More saw sharpening

Here are the promised pictures of my earlier saw sharpening adventures.

Remember that I am not offering these pictures as the standard of excellence. They all still have fairly major defects, but they are all quite usable and, in my opinion, cut pretty nicely, particularly when compared to what they were before I worked on them. I expect to take care of some of the defects with further sharpenings at some point in the future.

Here is the HSB & Co. OVB rip saw:

                                                   
and the Disston D-23 crosscut:

                                                   
and the el cheapo Stanley:
This was my first sharpening job. I sharpened it once as a rip saw, and decided later that I would rather have it as a crosscut and resharpened it.

                                                   
and my latest, an old Disston backsaw with almost no set and a worn out handle:



                                                   
This last saw has a handle and saw nuts that are severely damaged. I really have no idea how they were damaged. I wasn't able to remove the handle since the slot is gone on the saw nuts and if I had been able to, probably would never have been able to get it back on. If I can come up with some new nuts, I might make a new handle some day. Also, it had almost no set and a bad case of little tooth- big tooth disease. It would cut a bit, but didn't track straight, so it was pretty much useless since it would just bind in the cut and couldn't follow a line.

I started by jointing it fairly lightly. I tried to file it down so that my mill file hit most of the teeth, but made no attempt to try to joint it down to the very shortest teeth. Also, it has an uneven breast which I smoothed out a bit, but didn't remove. I may regret that later. Then I sharpened it paying attention to try to even up the teeth some.

I won't make any fantastic claims as to its superb cutting ability, but I am quite happy with it after making some test cuts. We will see how well I still like it after doing some real work.

No question about it. Saw sharpening and rehabilitation is a slow tedious job. It is also a job that can be handled by most decent woodworkers if they are willing to put in the time to learn how to do it.

These are my first saws, and even though they are not perfect, cut quite well. I suspect that the Disston crosscut, and the Stanley backsaw cut better than they did when they were new.

For the four saws and files and so forth, I probably spent a total of about US$150 to buy these saws, and to get them to their current condition. In sharpening time, I spent about two hours on the last saw, the Disston backsaw, and two or three days on the bigger rip and croscut saws which were both in rather poor condition.

It should be noted, that through this process, I have really been able to understand handsaws in a completely different way, and have a much, much better understanding of what makes a good saw different from a poor saw.

I am not sure whether or not I would recommend that new woodworkers try to go through this process. On the one hand, it is invaluable to understanding what is going on and to build confidence. On the other hand, it is slow, tedious, and a rather discouraging way to start.

I guess what I am getting at is that I really didn't like the process and found it rather distasteful, but I am really happy with the outcome both in terms of my tools and new skills and abilities. Now that I understand the process better, things should be considerably faster and easier even for saws that require rehabilitating.

Also, I can now be fairly confident that I am one of the top saw sharpeners living in the Dominican Republic!