Project Information
These are a couple bow saws I made recently. The bigger saw has three blades I bought at traditional woodworker.com. I got a 3/8 inch blade for cutting curves, and two 1.5 inch blades with differnet amounts of teeth for rough or smooth cutting. They came in a set. The frame parts are made of red oak, and the handles are made of walnut. It is still a work in progress. I'm fine tuning the shape of the handles and such as I use it so I haven't finished it yet. Also, I made the stiles to thin for my hands to control well so I used an old trick for making wooden bat handles a little thicker using athletic tape. The handles are made of walnut and the pins are aluminum rods I bought at home depot and are epoxied into the handles. It works really well now that the blades have been worn in. The string is simple masonry twine from home depot wrapped around about 10 times on each side.
The smaller saw was made from parts you can find locally at any hardware store. I didn't want to spend too much money on my first attempts at making saws so I bought coping saw blades at home depot and designed the saw around them. The saw pictured is the second small saw I made. The first one went to my Father-in-law. The saw is made entirely of oak, and not one power tool was used in its construction. The pins are 1/4 in aluminum rod from the home depot that have been epoxied into the handles. It doesn't have quite as much clearance as the metal frame coping saws, but it holds the blade much tighter and in my "biased" opinion cuts much better.
Both of these saws were alot of fun to make, and they work great. So if your thinking about making your own tools, these are a great place to start
The smaller saw was made from parts you can find locally at any hardware store. I didn't want to spend too much money on my first attempts at making saws so I bought coping saw blades at home depot and designed the saw around them. The saw pictured is the second small saw I made. The first one went to my Father-in-law. The saw is made entirely of oak, and not one power tool was used in its construction. The pins are 1/4 in aluminum rod from the home depot that have been epoxied into the handles. It doesn't have quite as much clearance as the metal frame coping saws, but it holds the blade much tighter and in my "biased" opinion cuts much better.
Both of these saws were alot of fun to make, and they work great. So if your thinking about making your own tools, these are a great place to start