Fleam teeth for Mr. Spanton

[Scrit]

Hi Mr. S

You asked about fleam teeth. I've seen these used on frame saws in both Germany and the east of the Netherlands to cut tenons. They cut in both push and pull directions so they are extremely fast in use, although the finish isn't brilliant. The frames were 2 to 3 feet long (my Polish roofer had three different sizes as I recall, for different size joints). They were relatively coarse, something like 3 to 5 tpi (to my mind they reminded me of the sort of pitch I'd use for resawing on a bandsaw). The guy who did our roof all those years back was Polish and had served his time in Poland before WWII so that was the type of saw he was used to and he bought German blades and made his own frames from Buchholz (hornbeam?). I gather that this was the normal practice. The nearest I can find is this type of saw/blade from a 1970s Ulmia (German) catalogue:

ZH teeth are induction hardened (blued) and as the text says - they are not resharpenable, so a throw-away blade in a traditional frame

Sorry they're in German - don't have any English language stuff like this. I just wish now that I'd taken a bit more time to talk with him about methods of work.

Scrit

 

[bugbear]

They look a lot like (horticultural) bowsaw teeth, for cutting off branches.

BugBear

 

[Anonymous]

Thank you for that scrit
Looking at the shape of the teeth are they related to the sandvik bow aw type blades superficially they look alike (I dont use them much ecxept on leylandiea trees) :lol: :lol: ?
I reckon you could make the tooth tips with a wider or narrower angle to suit different wood speceis, trade off between sped of cut and how long the tips last? You wouldnt necessarily need a 3 square file either to sharpen them would you, in fact you could almost stone them? I am sure they never had nice fine nicolson files back in 1537 :wink:
Finish isnt an issue for a wod butcher such as myself (not on tennons for frams at any rate!) anything that works well is of interest to me though!!
Again thanks for the info
cheers Mr Spanton

 

[Scrit]

The guy had a couple of long wedge-shaped files in his bag for sharpening them, more like a lockmaker's file, but definitely not a three square type. Never saw him using them, though

Scrit

 

[Anonymous]

Hello again scrit
would this type of file be suitable?

or is the lock smith one more like a knife shape?
I got a couple of these at redcar not knowing what they really were but they seemed good quality anyway!
cheers Mr Spanton

PS the photos make it seem lrge, its only about 20 mm wide

 

[Scrit]

Yes, that sort of shape. He told me that he had to get his blades and files from Germany. Certainly weren't anything like the sort of files I was used to for British saws

Scrit

 

[MikeW]

Seems fleam teeth is another term for peg teeth. A term used traditionally here and maybe there.

This shape is most simply filed with roughly 45 degrees of fleam and the file held so one side of the triangular file is level on the top, which produces roughly 30 degrees of rake on both a tooth's back and another's face.

It produces extremely fast/smooth cross cutting at the expense of tooth edge longevity.

If one is doing small peg teeth or large ones where the gullet width is desired to be increased, the teeth are roughed in with a triangular file, and the teeth further refined with the file shown a couple posts up.

Take care, Mike