Sharpening a Crosscut Saw

[bugbear]

Repeated on a regular basis; It should take you no more than 30 sec. to lightly joint the teeth before sharpening.

Agreed - I use a small india slip stone for this, just a couple of light strokes. I found that a file tends to remove too much material (tooth tips being tiny), and the stone gives a shinier shiner.

BugBear

 

[Jacob]

Repeated on a regular basis; It should take you no more than 30 sec. to lightly joint the teeth before sharpening.

30 secs? More like 5!
But then it takes much longer to sharpen as you have to pay attention to each and every flat.
Instead you can just whip up each side with a file, making sure you keep the angle steady and you are in the alternate gullets, without paying too much attention to the details. Obviously you look, but you are not trying to win a tidy saw sharpening competition, you just want to use the damn thing.
Believe me it works!

PS I've never seen a 1" "sagitta" (BB's favourite word!) but if the saw was not for neat shoulder cuts but just for cutting to length it wouldn't be a problem anyway.

 

[pedder]

You need jointing anyway. You can do it in very small steps each filing or in big steps every 10 filings. Up to you.

(But there is only one choice to saw with a good saw after every sharpening.)

 

[D_W]

Or you can do it in small jointing every 5 or 10 sharpenings.

Sharpening without jointing every time is a skill of subtlety, and I don't think we have a good indication (in used tools) of what a skilled user would've done keeping their tools up. I can only reference one person who uses hand tools only professionally, and that's Warren Mickley. Warren says the same thing. You naturally work the teeth at the ends of the saw with a bit more file pressure because you want to err on breasting the saw a little if you can (though if you're jointing with a flat file, it will never materialize).

It is like any other skill that you learn along the way with woodworking, you can either go paint by numbers rigidity, or you can use your hands and eyes and make subtle adjustments.

I touch up rip saws every project. I rarely joint. When I do joint again, it's unusual (or more accurately, it never happens) for me to have to do much jointing. It's more of a double check than a need, you don't want to let it go until it's a need.

Crosscut saws don't need attention as often, and work better when they're half dull than a rip saw - I don't think I have one that I've sharpened five times.

Is it appropriate for beginners to not joint with each sharpening? Maybe not. Is it appropriate for the guru sharpeners to charge $40+ to sharpen a saw and not joint, probably not. Is it appropriate for someone doing a lot of work by hand to joint every time? Probably not. It's similar to insisting on using a really long progression of sharpening stones. At first it's an indulgence to err on the safe side, but as you decide you want to get work done, it soon becomes a nuisance when it's not necessary.

 

[pedder]

Ok, if you sharpen before the saw is "dull", you can go away with identical strokes over the hole saw. (wich is not easy if you file every other gullet, becaus your file will dull a bit more before you reach the seconds)

But why not joint then? If the saw is even flat, you will remove the jointing marks with one file stroke per gullet. (Yeah, I mean joint carefully.)

If you have to joint heavier, it pays for itself.

You certainly can joint a breasted (convex) toothline with a flat file. To joint a holow (concave) toothline, you'd need something special, but not for a convex one

Cheers
Pedder

 

[D_W]

Ok, if you sharpen before the saw is "dull", you can go away with identical strokes over the hole saw. (wich is not easy if you file every other gullet, becaus your file will dull a bit more before you reach the seconds)

But why not joint then? If the saw is even flat, you will remove the jointing marks with one file stroke per gullet. (Yeah, I mean joint carefully.)

If you have to joint heavier, it pays for itself.

You certainly can joint a breasted (convex) toothline with a flat file. To joint a holow (concave) toothline, you'd need something special, but not for a convex one

Cheers
Pedder

Why not joint? Because it slows down the process of using the actual saw. If the average amateur with no cycles of use in a saw and no experience sharpening tried to skip jointing, they'd probably have a problem. Someone sharpening their saws on a regular basis should never need more than a light jointing.

There will always be some wear on a crosscut saw as soon as it's had some use - the tips round quickly, maybe a little less so if you go light on the fleam.

But the short answer is that the joint should be light whether the saw's been sharpened no times since the last jointing or 5 times. If someone has to do more than a light joint, then they shouldn't be skipping jointing. On the two rip saws that I use regularly, the cycle of sharpening has never created teeth so uneven that they need more than a light joint. That is what a skilled user should be shooting for. Refreshing a rip saw is 5 minutes at the most. If you joint, it's not 5 minutes. Same for a crosscut saw - a little more than five minutes, but once you joint, ...well, you tell me how long it takes to joint and refresh a crosscut saw? maybe it's 10 minutes without jointing, and if the job is not satisfactory, the saw will tell you very quickly. If it is, the saw will tell you, and then you saved quite a bit of time.

 

[Trafalgar]

The new saw filer should monitor the shape of the toothline by registering it against the top of the bench and looking at it -- especially if a slight breast is being maintained. Jointing the saw is by no means a guarantee that the toothline won't or can't become wavy.

Let your shop reference surfaces assist you whenever they can.

 

[D_W]

The new saw filer should monitor the shape of the toothline by registering it against the top of the bench and looking at it -- especially if a slight breast is being maintained. Jointing the saw is by no means a guarantee that the toothline won't or can't become wavy.

Let your shop reference surfaces assist you whenever they can.

It is, unfortunately, no guarantee that a beginning filer won't have drastically different tooth sizes on each side on a crosscut saw, either.

A good filer can look down the teeth on a saw and get an idea of whether or not the teeth look good. Like so many other things in the shop, you can see a lot looking down the length of something.

 

[Trafalgar]

It's one of those unfortunate things that in order to become really good at doing you have to take a detour from the central activity (woodworking). This essential truth gave rise to the 'saw doctor' profession.

 

[D_W]

It's one of those unfortunate things that in order to become really good at doing you have to take a detour from the central activity (woodworking). This essential truth gave rise to the 'saw doctor' profession.

I wonder when it was, really in the past that people would've used a handsaw for more than cutting 2x4 s to length. That is, I'll bet it's been a really long time since anyone used saws exclusively enough to warrant learning to sharpen. The guy cross cutting 2x4s wouldn't have done enough sharpening to worry about it.

 

[pedder]

It's one of those unfortunate things that in order to become really good at doing you have to take a detour from the central activity (woodworking). This essential truth gave rise to the 'saw doctor' profession.

Yes. Most spare time woodworker don't feel the need to sharpen their saws for loooong times.
So if they try to learn to sharpen saws only when they feel the need, it will be hard for them to learn it well.

But like every other skill you can try to learn it really well once and never will forget it after. Like swimming or cykling.

And it is not difficult to learn it, if you see what you do. I've trained some starter saw filer and non of them had a big problem to get a very shgarp saw. I think because they saw what they did. So get a well raked light, a saw vise, a dozen of files and half a dozen saws. Once you have them all sharp, you got it and will never forget it.

Saw doctors or jigs if you don't want to learn it.

Cheers
Pedder

 

[John15]

Many thanks everyone in expanding my original post. All your comments have been very helpful.

John