Ripping and crosscut saws buying advice needed

[welly]

I have made and used a fair number of saws. If one is going to make aesthetic saws with everything just right and do a lot of it by hand, a dovetail saw will literally take several days to make. I doubt anyone making really fine tools is making more than the median wage wherever they live, and if so, not by much.

LN's a boutique maker, but they are efficient. you get a lot of saw for the money with them, but even they are not necessary to do good work with as much vintage as there is floating around.

One of the problems with the internet is that when someone like me says there's no real practical performance reason for a 500 pound saw, it gets spun into all kinds of things that aren't what I just said in that statement. It doesn't by any means confirm that a maker is ripping someone off (in my opinion, they're not). They're making something that has value to customers beyond just performance.

Link to Wilson Groves Reproductions

After George wilson posted the two groves saw reproductions in the middle of this thread, he said with what people are getting for saws, he'd think about starting to make some again (that was just a thought, he's not going to do it). I asked him what he'd demand for a saw like the closed handle saw, and his answer was $500. The handle is as finely made as you'll ever see, he's as skilled as anyone you'll ever meet, and the spine of the saw is folded and then crisp facets are filed onto it.

Can you make a $125 saw do just as well cutting? I think so. Are there elements in george's saw that may never be duplicated in a production saw (the work on the handle, the facets on the brass, etc). I think so. Those subtleties are costly. He said (he made saws at CW in the tool shop as part of his day job - nobody will make something to that standard faster than he does) that the handles take about 5 hours of hand work for each. when I made handles, it took me closer to double that and the result wasn't as good. it would be difficult to make them in five hours. When he was working, he charged a shop rate of $50 and I'd guess he's thinking each saw would take 10 hours.

I would never dream of claiming that he's robbing people if he'd ask $500 for one of those saws. I don't have any boutique backsaws, but I would buy one.

I think that's a fair comment. There's probably a bit more to it than just "does it cut better". The Skelton ones are absolutely beautiful tools, as are the Lie Nielsen saws, but for me - basically a bodger - as lovely as it would to have them in my workshop, I'd fear damaging them and they're a bit costly to damage! Perhaps down the line when my methods are honed a bit more. For the time being, I've got some Veritas saws and they're a happy medium for a quality saw that doesn't cost entirely the earth (just a little chunk of it).

Cheers!

 

[D_W]

Fair point about damage, and for someone who is obsessed with the hand work rather than following strict routine, dents and broken off horns are not uncommon.

I've got some fairly nice handles on saws that I've made myself. One of them has lost its horn already in a matter of just a few years, and it didn't lose it on its first drop.

On a saw like a skelton, I'd be genuinely upset. I always figure after cobbling up the fixes on my own saw, if it gets to the point that i need an entirely new handle, I can just make one.

I much prefer having tools in use that don't make me feel like i'm walking on eggshells, or that if they happen to get a light glaze of surface rust, removing it and moving on is no big deal.

 

[AJB Temple]

I think DW nailed it above. I work in a professional field (law / finance) and the hourly rates for senior people (this is London) are eye watering. More than one hand made saw an hour.

It is very difficult when valuing skill and labour. To me, $50 or £60 an hour for a very skilled man is cheap, compared to say £140 an hour (plus) for a paralegal or trainee solicitor. So in that value context saws are cheap.

I think the Rob Cosman hand made saws are good value for the apparent quality. For the resin handled model it is about Can$200. Say £170 for a tenon or dovetail saw. This is 22 tpi in the starter section then 15 I think in the rest, presumably hand cut on a jig. This shoots up sharply if you opt for fancy wood handles as I imagine labour costs are the issue, so this gets into the same price area as Skelton.

I use Veritas day to day: cross and rip tenons, dovetail and a large tenon, but I must admit if I were starting from scratch I would not buy them again. I don't really bother faffing about fettling eBay saws because frankly if I spend my time doing my day job it works out far better for me to sell my time doing that, than spend it fixing old tools. I do woodwork because I love it: I want to spend my free time doing that, not fixing eBay finds. So that is my value judgement.

I know Jacob and maybe others thinks this is b a ll s but I like to use nicely made aesthetically pleasing tools and this factors in to my own choices these days. I honestly can't be bothered with stuff like Aldi chisels etc. I do use hard point panel saws, but only for rough work. They are ideal for cutting up stuff like insulation panels, and then I just chuck them. Mostly panels I cut with a track saw, and most cross cutting is done on the sliding mitre. Hence although I do have a nice quality rip panel saw, it sees very little use. The tenon and dovetail saws are worth spending a bit of money on.

 

[Andy F]

Thanks to all you for your advice. I think I will go down the route of buying a decent second hand set of saws and some sharpening equipment. I am getting close to retirement and want to improve my woodworking abilities from "Self-taught imbecile who has bought every electrical tool known to man" to someone who can use hand tools to make some nice things. I have yet to master a plane for flattening and dressing, saws were something else I was wondering about. I have some nice pieces of pitch pine and my wife has said "isn't is about time you made something for me , like a bookcase" so that is what I plan to do, but I would like to learn some craft along the way rather than just feeding wood into a machine and glue the resulting bits together.
Cheers

Andy