Well, it was a long time coming, but I finally finished this saw.

It has 13 teeth per inch, filed rip at a 0 degree rake angle. It cuts smoothly, but not super-quickly, as one would expect for a saw of this size and pitch. The finish on the handle turned out pretty well. I guess it had better, after, what was it, 10 coats of varnish?

And even though this one is done, there’s another one for a 16″ tenon saw in the works.

Those tools to the left are the Shinto saw rasp and the Gramercy sawmaker’s rasp.

I somehow forgot exactly how I did the holes in my last saw handles, and I just had to do it again, so I’ll enumerate the steps so that I don’t have to remember the next time. Basically, you need to bore holes in the handle, with one side of the handle having larger holes than the other, because one side needs to house the saw nut, which is wider than the screw on the other side.

So here’s how (it assumes that you’ve already cut the sawblade kerf):

1. Secure the handle with a sacrificial board underneath.
2. Mark the holes on the screw side with an awl, using a template (or by hand).
3. Drill all the way through with a brace and bit sized for the screw.
4. Clean out the holes and sawblade kerf, flip over the handle, and resecure.
5. Place a piece of paper in the sawblade kerf.
6. Using a twist bit sized to the saw nut in the brace, enlarge the holes on the other side. Slowly ease your way in to prevent tearout and keep the hole centered.
7. Stop when you hit the paper. After enlarging all of the holes, pull out the paper and clean out the sawblade kerf again.
8. If necessary (this depends on your hardware), carefully use a countersink to countersink the holes on either side.

I suppose that it isn’t strictly necessary to have different-sized holes with the hardware that I’m using, but you definitely need to do it with older-style saw screws and nuts.

I haven’t been working on anything major lately, but two little projects that I haven’t mentioned before are coming close to completion:

On the left, a handle made out of cherry. The template is identical to my apple handle, and the saw will be identical as well, except that it is filed rip instead of crosscut, so I will be using it for tenons and perhaps larger dovetails.

On the right, a cutting gauge made from scraps of beech. When complete, it will have a captive wedge to hold the arm tight, and some sort of wedged blade that I haven’t figured out yet. I’ll probably give it the same finish as my mallet.

Though I did this a couple of weeks ago, I haven’t had a chance to post it until now. I managed to acquire a small bench vise for metalworking, and bolted it to a board, which I then, in turn, clamp to the bench when needed.

This was necessary to cut the saw screw/nut hardware for the new saw handle:

I used a mini hacksaw to cut these “furniture joiners” down to size, and then a file to smooth them. Then I used a brace to bore the holes in the handle (holes not shown here, but I think you know what holes in a handle look like).

The handle is now in the finishing stage. I’m using a clear satin varnish. It’s almost done; I screwed up the last thick coat, so I’ll need to sand that level and apply one more, but I should have the end product ready next week.

I suppose that I owe you some photos of the current stage of the apple handle. Here it is with the shape outlines, but before I started shaping:

And here it is with the shaping mostly done, and the blade kerf cut:

That applewood, yum.

I decided that since I had the momentum, and that since I had the drawing ready, that I would start a new saw handle, this time in apple. It will be for one of my small tenon/carcase saws, but I’m not sure which one yet.

First, I cut a piece of the board and fit the pattern:

Then I milled the board. Here’s one face flattened:

The entire board is mostly clear, but the pith runs near the center. So when I cut the piece out, the pith is on one side. This is, in theory, not a problem.

At this stage, it was evident that apple is unlike any wood I’ve worked with in the past. The grain is kind of wavy, but it’s not a problem with sharp tools. The grain is also very fine, and when planed, it is very smooth.

It was also unusual because I did not mill the board four-square. Rather, I made the faces trapezoidal, just taking care to get the edges square to the faces, and that the thing was of course of uniform thickness. Once that was done, it was easy to transfer the pattern to the wood.

I still used a coping saw to cut out the pattern, but I used a few other saws to mark out sections. This made sawing easier.

It still wasn’t super-fast, but again, I don’t have power tools. But I did finish sawing today.