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Eric, thanks for the links. That’s the style I was talking about, but I don’t need one of those monster “Ruobo” saws. Joshua Clark had a write-up on how to make a smaller one in that style… I was hoping to find a place that sold them, as I’m not sure my skills are enough to start making tools yet.
Randy that is a very nice looking saw. Well done. How do you feel about the walnut in this application? Does it seem to handle the tension pretty well?
thanks Greg. I haven’t used the saw a lot so far but it seems to be holding up fine. As I said, I used the walnut because I had it and ran out of hickory, but it is (to me anyway) much more pleasant to work. The hickory might be stronger but it is also tough and stringy and doesn’t want to shape as easily as walnut. I’m more used to walnut so I may be biased but I think it will hold up fine, time will tell. I have a piece of tiger stripe hickory that I originally got to make fancy saws, but found it really hard to work with. I couldn’t find a way to plane it to smooth out the tears from the milling so it’s on the shelf for the time being and went to the walnut. Hopefully I can re-drill the pin hole in the nearly finished first (hickory) saw and make it usable if not aesthetically perfect. That way I can have a saw ready with a finer blade so I don’t have to break the walnut one down and change them. Guess you could say they’re color coded. I also just made straight mortises instead of the curved surfaces of the print since I will only use the Gramercy blades.
I’d like to make one like yours with bandsaw blades to make up for the dovetail saw I don’t have. How did you drill the holes in the blade? Any tips on what sort of blade to get?
Randy look for a carbon steel blade. Stay clear of anything that is hardened or tempered. You should be able to drill the holes in the blade without too much trouble. I used a hand held electric drill. you could also just buy hacksaw blades and use those. They can be had in very fine tooth patterns and should make a great dovetail saw. I used a hacksaw (metal cutting) blade in mine to cut the steel for the plane blades that I made. Worked great.