A bit stymied by a construction “detail” with the mitre plane I’m working on, so I pulled out a couple of “in progress” tools that I work on every now and then, a carcass backsaw and a 1” shoulder plane. The wood in the plane is Cocobolo and is stunning when planed (it is sanded and fuzzy in the photo) but I don’t particularly like working it (and I don’t have an allergy to it [yet]), I don’t know, I just don’t get warm fuzzies when working it. Plus, I not so hot on the Norris shape anymore so this project may take a while. The saw is going to be a longer, coarser toothed version the one pictured. Here, I’m testing the fit of the back mortise. The blade mount is going to be a bit different, instead of two mortises (one for the back, one for the blade), there is one and I’ll use spacers for the lower screw (essentially making the back deeper). This is a lot easier for me to fab accurately.

Saw blades are attached to the handle with rivets or screws, with “split nuts” seen on most “quality” saws. An example is seen in the right of the photo. These are cast brass, embossed “Pat. Dec. 31, 1867”, from a J. D. Darlington backsaw. These are quite nice, some older British ones I have are very crude. Either way, I find them a royal pain in the butt to use (and I have a split nut driver). They are thin, the blade cuts them quite nicely if they loosen, the threads are shallow and strip, the slots are too shallow to grip the screw driver and get chewed up. I usually have to make replacements when rehabing an old backsaw. So, they were something I didn’t want to copy.
The countersunk washer keeps the screw head from biting into the wood handle (and the wood from “growing” over the screw head, another problem split nuts have). Lee Valley makes these in brass or stainless steel (Lee Valley Countersunk Washers, 01K70.51) or you can make them with a 82 degree counter sink (the aluminum one at the center back). The #10 washer is 7/16” in diameter, which is close to split nut size. For the nut, I make a tee nut (7/16” x 1/8” head, 1/4” shank x ~5/16'” overall length, depending on handle thickness). As things never quite line up, the nut binds in its pilot hole (during assembly) and doesn’t turn, so I don’t need a lock washer or square shank. The nuts with a through hole are easy to make from rod stock (assuming you have a metal lathe), the closed ones are a pain. My bottoming tap doesn’t cut as close to the bottom as I’d like so I made these from two pieces: a short length of 1/4” rod (with a threaded through hole), a cap with a blind 1/4” hole (I bored the end of a rod (on the lathe) with a 1/4” [center cutting] endmill chunked in the drill chuck). The two were silver brazed (as in real silver solder, 56%, melts at 1200 degrees, very strong) together and post machined (brazing causes things to move and change shape). You have to think the through hole is really ugly for this to be worth the effort. If you care, I think a better/easier idea is just use a long screws, assemble, cut the screw and file flush (which is what is done with split nuts, which stinks because as the wood shrinks, you tighten and the threads protrude. As they do on all my old saws).  For another take on this, see the Norse Woodsmith’s Poor Boy Split Nuts.

Two 10 inch 16 tpi back saws. The blades are 0.020” thick (five sheets of paper) 1095 steel and 3” from teeth to the top of the back.
   - One has an Elm handle and steel back (3/4” x 1/4”). The steel has a baked on linseed oil “bluing”. Filed rip.
   - Madrone (I think) with a tapered brass back (7/8” to 5/8” x 1/4”). Filed crosscut.
All hardware is shop made out of brass or aluminum excepting the 10-24 (handles) & 8-32 (backs) screws and Lee Valley brass Countersunk Washers (I made the aluminum ones).
 

(Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll)

While waiting for more tools to show up (a forstner bit to counter sink the mounting bolts), I made another blade. This one has a tapered brass spine (to mimic a canted blade). The taper goes from 7/8” at the toe to 5/8” at the heel (over 10”).

Elm on the left, Madrone & epoxy on the right.

(Little Shop of Horrors)

Two different ways to do the initial tooth shaping with a file. Either way, you’ll wish you had a tooth cutter.

1) Print a paper template (there are several out on the web) that has lines spaced at the tpi/ppi you want and wrap it around the saw plate. Clamp in the saw vise and file on the lines OR between lines, not, as I did, both. The file with want to skate (badly as it gets dull) so it can be hard to keep the spacing equal. I did such a poor job on this 16 tpi plate that I ground off the teeth and started over. At one tooth every 1/16”, there isn’t much room for error.

2) Use a threaded rod as a guide. I saw this method on woodnet.net forums. Hold a piece of all thread with the desired tpi against the saw plate, put your file in one of the groves and file both the rod and the plate. The file doesn’t slip because it is held in place by the threads. I got a much more uniform tooth spacing. The orange clamp is to try and keep the plate from vibrating as it extends way above the vise jaws. Doesn’t work all that well, wear ear plugs.
The all thread pictured here is 3/8" x 16 tpi. If I was serious, I would quarter the rod so it was small and had two flats for registration.

Hold the file at the desired rake angle as you cut the teeth and add fleam/bevel on another pass (if crosscut). I didn’t do this when cutting the pictured teeth and that was a mistake. Or, just just nick the plate at the desired tpi, then remove the all thread and shape the teeth.

Not much is happening, waiting for tools to show up.
Slotted the elm handle (poorly, the blade slot is out of plane with the spine mortise, arg!). Did a bit more shaping on the handle. Glued (epoxy) the Madrone (remembered the name of the wood) handle back together, looks like Frankenstein, the breaks were not very clean.
Did a trial fit because I was itching to see if things would line up. I’m cautiously optimistic.

The hole punch I ordered did show, the one that is going to save my bacon when making holes in the saw plate (and only $25). Sharpening drill bits every hole gets old fast. This thing is a Roper-Whitney knock off and supposedly has a one ton punching power so it will just vaporize that 0.020” (5 sheet of paper) saw plate, right? Not even, and that was a 5/32” hole. I had to put a 2’ cheater bar to get the needed leverage, which made lining up the holes a real joy. And it makes one heck of a bang when the hole is punched. But the holes are really nice.

Did a bunch of shaping on the Madrone handle. Not sure why, it is soft and stands a good chance of breaking (which it has done at least twice already) but it sure is beautiful wood. Good practice if nothing else. These two handles are “phaties” – I started out with 1 1/8” stock to see if it fit my hand better than 7/8” stock. It does. I’m also leaving a lot of meat on to make up for the the weaker wood. A test fit showed I got the hang too low, need to update the plan.

Decided to use something other than Jatoba for the next handle (as on this saw). That also gives me a chance to use up some of the zillions of chunks of wood cluttering the place up. That piece of apple became too thin after flattening (why do I need to flatten a board before I carve it round? So I can use saws and planes!). Next up was some worm infested white oak, which turned out to be mostly sawdust fill tubes. If I could infuse it with resin, it would probably be pretty nice. That broke so I pulled out some Mystery wood my dad gave me but it had some major fault lines that broke. Finally, a Siberian Elm that lost some limbs during a ice storm a bunch of years ago (and knocked out power for two weeks). The photo shows a squared limb and a slabbed limb. This is a fast growing tree, the growth rings are pronounced and widely spaced.

I have a few back saws and need to store them someplace (so many tools, so little room!), preferably in my hanging tool chest, which means I need a saw till. This till is a slight variation on the tills where the saw is supported by the handle such that the blade leans forward against the back of the till. Just to be different, in this till, the bottom of the blade rests on a shelf and the blade leans backwards against a wire hook. Not better than any other till but it is simple, small/compact, fits in my case, saws are easy to remove and replace and it is simple to modify when I swap out saws.

Construction is simple and really cheap – the whole thing was made from a fir 2 x 4, some bicycle spokes, bits of steel, glue and screws.

The main structure is a U that supports the saws. The blade heel rests on the bottom stile and the battens/slats are attached to the side rails. 1” x 5/8” (not at all critical). It is ~15” tall (my longest saw blade is 14”) and the same width as your mounting space. Having it a bit longer than your longest saw gives you some wiggle room at the top when removing and returning a saw.

The battens are 1/4” x 1 1/5” cut from the sides of a 2 x 4. Their sole purpose is to prevent a saw from cutting your case and to hold the wires. Use as many as you like, spaced however you like. Leave ‘em long and you can test how your low angle planes work on end grain. I used one batten at the bottom to tie the bottom stile to the rails.

The wires are just bicycle spokes (stainless steel!) bent at both ends. The board end is a “Z” shape, the very end pokes into a hole in the board (to keep it vertical and prevent flopping) and has a flat clamping area. The hook end is shaped such that, when the saw touches the wood, it is free of the hook and the saw leans back into the hook. Place them towards the top of the saw.

The clamp is just a small chunk of metal with a hack sawed grove and a hole. It holds the wire to the wood and keeps the saw from falling over backwards.

To remove a saw from the till (one hand only!) (note that you are looking at the sides of the saws, see the first photo):
- Pick out the saw you want to remove.
- Put your hand on the upper part of the blade and press the saw against the wood.
- Tilt the spine a smidge and let the saw fall into your hand.

To return a saw (again, one hand):
- Holding the upper spine, slide the saw into it’s slot, but a few inches high.
- Lower the saw until the heel rests on the bottom stile.
- Move the spine against its wire, and let the saw relax into the hook.

If you are worried about the saw teeth trying to cut the metal bits (which doesn’t happen because the wires act as barriers), do as I do and use plastic tooth guards (you can see the guards in the pictures).

The new handle turned out pretty nice.
  The finish is varnish over linseed oil.

This saw has gone from
  to   to
Two new handles, one new spine.

 
Some pretty hefty reshaping of the handle, a couple of cracks epoxied shut, a mega soak in linseed oil, new screws (the nuts were reused), the nose was chopped off of the plate (to removed the crack), the spine chopped to match, as much curve removed from the spine as possible (a bit was filed off of the top of the front and back to make it seem a bit straighter), the spine was closed so it would grip the plate better (and wouldn’t need those asinine pins), the plate was de-rusted (and left cratered), all patina removed (might as well blow off pretending this is in the original condition), new teeth and sharpened cross cut. Original TPI was kept. Despite the plate looking like the craters of the moon national park, the saw seems to cut just fine. Amazing enough, the plate was straight.
 

To give you an idea of how bad the pitting is, take a look at this:
 

I think I’ve converted a corpse into a nice user with a lot of life left in it. Should the plate crap out, it can be easily preplaced.

To make the spine, I take the two strips of metal, stack them in the vise, drill the 8-32 (#29) pilot hole though both, run the tap part way the top strip (holding it in the drill chuck so it is perpendicular to the strip), then split them and finish the tapping the top plate. The other plate is drilled with the body drill (#18) and counter sunk. Now the two strips can be screwed together and I can drill and tap the rest of the holes without worrying that the stripes will become misaligned. After that, the strips are again separated, finish tapped and the other strip is counter bored.

Details:

• If you are using same piece of metal for both strips, flip and twist one of the strips so that, when pressed together, any warps will cancel out.
• This stuff is never the same width, no mater what the package claims. So one of the strips is going to be clamped tighter than than the other, which is why I do one screw first, to act as a index/holder, before drilling the rest of the holes.
• Things never turn out perfect so I screw the spine together and buzz it off in the mill to square it up. A file would work just as well.
• In the photo, I haven’t punched holes in the saw plate so the spine is just clamping top of the plate. When done, all three will be at the same level.

I hate cutting sheet steel. I don’t have a sheet metal shear, my snips are the non-offset kind and just suck once you get in more than about an inch and I don’t like cut off wheels. I have a 24” cut down the center of a 6” wide sheet. What to do? Well, I read (somewhere on the net) that spring steel can be scored and broken just like glass. Color me dubious but what the heck, if I boo-boo it is only $15 worth of steel (and a lot of foul language).

• Step one: Score. I have a carbide scribe, that should work. I clamped the sheet to the bench with a straight edge along the cut line and proceeded to scribe away. Not much happened. 1095 is tough stuff. Eventually, I have what looked like a score line.
• Break: I then put the sheet in the bench vise (scribed line just above the jaws) and pushed. Nothing. Pulled. Nothing. Repeat, going a lot further than I was comfortable with. Still nothing. But they mean “spring”, the steel didn’t bend, which I was very thankful for.
• Repeat the scoring. Basically trying to dig a trough although the scribe wasn’t up to the task. More bending. Nada.
• Inspiration – what if I help things get started? Took the snips and made a cut along the score line and, this time, bent it over the edge of the bench, using my hands to try and apply even pressure on both sides. Push more than you would like to.
• CRACK. Geez, that is a scary sound. But, wonder of wonders, right down the score line for several inches. Repeat until you have two pieces. What happens if you didn’t do that great of a job scoring? Take a look at the top photo, at the edge between the nips and scribe. It bent, it tore, it sucked. If I had known what I was doing, I would have known to stop bending and deepen the trough.
• Even through the crack follows the score quite well, it is rough, a bit bent and needs clean up.

Conclusion: It works but I’d rather have a shear (I could borrow). A brake would probably also work pretty well to snap the score line.

OK, I’ve built all the parts of a backsaw, now for an original recipe, cooked from scratch.

Here are what I think I’ll need:

• A plan. A 10” x 3” saw [plate]. I was originally going to go for 8” but I stuck some tape on my 10”saw to mark 8”, tried some cuts and peeled the tape off. So I like saw longer than 8”.  Still haven’t figured out the top of the handle but I know the hang and how the blade is mounted so I can get started.
• A theme: Silver. Since I’m going with a steel spine, I’ll make just go with steel everywhere. I bought some Disston Aluminum saw nuts & medallions, I’ll use one of those. I’ll make the spine nut out of Aluminum rod. & 10-24 screw. I’ve since scored some brass on ebay, so the  next saw theme will be yellow.
• Saw plate. 1095 spring steel is what the good saws use, that is good enough for me. 0.020” thick. That’s five sheets of paper or the thickness of the 0.5mm lead in your mechanical pencil. The saws I have (5) range from 0.025” to 0.030” and they all seem just fine so this should be OK (again, the zoot saws are this thin or thinner). I bought 2 sheets of 6” x 24” for ~$30.
• Spine. I’m going with a steel 3/4” x 1/4” sandwich (two 1/8” plates clamping the blade). The handle is going to be clamping the spine so I want the spine to have parallel sides (which you don’t get with a folded back). I thought about a slotted back (I have the tooling) but you have to glue the plate in or bend the spine to clamp the plate, neither of which I want to do (I want to be able to easily dissemble/repair the saw). 1018 low carbon cold rolled steel, easy to machine and cheap.
• Wood. The Jatoba I made the other handle out of looks really nice, so I’m going do that route again (I have lots).

With a little bit work, you can make the make the back saw spine “sandwich” look like one piece of metal (from the top anyway).

The sandwich is two steel plates clamping the saw plate, held together with screws (#8 x 32tpi x 1/4”. one of the plates is tapped and acts as the nut), no glue, no solder.

I filed the top flush, beveled the sides, ran some sand paper over it (because there was a piece sitting on the bench) and used a [knotted] wire wheel to “blur” the metal. On the nose, I didn’t file to full flush and you can see the saw plate.

A really nice tutorial on making a backsaw handle is at backsaw.net. I did pretty much the same thing, I’ll show some photos and differences. First, I made a copy of the handle plan and glued it to chunk of 7/8” Jatoba using a photo adhesive spray. Worked great. Used a forstner bit to open up the grip and a bandsaw to rough out the exterior. I then used a bowsaw to rough the interior. To rough “refine” the shape I pretty much used just the files shown here: a Dragon rasp (the coarse one, one that is way too aggressive for almost everything as it removes wood too fast for me but worked well here. The fine Dragon is very nice and was probably the most used file). The microplane works a treat, this one is dying hard but still cut at each end.

To work the edges, refine the tongue, etc, I clamp to the bench. <aside> I’m not much of a fan of the “boxy”/square handles (ones that are somewhat one dimensional and look like they could have been made by a very talented craftsman using a very nice bandsaw). I like curves and rounds. </aside> As the piece is never in one place for very long, the quick grips allow fast repositioning. <aside2> Strangely enough, carvings on the handle (such as “wheat” on a hand saw) don’t float my boat </aside2>

File, file. File some more. Worry about carpel tunnel. Wrap hand around handle to test fit. File. File. Think maybe those guys who use spoke shaves might be on to something. Nahh. File. Fondle. File. Repeat.

Do a reality check. Looking good.

And now for something where I can’t screw up: cutting the slot for the blade. Filing is fun because it isn’t critical, just eyeball it until it looks and feels good. The slot has to be the same width as the blade, centered in the handle and, since handle grips both the blade and the spine, I have to repeat all of the above for that mortise. First, mark the handle center. I penciled it and then scribed the line (overkill but I wanted to play with my marking gauge).

How to cut the slot? I’d love to use the mill but my slitting saws are too thick. My hand saws are too thick or too thin. What do you know, a mildly worn hacksaw blade is just right. There was no way I was going to free hand this cut. Especially with a hacksaw. Sooo, how to jig this up? Mounting the saw at the proper height would be a pain in the arse trying to hold the saw, clamps, shims, etc so I just clamped it at an arbitrary height and shimmed the handle. I wanted the hacksaw blade to remain tensioned (ie not floppy) so I left it in the frame. A piece of aluminum and two sheets of paper tuned out to be the proper shims (and yes, I measured). Cutting the slot was as tedious as it looks. But it worked (you can see both slot and pencil in this photo).
The spine slot was “roughed” out on the mill with a 1/4” router bit, which left the slot undersized (because the spine is a sandwich of blade + 2 1/8” plates). And not centered either (as it just needed to be inside the lines and blade slot means the cheeks flex as the handle is clamped. Probably should have cut the spine slot first). Stuck the handle on the blade, used a marking knife to mark the spine width and pared with a chisel.

With the paper still stuck to the handle and the blade position marked on the paper, the holes can be marked on the blade for drilling (don’t have a lot of slop because the spine has a preferred position in the handle). I take back most of the good things I said about the Great Neck saw screws and leave it at “they work:”. To counter sink the screws, I drilled the handle with a 1/16” bit, then used that to guide a forstner bit on both sides. Then drilled for the screws (two sizes) and used a square file to fit the square shanked bolt. Fortunately, everything seems to be square [enough], even the cuts.

Now that everything works, the final shaping and finishing can be done.

Since the new spine is over powering the original handle, I decided to make a new handle (which means the only original part left from the saw I bought is the blade, glad it was cheap). I like Spear & Jackson handles so they were the major influence on my design. I took a piece of paper, outlined the original saw & handle (to get the “hang” and locations) and went to town with modifications. I used my S & J saw and some S & J photos as references and mixed in some other saws to make my own gumbo.

After tens of revisions, I came up with:
(Click for full size image)

 


Then I took a 7/8” slab of Jatoba (Brazilian Cherry) and removed most of it (I’ll post the process later). Here is “I’m getting close” photo:
If you decide to copy it, here are some things to be aware of:

• It is designed for three fingers on a small hand. Yeah, yeah, I’ve seen those statistics. Leave room in your blank to stretch it vertically.
• The horns have too much curl in the drawing.
• I used a much more pronounced “wasp waist”, which my pinkie is happier with.
• When you first cut it out and try to hold it, you will go “no way will this ever work”. Shape the insides, leaving lots of meat on the outside and you’ll surprised at how much it opens up as you work to the lines.
• The horns actually cradle your hand.
• The hump became more pronounced and I was surprised at how comfortable it is.  Tip: Put the “high point” of the hump towards the bottom of the “meat” of your thumb joint.
   

A photo of a project in progress in the top secret zenkinetic research labs. Here we see a gutted backsaw in the process of getting a spine-ectomy. You will note the very high tech multi purpose research platform – it can convert from a lab slab to a table saw in mere seconds. The goal of this “research project” as to replace a really cheesy, very wimpy spine (next to the Sharpie) with the spine from hell, two 1” x 1/8” x 12 1/2” steel plates. The before and after photo is of the old spine sitting on top of the new. What I’ve learned so far:

• That much steel is heavy. You really don’t want to press down during a cut; put the saw on wood, push and wood turns to sawdust. Which is good because it takes two hands to lift the saw.
• When you are tired, wired on caffeine and thinking about 10 seconds into the future, try real hard to work on projects that can be shoved into the recycle bin with little remorse.
• Clamping the spine with the handle would seem to be necessary with a spine this long and heavy. Otherwise, the weight flops the blade from side to side relative to the handle when the saw isn’t vertical, the blade is too flexible to keep the saw straight in the handle.
• If you drill the saw plate, your drill had better not stall. If it does, the plate acts like it gets really hard, really fast (work hardens). On this plate, I had to sharpen the drill several times; sometimes I could drill cleaning through, boom, done. Other times, at half way the bit would stop and I would be hosed; hot plate, dead bit. I’m guessing I need better pilot holes, better steel in bit (M2/4?). Or just switch to a hole punch.
• I now have an opinion why some saws are canted (the saw plate is rectangular, the spine is rectangular but sits lower on the front than at the handle: Maximize cutting depth and stiffness. The less tall a plate is, the stiffer it is, which is good. A big fat spine also stiffens the plate. Combine a short plate and tall spine then add a handle and you have no cutting depth. If you don’t [want to] drill through the spine and attach the handle to it, raising the spine is a easy way to leave room for handle screws. The front of the saw benefits the most from the spine, the closer to the handle you get, the less spine you need as the plate becomes shorter and less likely to bend. Making a canted spine makes more economic sense but if materials are cheap and you already have a process and machinery in place, … A non-rectangular spine also might not look as nice.

Broken saw screws, what to do? Especially the nice of brass split screw variety? Given that they were on the clapped out Spear & Jackson, I should just throw them away and put on some chrome Great Necks. But I just can’t. For some insane reason, I want to keep things somewhat original looking (given what I’m thinking about doing to the handle, this is truly unexplainable). After kicking some ideas around, I decided to just go ahead and make some.
This things are not simple and look like they were made with a hammer (nothing round or consistent), so measurements have a lot of slop. I don’t know what the thread started out as (it is possible that the saw is old enough that it predates thread standards), the threads are two messed up to measure but 8x24 seems close enough to work. Not a die I have. But a metal working lathe I do have.

The slope on the shoulder seems to be 20 degrees (I originally measured 30, fixed that later).
One thing I learned later is that the original screws didn’t have enough threads. Through dumb luck, I have enough thread, plus the relief gives me room for wood shrinkage.
Threads turned on the lathe, checking until I got a good fit.

I moved to the mill to cut the shoulders, a file would have worked just fine but why have tools if I don’t use them? A square collet holder allows me to cuts square shoulders – put in vise, cut one shoulder, unclamp, rotate 90 degrees, clamp, cut, repeat. Remove, measure, cut some more (getting a caliper under the chunk is a pain).

Cut the screw off the rod and dressed the head.
Did some test fitting and tweaking (this is where I went, “hmmm, that angle seems to be too steep”) and done, better than new. And it only took two hours. Yeah, two hours to make a little bitty screw. But in the saw it does look like a factory new replacement.  Better yet, that bent one busted as I was test fitting, that is how I know wood shrinkage wasn’t taken into proper consideration (the nut bottomed out and twisted off the almost dead screw). Oh well, I know what I’m doing now, it should only take me half the time for the next ones.

Some times it takes a while for me to see the nose on the end of my face. As I was re-reading Saw Filing – A Beginner’s Primer (Vintage Saws Library), I noticed:

Some people actually make a jig which consists of a ¾" by ¾" square piece of stock. In the center, saw a slot which is 25 degrees to the right of perpendicular. Saw to a depth of about ¼". Flip the stick over, and file a slot 25 degrees to the left of perpendicular. Finally, place the jig on the saw blade.

Sounds like something that would help me keep things in line. Here is my version. I use two slots so it is bi-directional.
It really worked well for me and is sooo simple.

(Widespread Panic song)
Here is what can be charitably called a charity case, if not a total loss. An old brass backed Spear & Jackson:

  
The toe of the saw plate has a big crack, I cut that off just to see what the steel was like (it is pretty nice). Huge pits, and I mean huge; I’m guessing over 0.005, which is over 25% of the plate thickness. The plate under the spine is rusted away in spots. Whoever owned this tool was gods gift to sweat or stored their tools in salt water (or both). They also, apparently, didn’t own a screw driver but did own a BF hammer, which was used to squeeze the spine (which apparently didn’t work as they also added pins) and tighten the saw nuts. The screws were mushroomed, bent, the threads are a mess and one was broken. The beatings gave the spine an arc of over 1/4”, some warpage and a variable sized slot. The wood isn’t too bad; the horns are busted, as is the lambs tongue and the plate slot is full of grunge but generally sound.

Oh well, I have $10 invested and the steel is good, I might as well see what I can do with it. I can go as crazy as I want, nothing to lose here. As I don’t have any steel for a new plate let’s see why they say pitted blades are hopeless.