Make a budget backsaw AWESOME. Total upgrade!

a couple of weeks ago i reviewed three affordable tenant saws and i was looking for just one precise joinery saw that we could add to our woodwork for humans tool kit and for way less than a hundred dollars you can buy a really excellent back saw that will handle tenons dovetails and precise cuts at the bench the best value out of all these saws was this nice crown tenon saw it's ready to go out of the box and you get a lot for the 70 dollars it costs but 70 bucks that's still kind of a lot of money around here when we need a good tool we don't just throw money at the problem we're always looking for hidden value so from the moment i got this 45 spear and jackson tenon saw i thought it might be a secret bargain in affordable joinery saws but if there's value hidden in this thing it's really well hidden this saw has a wide wandering cut it leaves a poor finish and the handle is ungrippable the tool handles and cuts like absolute garbage but here's the weird thing this saw should be excellent the spear in jackson has all the ingredients of a quality tool the plate is thin and straight and the back is real brass and it's heavy the handle is brutally uncomfortable but it's made from real beach all the parts are there it's just the manufacturing where things went wrong maybe we can just fix it hold on am i really suggesting that a pack of broke woodworkers banging away in sheds and basements are really going to do a better job making this saw than the actual manufacturer did honestly i don't see why not [Applause] before you can fix the problems you've got to find them so let's compare this saw with one that actually works well i'm going to cut this tenon using the high quality crown saw for one side and the spear and jackson for the other just look at the cuts the spear in jackson makes a wide ragged kerf and the saw won't track it's a struggle to keep it on the line the crown makes a straight thin cut right down the line let's get rid of the waste and look at the surface finish the spear in jackson leaves a rough surface while the crown leaves a smooth face with fewer tool marks so is the spear and jackson just too thick and clumsy to do a good job well i measured the thickness of the saw plate on the spear and jackson and the crown and they're really similar so that's not it i think the problem is the saws set so in any saw you've got teeth they're lined up like this and each tooth has to be bent a little bit so one tooth is bent a little bit to the right one tooth is bent a little bit to the left all the way down the tooth line that makes the cut just a tiny bit thicker than the saw itself and it keeps the saw from binding in the cut i think that's our problem so instead of measuring the saw we need to measure the set if i just run my fingers down the crown i feel teeth that barely stick out this saw is finally set if i measure the teeth with these cheap digital calipers the set is .034 inches just a little wider than the saw plate the spear in jackson feels totally different the teeth stick way out and they feel ragged to the touch if i throw calipers on there i get .057 inches and that's huge for this kind of saw okay if we've got too much set let's just take some out stick a hammer in your vise and use it like a little anvil lay the teeth down and give them a light tap with another hammer start gentle you'll quickly figure out how much pressure you need honestly i find this hammer trick a little bit clumsy so i like to use a little anvil you don't have an anvil no problem this is just a scrap of square steel tube once i put it in my heavy leg vice it becomes a perfectly good anvil and i can tap my way right down the tooth line i go over the teeth several times stopping each time to measure my progress taking set out of a saw is a lot easier than putting it back in so you want to creep up on your final measurement i end up at .037 inches which is a massive improvement already the saw tracks better and cuts more smoothly now the kerf is straight and neat just a little modification makes this tool a lot better but if the factory didn't set the saw correctly i guarantee you they didn't sharpen it very well either for saw sharpening let me direct you straight to paul steller's saw sharpening video it is the best and he covers all sorts of stuff that we don't have time for in this video but don't worry i'll still hit the important points i'll set the saw up in my homemade saw vice you can build this thing out of scraps and i have a video and plans first i'll joint the saw with a flat file to get all the teeth level and even right at the tip of the saw there's a little half tooth and that's only making the saw hard to start i'm going to just file it off with my flat file the actual sharpening is easy you're just taking a fine triangular file setting it between two teeth and pushing forward with an even stroke in a straight line it's hard to see what i'm doing here so let's switch to a larger saw and a bigger file in addition to sharpening i'm also going to adjust the rake of these teeth i start with the top face of the file flat which means i'm cutting the teeth at about 60 degrees i'll use that angle for the first 12 teeth that's going to give me a very relaxed rake the teeth won't cut fast but they're easy to get started for the next 12 teeth i'm going to roll the file to the left a few degrees for a higher sharpening angle that will make the saw teeth straighter and more aggressive after that i'll roll the file a little more to the left so that the right hand face is almost straight up and down this angle gives me the most aggressive and fast cut and i'll use it for the rest of the job with this filing pattern the saw will be smooth and easy to start but also cut very fast sharpening leaves burs on the edges of the teeth but i can take those off by taking one stroke down each side of the tooth line with a fine sharpening stone now this thing cuts like a totally different tool it starts every time with a single pull stroke it never jumps or stutters and it's easy to track the line the kerf i'm getting is very fine and there's almost no ragged fiber on the back of the cup you could stop right here and the saw would be much better than it comes out of the package but i want to push this upgrade even further i want to attack every aspect of this tool and make it perfect we just have to do something about that miserable handle while we're at it that hardware has to go too those are just brass plated rivets holding that handle in place they're going to loosen eventually and they won't be easy to tighten a good saw needs real hardware with the handle clamped to the bench i use a chisel to make a little trench next to each rivet that gives me the space to tap in a cheap screwdriver and lever out the rivet the two little ones come out easily but the bigger one is press fit and it's stubborn i alternate between levering it with my screwdriver and twisting with a pair of pliers but i do get it out eventually and the handle comes right off before we start messing with the handle on our spear and jackson we need to figure out what we even want luckily i've got a bunch of old back saws like this lovely distance saw right here and it's a great example of what you want in a good back saw handle the main thing is ergonomics it just feels great in the hand and all the details are really well thought out so these horns on either end of the handle those aren't for looks they grip your hand really steadily and help you keep sort of a straight line without straining too much and then an open part of the handle right here well that's only big enough for three fingers and that really encourages you to leave your index finger pointed and then there's a nice flat spot on the handle right here so you can comfortably lay it on there the saw handle encourages the perfect grip that's going to keep you straight and support your muscles while you're making the cut now this distance is excellent and i can use this but let's crank it up a notch i have this fantastic vintage tailor saw made in sheffield england this is the real deal of vintage back saws and the handle is amazing it actually feels even better than the distant which is saying something and it's even prettier it just has nice little horns and curved details it's got all the stuff we could want if we're gonna bother remaking the handle on our spear and jackson saw let's let's do the whole thing let's get every detail in there we can possibly have we could start our handle from scratch just using stock hardwood but the handle we make needs to be slotted for the blade mortised for the spine and drilled for the hardware the handle we've already got already has all of these features and it's so much bigger than it should be we have plenty of material to carve it down you can see how the taylor handle is smaller in every dimension so i took a picture of the spear and jackson and a picture of the tailor i imported them into photoshop traced over them to get the shapes and then merged the two together so i could get the features of the tailor in the outline of the spear and jackson then i color-coded it and turned it into the simple printout that you can just download here's how it works if it's green keep it if it's red cut it away and if it's yellow round it over i've got two copies of the template and one of them is flipped so you can cut them out and then paste one on each side of the handle i like super 77 spray adhesive for this kind of thing the edges of your template will line up exactly with the flat parts of the original handle except for this little bulge right here you're going to need a little extra material here so the line extends onto the round over it'll make sense when you see it in person you'll need a few tools to carve the handle but they're all tools worth having anyway this dreadnought half round file is made for aluminum work but it takes material off these inside curves fast and leaves a smooth finish my ryoba saw is fine enough to saw right up to these tight angles then i can chisel in to take off the bulk of the waste and pair in to get a smooth finish i've got a whole video on cutting curves with flat tools you can check that out to see more of these techniques a little round file will make this horn detail at the top it doesn't do anything but it looks cool you can leave it out to make things simpler for some cuts the coping saw is the best tool especially for the inside of the handle for all the round overs it's nice to have a big round file or rasp but you can also just wrap some coarse sandpaper around a dowel that works fine the final sanding is easier if you cut some long strips of sandpaper that will follow curves and running them back and forth like this is an easy way to finish off the inside surface i planed the surface of my handle to get it a little smoother and because i wanted all the old finish off anyway to replace those dumb rivets i have these nice nickel plated saw nuts you can buy a bag of 10 of these for five or six bucks and that'll get you through three or four saw restorations you'll need to enlarge the holes in the handle which is easy and you also need to drill out the holes in the plate i used a good twist bit in my brace but you can also file the holes out you only have to widen the two smaller holes and only a little bit before i can install the hardware i'm going to stain my handle beach stains really well use whatever color you have on hand then i'm going to do two coats of shellac followed up by paste wax this is my favorite tool finish it's durable but not too slick the finished saw is well it's like a whole new tool it flies through the wood and tracks the line with surgical precision i especially like the way it kicks the sawdust out of the cut and stays engaged the whole way and as for looks well it's a world of difference from where i started you could put this saw into a chest of fine cabinet makers tools and it would look right at home expect to use this saw for a long time i think you're going to be seeing it a lot more in the woodwork for humans videos so this is probably the cheapest route to a high quality western style back saw i'm not going to say it's a fast project but it's not particularly difficult and by the time you've done all of these modifications you will have learned a lot about saws and sharpening and tool restoration now if you want to do this project you're probably interested in grabbing this printable handle template that i showed earlier in the video and listen i usually charge for stuff like this but we've got tough economic times right now and i know money is tight so let's just make this free you can go on over to rexkrueger.com store or click the link down in the description and get this no cost no strings attached while you're at my store you might also notice that i have a bunch of other free plans that you can just grab and a lot of affordable plans a lot of my viewers support this content by picking up plans and it makes a huge difference when people support me by buying the stuff i put out it gives me the flexibility to give stuff away for free once in a while i can put my work into something and not get paid occasionally because i got paid for the other stuff i did so thanks to everybody who supports my work by buying a plan or a t-shirt while we're talking about support i have got to talk about my patrons on patreon they give me the freedom to do things i would never be able to do otherwise like a lot of creators they would not be able to take a tool like this and criticize it and say that it was poorly made and then just hack it up and remake it they might be worried they might not want to piss off the manufacturer me i don't care what the manufacturer thinks because i'm never going to ask them for a sponsorship and i'm never going to ask them for free tools i don't need to because i have the support that makes that sort of thing unnecessary if you'd like to be one of the people who keeps this channel free and independent go on over to patreon.com rexkrueger and check out the early access rewards and exclusive content that i have just from my patrons and if you're just watching this video following along and enjoying this series i appreciate you just as much thanks for watching

Channel: Rex Krueger

Views: 216,767

Rating: 4.9523811 out of 5

Keywords: backsaw, budget tools, maker, how to sharpen a dovetail saw, how to use a saw, how to use a hand saw, sharpening a saw, back saw, how to cut a straight line, beatufiul dovetail saw, woodwork, saw, wood, diy, DIY, do it yourself, restore, saw restoration, tenons, tenon saw

Id: kBJ3Wm2DMA0

Length: 14min 34sec (874 seconds)

Published: Wed May 20 2020