If you're going to hand cut dovetails - you might as well...

[Daniel P]

If you're going to hand cut dovetails - you might as well make the saw, right?

This is an old maple burl that my grandfather had been saving for as far back as I can remember. He never could decide what to do with it, and its been sitting around my place for some time as well. It will only take a small portion of the burl to make a pair of saws - one rip, one crosscut. If three generations of my family couldn't decide what to make with this wood, it seems fitting to make tools with some of it - saws that can be handed down to the next generation.

[Dave Bagwill]

Do it!!

[Daniel P]

The saw parts arrived. I connected with Isaac from Blackburn Tools, who has recently restored a old Burr Saw Toother - he punched a plate for me: 10" x 2" plate, with 1/8" taper to toe, .018", 15ppi rip cut. I also picked up some nice brass truncated cone bolts that he has reproduced that should look a little more unique than the recessed split nuts seen on many current dovetail saws.

http://www.blackburntools.com/

[Daniel P]

Trimming the 1095 carbon spring steel blade was much easier than I anticipated.

[Daniel P]

Used a wheel marking gauge to mark the desired thickness for my handle material- about .965". This is some maple burl that has been in the family for some time.

For intense figure like this I was getting far too much tear-out with both a 50 degree blade, as well as some with my drill press safe-t-planer. A toothed plane blade worked great for thinning the wood very close to the line, and then a few passes with a cabinet scraper finished it off.

[Daniel P]

Issac has posted some about his Burr Toother here:

http://www.blackburntools.com/blog/burr ... er-update/

[John Parchem]

Looks like a fun project. The maple is really nice. Does the saw toother do the saw set as well? It would be nice to have a fret saw with a slightly increased kerf than the one sold by strewmac and LMI. I had been consider going to an old time saw sharpening place to see if they get change the kerf on my saws.