And slowly ripening

This is ridiculous fun. Carving a lamstongue. All done with a sharp chisel, without any training in carving ever. So I'm just winging it. It's far from finished of course.

Something is brewing again

This week I started work on a new saw. Steel back this time. What a bear to work! I still have some 0.6 mm springsteel plate, so this is what I came up with, so far. Lots of work still to do.

New smithing tools

Today I acquired a nice chunck of steel and a larger hammer for my saw smithing adventures. It's all quite a bit larger then the old setup, as can be seen in the picture. Old stuff on the right, the new plate with whacker on the left. And all that for the pricely sum of 10 euro. :-)

Now I really must clean up this metal workers bench!

Pictures

Finishing the saw

After drilling the holes and finetuning them to a perfect fit, I polished up the metal parts for the last time and assembled the saw. My splitnut driver has given up the ghost so it was time to make a new one. A real sturdy one this time. I bought a screwdriver and cut an opening with the anglegrinder. That's how I like my tools, quick and dirty.

Because the sawscrews are a tight fit, I literally hammer them into the handle. Trying to draw them in with the nut doesn't work, only damages the threads. The screws and nuts are now protruding a bit above the wood, so I file them flush and rub everything down on a sheet of sanding paper.

And then after cleaning everything carefully and oiling the handle a couple of times, here's a peek view of how it turns out. I'll make some better pictures outside when it's light again.

Drilling

Slowly the saw is aproaching its finish. Tonight I drilled the screwholes. After deliberating about the best position, as far apart as possible without interfering with the sawback or the chamfers, I drilled a very thin drillbit through and through. This is my pilot hole for all further bits. Starting with an 11 mm one for the screwhead. Then 6 mm for the square shank and then 4 mm for the threaded part of the screw. Then turning the handle over and do the same from the other side. The pilot hole is essential to get both sides in line with each other.

I make the square hole with a small chisel. Fist removing a bit of wood. Then hammering the screw into the hole, so it marks its own hole. Remove the squashed bits and repeat until I have a nice tight fit.

Tomorrow I'll drill the sawblade with a HSS-cobalt bit which works a lot better then a normal HSS bit in springsteel.

Handle making, the easy bit.

And now for the fun part. Shaping with rasps and files, lots of sanding, looking and correcting. This is like sculpting for me.