I'm not sawing straight : is it me or ...

[AndrewP]

Hi Pompon

I too struggled with sawing straight, but went to Japanese saws fairly quickly and found that with practice they were my salvation. I think whatever you get used to, anything else will "feel wrong."
I do saw on a "bench" of the trestle and beam type as traditionally used by Japanese temple builders, but I tend to get down on one knee, not to pray that I will saw straight, just to make it easier to saw straight! Make sure you are sighting along lines on two adjacent sides of the wood, the top and the side facing you.
If you consistently saw say five degrees to the left, try aiming to saw five degrees to the right, you might find what it is that you are doing to go to the left that way, if that is the problem is with you and not the saw.

Good luck and don't give up; the feeling of having your saw follow the line "all by itself" is deeply satisfying.

Andrew

 

[engineer one]

i guess the whole thing about practising on rubbish wood is the initial learning process, one feels unhappy wasting expensive "good wood"

but maybe not all the lessons are transferable.

paul :wink:

 

[mr]

I've never struggled so much as when working with 'orrible wood.
the same piece made in reclaimed orrible fencing pine ( of which I have a huge pile) will look rubbish next to its companion made in Ash (for example) - at least in my experience. Ive even managed to do some "serious " damage to the plane of my beloved LV LA Jack on the fencing planks .
As you say Paul I'm unhappy wasting expensive wood but Im beginning to believe that practicing on rubbish isnt helpful. Its harder to work, potentially damaging to the tools (I know Im the one to blame really - but still) and at the end of it all its still only reclaimed fencing.
But to get back on topic, regards sawing offline I find mismatched eyes doesnt help. My right eye is much weaker than my left, in as much as I cant focus it on anything in particular. I quite often find my saw cuts wander off to the left. Though being aware of the problem I can watch out for it and compensate.
cheers Mike

 

[engineer one]

i probably agree with you mike, but i wonder whether we should all look at some kind of guide at least to start with.

if you have a backed saw, then you could use a trend ally clamp it,
and this certainly helps in cross cutting but does not hold the saw totally upright, maybe a magnetic level would be useful too :lol:

paul :wink:

 

[mr]

Sawing in nasty wood is probably much the same as sawing more expensive wood, its the planing that has caused me the headaches (and then the warping). I quite like the one japanese (dozuki) I have, it cuts clean and straight (as long as I watch what Im doing) but it is very slow on a rip cut and horribly fragile. The finish on crosscut endgrain is superb though. Its also very awkward to use in a western style I find. Praps Mike W will come up with a more robust western style pistol grip pull saw. I did make one but its ugly as sin (Frankensaw), I didnt manage to get the mortice in the handle sorted out properly so the blade is a bit loose and the whole thing is generally horrible. The idea works though I think. Back on the sawing straight issue Ive found that some sort of guide helps, it counters the eyesight issues as well, I start the cut with the thumb as a guide and then clamp a 2 x 4 or similar according to the size of the piece along the cut line. A plane then cleans up as required.
cheers Mike

 

[Anonymous]

Happy New Year to you too.

Don't know a thing about that type of saw so my comment is regards to your technique.

When sawing have you sight of the two lines of your proposed cut?
When starting off do you tilt the saw upwards at the near end so that you can cut a nick for about 1/2 an inch or so across both liness and gradually leveling out your hand to cut across the width?
That should give you a vertical guide for the rest of the cut.

The comments from others regarding pressure are really important, you should develop a sawing action whereby the arm just swings effortlessly at the shoulder.

As usual this is not a hard and fast method, there are always exceptions to the rule!

 

[David C]

Pompon,

I lay the stock of a small engineers square on the blade.

The stock is at rightangles to the saws edge/teeth.

Then look between stock and sawblade using a bright light source behind.
Compare the two sides of the blade.

It is also possible to "measure" the gap near to the teeth with slivers of cigarette paper or other improvised "feeler gauges".

Yes, excess set is simply removed with a wipe or two from a fine slipstone. (Diamond or oil/arkansas stone or ceramic. Waterstone probably too soft).

David

 

[Anonymous]

i guess the whole thing about practising on rubbish wood is the initial learning process, one feels unhappy wasting expensive "good wood"

but maybe not all the lessons are transferable.

paul :wink:

I find that the cheapo pallet wood usually has fast growth with rings about 5 or even 10 mm apart, and the pithy wood between the ring's is spongy, and when your ripping the saw instinctively wants to go with the grain (its like wood "naturally wants" to be split not sawn :lol: :wink: ) and this would be even more difficult weith a thin bladed saw. And its no fun chopping mortices in stuff like that. However I have sometimes seen absolutely perfect examples of tight dense pine from pallets from Europe especially food pallets they have to be better quality. I get beech from the tip from table leg's in fact I made some of my own planes from that stuff and it isnt sacrilidge to practise on it.
Anyway back to your comment Paul perhaps lessons are transferable to some extent in that if you can plane fencing rails etc with wild extreme grain and get them to look good, and learn how to read grain vageries etc it will help when you use better stuff. I'd rather use good tools on cheap wood (and learn) than cheap tools on good wood (and be disapointed) :wink: :lol:

 

[pompon44]

Hi,

Here's a followup. Seems the set was indeed uneven.
After trying all kind of grips and stances on a number of (pallet) boards, I finally took my blue DMT and made one single pass on the left of the saw. Think it cured most of the problem, as can be seen in the picture below (the two rightmost lines are before the DMT, the rest after).

Even if not perfect, I'm now ready to accept that the remaining non-straigthness is due to my imperfect technique and I'm (almost) sure a little bit of practise will correct for that. Quite reassuring to see I'm able to follow a line. Maybe there's some hope for me after all ;-)

Thanks a lot to all of you for your help,

 

[engineer one]

i do think that sometimes when looking down a long vertical line, it is possible to over compensate, and then you do cut off.

why not lay the board horizontally and cross cut that way the whole of the saw has less tendency to move out of square vertically.

mike i think that you have to learn the technique of holding the saw square and vertical, and then once you have mastered that on cr*p wood, which is cheap and easy to come by, you can then with that understanding of the handling of the saw, work more effectively on more expensive woods, since you have established a technique which gives good results

i revert to my old days when as a 2nd year apprentice i had to teach uni grads how to file a block square. they always, always reached for the smallest file first ignoring the rules of trig and geometry about things rocking about centres. if you think about it, a longer file is easier to keep flat and level than a short one since you can see the movement. samw actually applies with saws, japanese or english.

paul :wink:

 

[David C]

Glad to hear that.

Korea not noted for quality saws...............Not the cheap ones we tend to see anyway.

The good thing about uneven set is that it is so easy to cure.
You also get a partial sharpening effect as well.

David

 

[newt]

The big breakthrough for me was a handshake by Rob Crosman he demonstrated how loose your grip should be, I had been griping far to tightly. Give it a go.

 

[MikeW]

For some reason I always fail to post this when Japanese saws are discussed, and a response in a thread on WoodCentral by Pam Niedermayer reminded me.

The following is a link to Mark Grable's sawing exercises for Japanese saws.

It is a PDF.

http://daikudojo.org/Archive/2001_mark-grable-handsaw-exercises.pdf

Take care, Mike