I got all “high-tech” on the problem of pointing the teeth in my Jackson backsaw, thinking that I could maybe do something a little differently because I know the PostScript programming language. So I wrote a program to image a fleam angle guide, and spent last night getting my infuriating printer to work.

I couldn’t resist the urge to tweak the program a little while I was at work, so I was really excited to come home, print out the guide and try it out.

Unfortunately, I was in full bonehead mode. I put the guide on backwards and promptly screwed up the shape of my teeth. So I had to reshape and reset the teeth. Not that this was a bad thing; the teeth near the front of the saw were a little messed up. However, the file I was using is now history; I’ll need to get another one or two tomorrow.

I’d mentioned earlier that setting the sawteeth was a royal pain in the ass. Perhaps this was a “happy accident” today, because setting the teeth went a lot faster today due to this setup:

The first thing that helped here is that I printed out my pointing guide with a fleam angle of zero degrees and taped it to the saw, effectively making it a setting guide. This helped out a lot. No more squinting, trying to figure out if I was on the right tooth; just point at the next line, squeeze, and move on.

The other thing (and this is a big duh for me) is that I put the damn thing in the saw vise this time. Why I didn’t earlier is beyond me.