the few places on earth that I got a water evaporator type AC unit to work well enough to actually be effective in cooling you down, thanks to the low humidity and the cooling effect of heat of evaporation it allowed.

[Fred the Red Shirt]

Maybe it was resharpened from only one side. You can do that with a rip saw, no problem. But I think to sharpen a crosscut saw you need to do every other tooth from the other side, or shift the angle (not the rake agle, the other one) of the file for every other tooth.

[Unisaw A100]

John Thomas

A'yup. Geographic dyslexia strikes again.

UA100

[Ted Shuck]

As to the handsaw problem, this pattern of big tooth, little tooth, is so common that it has a name: "Cows and calves". It can be caused by filing the saw from one side only, making the teeth on the backside smaller, or by filing with a file which is more worn on one face than the other. Either way, you get this pattern of alternating large and small teeth.

Doesn't cut very well, does it?

You will need to joint the saw (flat file across the ends of the teeth to bring them all to the same height), reshape the teeth for rake angle, set the teeth, and file the fleam angle for the crosscut tooth profile. Peter Taran has a great saw sharpening tutorial on his website,

It's really not that hard to do.

Regards, Ted

[Ted Shuck]

As to the handsaw problem, this pattern of big tooth, little tooth, is so common that it has a name: "Cows and calves". It can be caused by filing the saw from one side only, making the teeth on the backside smaller, or by filing with a file which is more worn on one face than the other. Either way, you get this pattern of alternating large and small teeth.

Doesn't cut very well, does it?

You will need to joint the saw (flat file across the ends of the teeth to bring them all to the same height), reshape the teeth for rake angle, set the teeth, and file the fleam angle for the crosscut tooth profile. Peter Taran has a great saw sharpening tutorial on his website,

It's really not that hard to do.

Regards, Ted