First time cleaning and sharpening a backsaw


sjk

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My woodworking has been primarily with power tools and the occasional use of passably sharp chisels.  Lately, I have been incorporating more hand tools for a hybrid approach and have been getting good results.  (Thank you Shannon, Paul, and Mark for your awesome videos!)

I wanted to add some hand saws and tenon saws to my kit.  I found some good deals on ebay and took the opportunity to learn how to clean up and sharpen a saw. 

Here’s two ebay saws (a Disston D23 26” crosscut saw, and some late-model Disston backsaw filed for ripping):

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First up, I gathered rust removal supplies:

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Then I took them apart and soaked the saw plates in the vinegar:

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After 20 minutes, I hit them with the brass brush to loosen the surface crud and let the vinegar get at what was underneath:

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Then I scrubbed them with some steel wool and scotch-brite pads, and wiped them clean.  I followed that by more steel wool and scotch-brite with WD40, and then a protective wipe-down with CRC 3-36.  I wound up with some pretty clean saw plates:

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I wiped down the handles with mineral spirits to clean off accumulated crud (I will likely refinish the D23’s handle later, it didn’t photograph well, but there’s a lot of the old finish peeling off):

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Time to reassemble the backsaw:

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…and give it a “before” test cut.  It was super dull (this was 30 strokes cutting a tenon in a scrap of pine, and only getting this far), but happily it tracked straight so I didn’t have to worry about correcting/setting the set:

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Then I gathered up the sharpening gear (RWW blog printout, Bad Axe Tool Works blog printout, handsaw file holder, jointer, saw files, saw set, magnifier, and homemade saw vise in the foreground):

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Turns out my camera wasn’t going to be great for capturing things up close.  Here’s a macro “before” shot, where unfortunately you can’t see how rounded over many of the teeth look:

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To make sure I had the right technique and knew what rake and fleam to shoot for, I watched several videos:

And read several blog posts:

I decided to follow the guidelines from the Bad Axe Tool Works post, which fit pretty close to the recommendations on the RWW post.  To help remember them in the future, I taped them to the saw vise.

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I jointed the teeth, and set up the saw filing guide:

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…and away we go:

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The actual sharpening took only a few minutes.  You’ve easily spent more time reading this far than it took to sharpen that backsaw.

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I tried cutting the cheek of that tenon, now it only takes about 15 strokes for each cheek.  It cuts smoothly and tracks the line well.

It’s leaving some black marks, which I’m chalking up to some crud I didn’t get completely off the saw plate (sorry, no handy picture on that).  I’m surprised it took 15 strokes to cut that 3 inch wide cheek. 

All in all, I’m pretty happy with my first attempt at saw sharpening.  Trying it on the backsaw is giving me to confidence to try it on more saws J.

Out of curiosity, how many strokes would you expect to take cutting a 3 inch cheek in pine with a well-tuned backsaw?

 

Edited by sjk
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Looks good! Did you need to replace any of the handle bolts?

No - they were in good shape.  I got lucky with ebay this time.

Seems like Paul Sellers and Roy Underhill can do it in a half-dozen strokes, but they have a LOT of practice under their belts!

I wonder if filing with the 5 degree fleam vs no fleam has any effect...

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So many possibilities, but if it cuts smoothly, and tracks well, it's a user until the next time it needs sharpening.  Think about what you will do differently the next time you sharpen it when you are using it.

Makes sense.  I'm also going to try some different woods and compare it against my Veritas dovetail saw tonight, although with different tpi, the results are likely to be different any way....

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  • 3 months later...
2 hours ago, TerryMcK said:

Great post SJ thanks for sharing your experiences. I like the idea of sticking the various profiles onto the vise as a reminder.

I watched Shannons video and also Tom Lie Nielsens video. I think I may have just gone down a rabbit hole of sawing fun now!

     It's almost as bad as getting hooked on green stuff!

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