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08/23/2024 |
I was very happy to see a new book by Lost Art Press on saw sharpening. The book, by Matt Cianci, a long-term customer and friend of TFWW, is succinct and very useful.
Saw sharpening is a critical part of successful woodworking. A sharp saw is not only just a pleasure to use, it'll work accurately and quickly. In the past people didn't really sharpen their own saws. If you were a working carpenter, you basically had two sets of everything: while one was being used, the other set was out getting sharpened. Construction site saws could needed sharpening every couple of days, so itinerant sharpeners would travel from job site to job site and do the sharpening. Saw sharpening isn't a particularly hard skill to learn nor does it require unusual tools.
It is, however, essential to understand how to create the tooth geometry and then to practice the craft. The tool kit needed is pretty minimal. Saw sharpening was actually a job that a lot of otherwise unemployable craftsmen would do. Ashley Iles' grandfather, who was a skilled barrow maker, lost his job when he was caught smoking in the works yard. He was 62 he never found other work. As Ashley Iles' autobiography notes, "He spent the rest of his life in penury,sharpening saws at sixpence a time."
Up until around 1960, it was pretty easy to find someone who could sharpen a saw properly. At that point there were still plenty of workers using a lot of hand tools on job sites. Nowadays there are a fair number of companies that are happy to sharpen your circular saw blades, but getting someone who knows how to properly sharpen a hand saw is a little trickier. And even trickier: instead of sharpening your saw, some companies will simply punch new teeth in the saw blade -- a terrible idea.
Matt started out fixing up saws for himself and then extended that practice to a very successful business sharpening saws for everyone. His shop is one of the best places in the country you can send to saw to and get it come back properly sharpened. However, as Matt himself points out, saw sharpening itself is not actually difficult. It's certainly takes practice and patience to get good at it in terms of speed. But, and this is the thing I tell people all the time, even a poorly sharpened saw will probably cut better than a dull saw.
So here's what I suggest: read Matt's book, check out some of the saw sharpening material we have on our website, get a saw vise, get some decent quality files, and hop to it. You will be glad you did.
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