Teaching the hand saw

[dcarter636]

My current project is a mission styled crib for an impending grandchild. My son and I picked out almost enough well matched cherry boards for the project a few weeks ago and started cutting out the rough over sized pieces to allow them to relax, cup, and twist, a bit before working them to their finished dimensions.

For important stuff I leave about four inches of waste on the rough lengths to accommodate jointer and thickness planer snipe and some short checking. That also leaves room for fair sized cross cutting errors. This was a golden opportunity for junior to learn a little bit of hand saw technique while crosscutting these 11-12" wide planks for his kid's crib.

I'm guessing most of us, like me, had pretty frustrating first experiences with dull, bent, crappy panel saws with highly unergonomic handles and then resolved to spend several mortgage payments on power saws to solve that problem. He had the option of starting with a pretty decent sharp, straight, apple handled antique crosscut saw, a solid workbench, and another set of eyes to shorten the learning curve.

He would cut 3/4 of the way across and I would cut from the other edge to meet his kerf, then we would compare the results with a try square. After several iterations his cuts hewed the pencil line within 1/32" over the full board width and were square to the board face better than 1/64" across the 7/8" board thickness.

When we were all done he observed that the handsaw was less stressful than using table saw to rip his shortened boards to their rough widths and actually kind of enjoyable.

I can't wait til he tries the smoothing planes to remove machining marks. ;D

[TDHofstetter]

That's a does-the-heart-good story, Dave!

[sawduster]

I'm guessing most of us, like me, had pretty frustrating first experiences with dull, bent, crappy panel saws with highly unergonomic handles and then resolved to spend several mortgage payments on power saws to solve that problem.

As a very young lad, maybe 7 years old, I had a friend whose dad had a shop with pretty much all hand tools. I remember using his hand saws to cut some boards and it seemed that they worked pretty well. Several years later using more modern handsaws, I seemed to have more difficulty cutting boards than I had as a 7 year old. It wasn't until my more recent ventures into vintage saws and sharpening that I realized that it all had to do with the saw and the sharpness there-of.

[Joe Lyddon]

Yes, I find myself reaching more n more for a Hnad tool before a Power tool...

It IS more fun and more satisfying...

[dcarter636]

That's often the way I feel too Joe. The power tools are safe from any foreseeable yard sales but the hand tools can be downright therapeutic and you can use them in a suburban setting into the late night hours without annoying the neighbors.

I've come to enjoy what I believe Jerry calls a balanced shop, where power tools have their place for speeding up repetitious or large tasks and hand tools provide otherwise unattainable delicacy and finesse unaccompanied by the dull roar of a dust collector.

[dcarter636]

Just remembered something before signing off.

Jerry it was your often casual postings about hand saws that made this possible. Turns out one of the keys elements to cutting a straight and square cut is the possition of the shoulder joint and the cut line, not period costume. Take that, Adam Che-rub-beanie.

Thanks from the Carter men.

[sawduster]

Darn, guess I'll just have to toss those funny pants, shirt and knee socks. ;D