I wonder whether my experiences as a beginning saw sharpener are at all typical. I am interested in whether others who have more experience sharpening saws are as dissatisfied as I now am with the way at least some new-bought saws are sharpened. I spent a good bit of time practicing saw sharpening. AS I was nervous about taking a file to my expensive LV and LN joinery saws, I practiced on some old 5-7 ppi handsaws and then on a not very nice Disston backsaw from ebay, one with the nasty boxy handle. After many hours of work, much tooth grinding (my teeth, not the saws’), and many destroyed teeth (the saws’ teeth, not mine), I finally got some pretty decent results. I then turned with trepidation to my LN dovetail saw. I decided to go crazy and not just sharpen it, but reshape the teeth. I do not know what the original rake was, but it was not very aggressive. I reshaped them to the 90 degrees of a classic rip (with a progressive rake to ease starting). Though my job was hardly perfect – and I went back to fix things many times – I like the result. The dovetail saw cuts 10 to 15 times faster, as measured by the number of strokes I need to cut a dovetail, and with a pretty smooth cut as well. It makes me wonder why LN files their dovetails saws with so little rake. Oh, one added advantage of my reshaping the teeth is that my dovetails are far more accurate than they were with the original. I think that the original required so many strokes to complete the dove tail that there was just too much time to wander from the line, or twist the saw in the cut, or whatever. It now cuts so fast that as long as I start okay, I finish okay.

I have had a similar, though less extreme, experience sharpening my LN cross cut carcass saw. Again, I reshaped the teeth pretty significantly – different rake and different fleam. It took a long time, and the job is far from perfect, but the saw cuts pretty smoothly, and very fast. And again, my cutting is far more accurate than with the original. Also, for some reason, the LN tended to bind a lot when cross cutting thicker material. That problem has improved tremendously.

Finally, I bought a rather nice old Disston tenon saw from ebay. I reshaped the teeth, again going for the classic 90 degree rake. The end result is very good. Previously, I cut tenons with my LV tenon saw. My newly sharpened Disston is far superior. It probably cuts twenty times faster than my LV tenon saw, as measured by the number of strokes to cut a tenon. And again, it cuts much more accurately than my LV tenon saw.

My trials and tribulations trying to sharpen saws were either disheartening or, depending on your point of view, fun. Did I mention I so butchered one practice saw that I had to file down the wretched stubs of mutilated teeth and recut them following directions Paul gave in one video? But the end result is in key ways far better than what came with these fairly expensive saws.