Yippee…My Saw Plates Have Arrived!

First, a question. Can a retired guy get fired? I’ve got a long list of ‘gotta dos’ that I should be doing today. Maybe tommorrow.  Mr. Mailman visited me this morning and under his arm was a long, skinny, flat package from New Jersey. Inside were these beauties.

As I mentioned in my last post, Bob Roziaeski did me a big favor and made these saw plates for me.   I do want to discuss the whys that motivated this transaction but I’m just too excited right now so instead I’ll talk about making handles, which is why I haven’t done any of the stuff I was supposed to be doing today (grin).

Making a template

The first step was to make a handle template.  I like the shape of the handle on my big Spear & Jackson rip saw so I used that to create a template.  This is a pretty straight-forward tracing task but because of the sculpted handle edges, I had to be careful to keep the pencil tip directly below the most outward edge of the handle, which is a bit harder than it sounds.  I think I got close.

Lay out the parts

I had some cherry set aside for the handles and  I shoved it through my planer a couple times so I could better see the wood grain.  I started with wood about 1″ thick.  While I would have preferred to have quarter-sawn wood, finding it around here is as likely as getting Wall Street hedge fund managers under control.  I traced around the template twice and layout was done.  I’d cut out the finger hole before doing this so I could draw the interior as well as exterior of the handle.

Remove what isn’t a handle

I used Forstner bits to drill a couple holes in the top and bottom  of the finger hole and then stuffed a #12 reverse-tooth blade in my scrollsaw and went to work removing everything that wasn’t a handle.  I could have used my bowsaw, of course, but I could sit down at the scrollsaw and I do enjoy running it as it’s quieter and more relaxing than other powertools.

Adjust saw handle to blade

These new blades are not as deep at the rear as my Spear & Jackson saw and when I put the rough handle on them this became an evident problem.  I admit that this is where I started working without a net as I have no clue when it comes to proper saw hang.  What I did was get every saw I own (not many) out of my saw till and started looking at how the finger hole angle related to the toothline.  I also gave some thought to where it was vertically relative to the the toothline.  For this last dimension I used my 24″ Disston as a model.

The result of all this suggested to me that I needed to remove some of the top of the handle and angle it a bit.  And so I did.  I’d like to provide precise logic and dimensions for this but I can’t.  Aside from looking at my other saws, this was a TLAR (this looks about right) process.

Cut Centerline and slot the handle

There’s a lot of shaping to be done but the need to remove equal amounts of wood on each side of the handle centerline will persist throughout the process.  I set up a rolling marking gauge to mark a centerline and I ran it around the entire handle.  I darkened the cut with a tiny pencil in the hopes that it would show up in the photo.

I used my Wenzloff tenon saw to cut the slot for the blade.  Sorry that I missed a photo of that process but I just stuck it in my face vise and cut to the line.  The saw plate of this saw gave me a tight fit for the larger 24″ saw plates.

I’ve repeated this process for the second handle and now I’m ready to break out the rasps, spokeshaves and maybe a gouge or two and make it a bit more shapely.  Oh yeah…and I’m tearing the shop apart looking for the bag of saw nuts I have somewhere.

Cheers — Larry

larry@woodnbits.com