18th Century Craftsman's Saw
Intro: 18th Century Craftsman's Saw
As an 18th century reenactor portraying a carpenter with a colonial militia I needed a small saw to make things like tent pegs and chair legs. Not finding anything suitable in antique shops I decided to build one based on paintings and drawings of that era.
STEP 1:
Even simple tools of the era were hand made and often had pleasing curved shapes. Straight wood is good for making straight things, but straight things are boring. To make strong curved wooden shapes requires curved wood. So I went to my firewood pile and found a curved piece of seasoned oak. I bought a Jorgensen saw blade from Grizzly and planned out the saw to fit the blade.
I hot glued the log to a piece of thin plywood to give me a flat side to start work from. With my band saw I cut a thick plank from the log, thick enough to make both end pieces of the saw. With a hand plane I finished the plank on both sides.
I hot glued the log to a piece of thin plywood to give me a flat side to start work from. With my band saw I cut a thick plank from the log, thick enough to make both end pieces of the saw. With a hand plane I finished the plank on both sides.
STEP 2:
I drew the profile of one end piece on the plank to match the curve of the wood grain. Then I cut the profile and split the plank to make a matched pair of end pieces. They cleaned up nicely with the hand plane.
Some slots and grooved pins hold the blade to the ends.
Some slots and grooved pins hold the blade to the ends.
STEP 3:
Larger saws usually have two thin curved crossbars that brace against each other. But for a saw this small a single crossbar will do. The tenon is tapered so it fits in the mortise with a little play and the ends can pivot as the blade is tightened.
A loop of string is twisted with a small stick to provide tension for the blade.
A loop of string is twisted with a small stick to provide tension for the blade.
15 Comments
nexsad 10 years ago
Good job!
claudg1950 10 years ago
technofossil 10 years ago
Great ible. Nice saw.
fetech 10 years ago
MiltReynolds 10 years ago
AmyCat59 10 years ago
rcleavitt 10 years ago
A handmade bucksaw was part of every household and with a good axe was the the main tool of the pulpcutter. Pulp for paper was a major source of income for many of the farmers and farm hands during the winter months upAroostook, where I never knew it to go below 59 below zero. My dad and I and the Station Agent for the Bangor&Aroostook Railroad stood on the station platform watching the thermometer one morning waiting for it to drop to 60 below. We were disappointed though..... 59 was the best it could do!
The main source of heat in that part of the world was wood, which was felled in a large woodlot, limbed out and twitched out, using a single horse (to keep the twitch path as narrow as possible) to a twitch yard, where it was bucked up to woodstove length, and hauled home on a double sled pulled by a team of two horses.
Pulp was bucked up in four foot lengths and piled in cords, 4X4X8 feet, along the road where a truck could load it and haul it to the railway station where it was shipped to the paper mills.
A bucksaw blade had a combination of crosscut and raker teeth. The rakers were longer and had two teeth, one filed to cut on the push, and the other filed to cut on the pull. The rakers had more "set" meaning they were moved off the centerline of the blade in an alternate pattern to widen the cut in a log and remove the wet, sticky sawdust, so the blade wouldn't bind.
The bowsaw is an altogether different animal and made from metal. You could easily fashion one today out of electrical conduit or go to Home Depot with a couple of bucks.
Either way..... your choice!
I knew the guy that held the patent on the bowsaw. He was also a Maine Guide, tied fishing flies, and made fly rods. One of his flyrods could cast a dry fly clear across the St. John River during high water.
My grandfather carved out the pieces to make a bucksaw with a "crooked knife" which he also made, from an old straight razor and a piece of an Alder bush for a handle. The knife was used by pulling it toward you.
Oh, and I have some experience cutting pulp and bucking it up. A cousin and I decided to get rich so we conned "namp" into letting us cut pulp in his woodlot. International Paper Company was paying three dollars a cord and the going rate for cutting and stacking it beside the road was a buck and a half. It only took us a couple of weeks to put up a cord so our wealth didn't accumulate very fast!
rabelais 10 years ago
The prototype is far older than 18th ( maybe roman or earlier).
foglemam 10 years ago
SherpaDoug 10 years ago
SherpaDoug 10 years ago
chipito 10 years ago
Corvidae 10 years ago
SherpaDoug 10 years ago
klee27x 10 years ago