This is the last of three honest discussions about what really makes for efficiency when working in the shop, though it could carry on into marking tools, rules, squares, etc. Almost nothing that’s marketed now really improves making with the possible exception of the convenience of some japanese saws when you want to saw from any direction and have work elevated where it may not be convenient with a western saw. Even those are annoyingly marked up (for example, you may find a Z-saw replacement blade in the US for $20 and then spot one sold by a dealer on Japan’s version of ebay for $7.50 including shipping, or $5 per in a group of five). But, let’s put that aside (you can explore yahoo-Japan proxy shippers if you’d like and view saws there. If you’re not sure what that is, that’s eBay in Japan, functionally. They seem to prefer Yahoo).
Not Advice for a Mostly Power Tool User
There are some things that go into using saws and being the filer and noticing what’s efficient and what’s not. Someone who cuts dovetails and the odd M&T joint isn’t going to follow this. If you’re working entirely by hand, you may be filing a saw once a week, or more if you’re in the shop a lot. You’ll also physically benefit a whole lot from a long saw with good tension and that shines in the Cycle of Work when it comes to sawing vs. filing. Filing is essential. It’s also not very difficult if you can do it a few times in a row. You don’t need to be great at it, but you need to be able to get the tips of the teeth refreshed without them being too far out of line, and then once you’re there, keep a level set of teeth relatively level without jointing. It’s not hard.
What’s important in long saws is reasonable tension, no broken teeth, the ability to be filed well and length. Why gentleman’s saws and toolbox saws became a thing for someone working in a fixed location, I don’t know.
As far as 1935 goes, that’s about the time that the circular saw appeared and the end of good saws was almost immediate. I can’t see a reason to buy any long saws made now, and there’s no great reason to buy any of the short ones if you have the skill to file. If you do a lot of rough work with rip and crosscut saws, you’ll soon saw very accurately and the discussion of plate thickness on small saws (within reason – again, toss out the saws made in the 1970s or whatever, those are to be avoided – even if you start looking at scandinavia, there’s nothing that’s close to an early 1900s Disston saw when the whole saw is considered).
The good news is that there really isn’t a better saw than a Disston long saw, and the various patterns are overblown (as in, a #12 really isn’t much better, or functionally any better than a same-era D8). The only other maker that I can think of that’s floating around that’s the equal of Disston’s relatively common long saws is Woodrough and McParlin, and I recently found and old catalogue that showed that W&McP’s saws were actually more expensive – I’m not surprised. I wouldn’t say they’re better in function, but they can be a bit harder and stiffer. They’re nice, but what they gain in stiffness and hardness is probably offset by the fact that they can be a little hard on files.
What about new boutique saws? I don’t get it in the large ones. How many will have very strong double tapering and tensioning that matches the stones or wheels that tensioned disston’s saws while leaving the overall saw fileable? The idea of a $400-$500 boutique long saw just doesn’t make a great deal of sense. But if you like them because they’re pretty and they’re new and filed well, that’s up to you. Just don’t let anyone convince you that there is something special about saws made for a limited market vs. saws made in a golden era and sold to professionals.
What about the Small Ones?
I’ve made a few saws (mostly from purchased parts) – joinery saws – and one large frame saw from 1095 coil and scraps. If you’re working entirely by hand and you have the filing skill, you don’t need a new saw. I can’t actually see the advantage over an old saw. Don’t get fascinate by super thin plates (if you look at the older English saws, lots of them had thin plates – it’s not something that’s never been done before) – if you have sawing skill, whether a plate is. .016″ or .022″ isn’t going to make any difference to you.
But as with not getting floppy long saws, don’t get something that’s absurdly thin or absurdly fat (again, 1970s – some of those have really soft fat plates).
If it’s hard to find decent older back saws, then some newer saws start to make sense. I haven’t noticed it, but I’m not afraid to order saws from England to get something that looks a little more human and a little less pin router in terms of aesthetics, and that will have a folded back and not a kind of tacky slotted back with the blade fixed permanently in it.
In terms of dovetail saws rising into mid three figures in price – you’ll never find utility in it (beyond having something pretty – if that’s what you like). It will come down to your filing, and if a saw is really that bad, you may want to replate one at some point. It’s not a bad learning experience. Over time, my Things Made forum will show chisels, planes, and who knows what else – I’ve made a few saws, as mentioned, but the urge to make them for leisure just isn’t there. If I had additional space, I would raid the UK and ebay of older more elegant saws, but that has nothing to do with making.
A theme will develop here. For the average person who wouldn’t replate a saw, or file their own saw, or who is afraid of older tools – I don’t really have great advice for that crowd. I think it becomes very limiting when it comes to working by hand if you can’t manipulate your own tools to be what you want. And it should be little time before you’d prefer a $50 saw filed the way you want it over a $500 saw that’s not quite filed the way you like.
Of Making by Hand with Wood and Steel 
Here is the US one can find plenty of vintage saws, I was lucky to find several for just a few dollars. The benefit of the taper of the plate is easy to understand, however you mentioned tensioning of the plate. What is this characteristic, why is it important and is it not something found in modern saws?
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Tension is created by compressing the surface on saws. If you hammer the surface of a saw, you will create tension and if hammering on metal, compression inward will pull the side you’re hammering (and the saw will bow). If you can do the hammering evenly on both sides, they become very tensioned but the two sides cancel each other out. However, they’ll pulling strongly and the plate becomes stiffer.
As steel gets harder, then it supplies more of its own strength, which does something similar (thus, a high hardness 1095 plate saw may seem more stiff than one that’s softer).
On older saws, this tension was done by running the saw plate through an industrial setup, like rollers or round stones that press each side of the saw and create this tension. It allows a stiffer saw without making the saw unduly hard to file. Disston and McParlin saws seem to me to have good tension. Atkins have been more hit or miss for me, and I’ve never found simonds saws in quantity to really check, so I didn’t mention them.
So, this compression done evenly is on both sides of the saw plate, and on the surface, and if you do too much mechanical metal removal with something like a deburring wheel, you can actually end up abrading this tensioned layer off and end up with a floppy saw. I did exactly that with a very rusty 7. While I think making and hardening tools is easy, it is absolutely not very easy to add even tension to a saw that’s lost it – it’s too easy to apply it unevenly and have a saw that goes a little bit one way or another and then flops toward the side with more tension like a pop-it toy. Unfortunately, I have experience with this, too.
In the cycle of work, though, I much prefer a saw that’s got reasonable hardness and a lot of tension vs. trying to get tension by going up in hardness and being hard on files.
There are probably hand made japanese saws that are tensioned, but I doubt there’s much on any modern saws. I asked George Wilson at one point if they ever tensioned the saws they made at Williamsburg and it was a while ago, but I believe he said more or less that the steel that they used was good hardness and that they didn’t think it was necessary. If they’re not doing it, I don’t know who would outside of the few remaining japanese sawsmiths making saws mostly by hand (and perhaps their saw plates are so hard that it’s not needed – never delved into that).
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Your post and comment have intrigued me, so much so that I started reading A place to live and work : the Henry Disston saw works and the Tacony community of Philadelphia. But I was surprised to read the smithers used to tension saws by hand, with the help of an arsenal of hammers (pp. 12-13, 106). So, when did the rollers or round stones appear in the process of making a Disston saw?
On page 106, the author based his statement on a source I can’t reach: “Hammering and adjusting tensions of log saws in the filing rooms”, Australian Timber 21 (May 1955), 269-278. Did you have a chance to read it?
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Actually, this is a good question as I’m repeating what someone else mentioned about rolling saws. Disston definitely talks about rolling steel for saws cold in the drawing process after hot rolling, but it’s not clear if that part of the rolling is done to do anything to the surface (I think no) or if it’s intended to get more precise thickness than hot rolling alone.
Their literature from 1917 talks about tensioning saws after they’re done with hammers – that’s hand saws. Also, back to the prior paragraph – after the rolling of the stock, the saws are hammered and heat treated or heat treated and hammered, I can’t remember which, and then ground. This would be metal on metal.
And then at the end of this, disston says they are corrected by a workman with a hammer and a lignum block. “the end of this” prior to the lignum block being tensioning. So, I don’t see the roller being mentioned as a tensioner. the google AI says that the saws are roller tensioned but one of the links comes back to me (!!!) and another goes to other links, but I don’t see how it makes the leap.
And then twist number two – circular saws and bands are definitely roller tensioned. The disston book talks about rolling, or “stretching” bands in house at larger sawmills with rollers instead of hammers and says something like “larger mills have rollers on site”. They’re stiffening band mills probably from time to time to make sure they run true, but doing it with a roller machine. Obviously, a band mill blade is a different proposition than a saw blade.
I have tensioned saws with a hammer, but it is admittedly a little sketchy if you are not careful, and you can end up with a saw that has unequal tension and that seems stiff, but can go into a flop, or past a point where the tension isn’t in balance and the saw blade flips over into a horrible position with a weird noise and needs to be moved back. I’ve flopped a couple of saws that had no tension at all, hammering, but they were headed for the garbage. I realize now I could attempt to reharden them, but that would be difficult to do in a garage shop for anything other than a small dovetail saw blade, which is something I could harden.
I do not know where to read up further on this, but wouldn’t be surprised even if I can find something matching gemini’s comment about disston rolling the number 12 to get more even tension, that lower volume saws like log saws would be hand hammered instead of roller hammered.
It’s no surprise that a large sawmill would have a roller on site if that was the typical way to keep blades true as I’ve seen videos of sharpening setups in large commercial mills in a separate maintenance room where the automatic sharpening machines are running in the background.
1917 is the date that the circular and bands (sawmills) are mentioned as being tensioned by rolling, but it must’ve been sooner than that.
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