From the saw sharpening shop: Questions from the web (and answers!)

Vern Burke, SwiftWater Edge Tool Works

The questions have been piling up on me from Google searches on both the blog and the SwiftWater Edge Tool Works web site so I’m going to take this post and address some of them.

1. The smallest circular saw blade.

I’m sure there are some tiny saws made for highly specialized applications (ie NASA) but the smallest one I’m aware of that people are likely to run across is the saw attachment for the Dremel tool. As with most Dremel goodies, the tiny saw is surprisingly useful (and no, I don’t sharpen them ).

2. How to tell when a circular saw blade is done?

There are 5 signs your small circular saw blade is toast:

A. Blue/black discoloration (overheating)

B. Visible warping of the saw plate.

C. Missing carbides.

D. Missing entire teeth.

E. Visible cracking.

3. Are any knives impossible to sharpen?

Knives with fully ceramic blades (not just ceramic coated) are impossible to sharpen (as far as I know). Certain Japanese knives with folded cobalt steel blades or induction hardened edges are extremely difficult to do anything with. Most other knife blades are fine to sharpen.

4. Does crosscut sawing require 2 men?

2 man forestry crosscut saws require 2 men, 1 man crosscut saws require 1 man but may have an auxiliary handle that allow them to be used like a short 2 man saw. 1 man saws can only be used for bucking and not felling trees.

Saw and tool sharpening: 5 deadly sins of tool restoration.

Vern Burke, SwiftWater Edge Tool Works

By the looks of tools coming to me to be overhauled or sharpened lately, it looks like it’s time for the list of what NOT to do when restoring or refurbing a tool!

1. Undercleaning

There’s nothing wrong with a vintage tool with a nicely burnished looking finish or a bit of simple age darkening. The problem is that what most people (even those who should know better) leave on tools in the name of “patina” is some unholy combination of rust and pitch. There’s no excuse ever for leaving active rust or pitch on a tool, especially one that’s supposed to be restored.

I had a nice Disston “Henry No. 47″ 2 man crosscut saw come in this week to be overhauled. The coating on the blade was at least a 50/50 mix of rust and pitch making the blade look awful, not to mention work awful.

This also includes declaring a handsaw “restored” without ever removing the handle. A LOT of rust can hide in that handle slot!

2. Overcleaning

Yup, overcleaning is just as bad as undercleaning. This isn’t a new tool. If you want a new tool, buy a new tool, don’t clean all the character out of the old one.

I had a Disston crosscut handsaw (identifiable from the medallion) come in a couple of weeks ago to be sharpened. The saw had a nice bright shiny blade. Unfortunately, whoever polished the blade also polished the etch right off the blade, ruining (in my opinion) the character of a nice vintage quality tool and at least part of the reason for owning one.

3. Handle horrors

A nice old tool handle with most of its finish is fine. So is a handle that’s lost all its finish but is clean and smooth from wear. A handle that’s grungy and dirty isn’t, period. Bad handles don’t add to the value of the tool, even if they are original.

Ditto for damaged or loose handles. Splits, missing pieces, loose handle hardware, it’s all a hazard to the user of the tool.

4. “Tweaking”

I’ve always thought there was something a bit OCD with people who insist on trying to turn quality vintage woodworking tools into ultra accurate wood machining devices (“fettling”). It doesn’t matter if your plane sole is accurate to .001″ or you can take .002″ thick shavings. You simply can’t “machine” most types of wood to anywhere near that accuracy and certainly not with a handheld tool.

This doesn’t mean you don’t take care of any REAL condition issues with the tool, just relax and stop fussing about super duper accuracy. The old timers who used these tools when they were new did just fine work without this obsession, you can too.

5. Harping on historical accuracy

Unless the tool is a real collector’s item, it’s better to get a reasonable restore to make sure the tool is useful than it is to agonize over whether things done to restore it are perfectly historically accurate. I’d far rather see a nice gloss black paint job on a plane body than see one missing most of its finish because doing the original japanning is difficult (not to mention toxic).

Tales from the saw sharpening shop: A modern Maine tinker.

Vern Burke, SwiftWater Edge Tool Works

Long years back, a man with a horse and cart would travel from house to house and town to town. In addition selling and repairing all sorts of metal items, such as pots and pans, the itinerant tinker would also sharpen all the blades found around the house or farm, such as knives, scissors, farm tools, and such. These days, the traveling tinker has become almost extinct.

Since cutting the saw and tool sharpening shop loose from the anchor of a fixed physical office and taking it mobile, I’ve been reinventing the spirit of the tinker. Oh, I still land the mobile sharpening rig in one spot for a day at a time (come visit me at the Arundel Flea Market, Arundel ME every Friday!) but at least one day a week (currently Monday) I travel southern, central, and coastal Maine doing sharpening house calls (try to find anyone except a plumber or electrician doing house calls any more!).

Like the tinker of old, one of the biggest challenges is attempting to efficiently pack a complete (or mostly complete) saw and tool sharpening shop into a very restricted space, as well as make it efficient to set up, use, and repack. Most mobile sharpeners get around this by specializing in only one thing, such as knife sharpening or scissors sharpening.

Since I never know what a customer will hand me (it may be very different from what they asked for when they asked for a visit), I try to carry most of the sharpening shop with me. Almost any blade or edge found at home, on the farm, or at the business may be asked for, and I handle them all. I havn’t figured out how to carry my big blacksmith anvil (196 lbs) , so there are a few things I can’t do on the road (such as straightening bent saw blades).

The other challenge the old tinker never ran into was power. Not only do I carry most of the saw sharpening shop with me, I carry enough power to run it all day (battery and inverter). Even with all of this involved, after I pull up in the customer’s driveway, it only takes me about 5 minutes to set up and be ready to sharpen almost anything.

Fast set up, fast tear down, completely self contained, and the skill, tools, and materials to accommodate almost any customer sharpening request on the spot. I think the old tinker would approve.

Saw and tool sharpening: questions and answers.

Vern Burke, SwiftWater Edge Tool Works

I thought I’d take a few minutes in this post and address some of the questions I’ve seen coming up on both searches coming to this sharpening blog and the SwiftWater Edge Tool Works saw and tool sharpening service web site.

1. Single cut vs double cut files

Simply put, single cut files have all their teeth on the same side cut in the same direction. Double cut files have teeth on the same side cut in both directions, creating a criss-cross effect. Single cut files are much smoother but slower in their removal of metal. Double cut files are far more aggressive.

Only single cut files should ever be used on saw blades. In addition to the possibility of drastically overfiling, the aggressive double cut files will catch on the thin teeth, making them almost impossible to use. Double cut files can be used for heavier edges such as axes but they won’t produce an acceptable finished edge without extra work.

2. Does crosscut sawing require 2 men?

I’m presuming the question here refers to the large forestry type crosscut saws and not crosscut hand saws . To the best of my knowledge, felling trees with a crosscut saw ALWAYS requires 2 men. I’ve never seen a 1 man felling saw.

The common 1 man crosscut saws are designed for bucking (cutting the log up after it’s down). Although many 1 man crosscut saws have an auxiliary handle that can be used on the toe of the blade, effectively making them a short 2 man saw, their length limits them to far smaller logs than 2 man saws.

1 man crosscut saws are also far thicker and heavier than 2 man saws, since they have to be pushed on as well as pulled (2 man working crosscuts are never pushed, only pulled).