Back bashing

As promissed, some pictures about how to make the folded brass back nice and flat (and straight).

First annealing the brass. I heat it up as hot as I can get it and let it cool down again. It doesn't get redhot (need a larger torch) but every little bit helps to make the brass a bit softer.

Then I bring it back into the shop (don't look at the mess...). I have an extra, very thin steel plate of only 0.3mm thick. This I insert in the previously folded back. I use the anvil from my metal working vise, which happens to be quite large. The hammer is 1 kg.

And then the bashing begins. I try to hit the brass as square as possible to limit the amount of dents. First one side, then the other. I check how straight everything is going to be. Putting the concave side down and hitting from above, helps to correct bows.

This video is heavy metal! So, turn up the volume to amuse the neighbours. Mine were very pleased too.

First back is there!

Just two quick pictures. Yesterday the sawplates arrived and I could start on fitting the backs. First one is now tight, straight and sanded to 60 grit. everything still needs to be cut to length and finished further. I'll make some pictures this week of the process.

Selecting beech

The old English saws were always made with beech handles. Often with beautifull ray fleck patterns. They used to split the wood, a method which opens up the wood in the exact radial plane. Because I use sawn wood, I have to search for the right plane where the rings are perpendicular to the face.

Some pictures. First the chopsaw. My "new" Spear and Jackson 6ppi crosscut saw.

Cutting oblique on the tablesaw, until I find some nice rayflecks.

And this is the result.

A bunch of screws.

Today was screw day. The first part is the same for all things round: the metal lathe.

But some things are not round. The nuts need a screwdriver slot. I start with a metal handsaw, more or less in the middle. Widen up the slot a bit with a file.

The screw also needs filing. Under the head, I need a square shank, so the screw won't rotate when tightening the nut. No meassuring, just eyeballing it.

And that's it. Nuts and bolts.

More of the same

Sometimes I like a good challenge. This time I'm trying to make a small batch of saws and trying to make them as good as I can. Can I get through the repetitive stuff, without cutting corners? Will they all look more or less the same?

So, I made a start today, bending some brass. First on a metal brake, a 90 degree bend.

This is further tightened in a large machinists vise, protected with some scrapmetal of course.

Pushing on the handle with all my might, I didn't get any further then this.

Well, it doesn't look like much yet, but it's a good start. Good enough to encourage me to order the saw steel plates. I won't continue until  they have arrived, so I can take a big hammer to smash everything flat, with just enough space to clamp the sawplate.

Saw's finished

Today I got around to file the new teeth in the sawplate, something I didn't look forward to. I choose an 18 ppi pattern, which means very small teeth. I used a patern from this website. Folding the patern over the sawplate, clamped between some small battens in a vise. I couldn't use my normal saw vise because the saw is too small. I used a small block of wood on the tip of the file to help me getting a consistent rake angle for all the teeth. Something like this.

And this is the saw. Not a great picture, but it shows the canting of the plate and the tapering of the spine pretty well. The handle is far from elegant, rather robust I'd say, but it is very comfy. I made it a little thicker at 24mm, which feels good. My previous saw build has a 22mm handle, which is a bit too thin.

And here are the money shots!

Pretty nice piece of beech isn't it? You can click on the pictures to see a larger image.
Oh, BTW, the saw works allright. At 18 ppi it is not fast, but it goes down this piece of beech like butter.

Some small changes to the saw handle

When I was looking at the pictures of the saw handle yesterday, I wasn't happy with how it looked. The upper horn was way too fat and bulky. The curves leading up to the point of the upper horn weren't very smooth either. And the chamfer around the round part with the sawscrews kind of didn't flow.

Weird how you don't see these things when you are working on it, but it is glaringly obvious in a picture. So, just before bedtime I went out to the shop again and spent some time with rasp and sandpaper to make things better. With a coat of oil it now looks like this. Much better I think, allthough I didn't remove much wood.