Frame Saw

nice work. this is the first time i’ve come across this type of saw – does the balanced design work better than a bow saw for this type of application (resawing)?

also:
what wood did you use, and what type of hardware is in it, and where did you purchase said hardware? thanks!

That is a great saw and it looks very well made. It reminds me a little of a ripsaw I saw in a drawing from the 15th or 16th century ( I was very young then). The saw was very similar, but it had several blades. The drawing showed two men cutting several slices of veneers at the same time by sawing through the log lengthwise with the log standing vertical and sawing from the top down. I love this kind of stuff. I hope you do more of it.

-- Mike, American in Norway

Nice work

-- Jim from Heirloom Woodshop Southern Oregon

AaronK, yep the balanced design absolutely does work better than a bow saw. Don’t get me wrong, I love my bow saws, and they are very nice to saw with for the first 10cm or so, until the central wooden bar hits the work piece. Then, you need to change the blade angle so that the wooden bow hangs off to the side of your work. This makes you unbalanced. It’s hard on the hands, and it’s harder work to track a straight line. I’ve tried various angles, from the minimum needed to clear the wood, to going fully horizontal, and none are perfect. I still use a bow saw for crosscutting planks, as this is rarely a problem, and even for joinery in larger work. I’m going to get hold of an american style rip saw for ripping planks though.

The frame saw, however, really excels at re-sawing. The two handed movement isn’t the most powerful sawing position, but what it does give you is heaps of control. The width of the saw helps you balance in the same way that a tight-rope walker uses a long pole.

You don’t need any fancy hardware, just the blade. Most people use old band-saw blades. Personally, I’d recommend buying a blade like mine, just to get that little extra blade depth to keep the cut straight. The hardware holding the blade in place is just a couple of bolts. At one end I used a carriage bolt, so that the square end would go into the wood and stop any twist. It has no nut on the other end, just a hacksawed slit for the blade, and a tiny little bolt through a hole that I drilled through the bolt. The other end is a regular bolt, with the head sawn off. Where the head would be is the slit and tiny bolt hole. The other end goes through the wood and then has a wing nut on it for tightening. Easy.

The one mistake I made was getting a little excited when I’d dovetailed the corners of the frame, and glueing it up. Save the glue until last, so that you can drill both holes together and get them to line up perfectly. Get the blade hardware and stuff all working and do a trial assembly, then glue it and give it a final planing and shaping of the handles.

I Like it. You do nice work

Guy

-- Guy,PEI

looks fantastic.

Did you use a plan, or just wing it?

-- "I'm just a simple man trying to make my way in the universe." -- Jango Fett

interesting. im having a little hard time visualizing though – would you be able to post close up pics?

Here’s a great site with someone else’s frame saw, which I followed for the fastenings. They’ve got close up pics of the bolts.

http://www.hyperkitten.com/woodworking/frame_saw.php

Note that it’s really important to do the hacksawing into the bolt as straight as possible. My first shot gave me a slight kink to the blade and I re-did one end until I was happy with it.

cool, thanks! i figured it had to be something like that, but couldnt quite get the pieces to connect in my head.