New Tool, but Old School

[Darren Wright]

Great job Travis, looks nice. My dad had a saw that was hanging on the wall of his office for years. Was a limited edition saw that was given to him by one of the lumber companies he did a lot of business with when he was building houses still.

[Toni Ciuraneta]

It will also keep out moths.
.

Gee.. Travis, what sort of moth do you have there that eat metal??

Jokes apart, that is a great looking saw Travis, and a heirloom one as well. Do you plan to keep it in display or use it at your shop?

[Paul Hubbman]

Another in a growing line of Johnson heirloom tools.
Seeing tools like that makes me feel the same way i do when i pull up to a stop light next to a gleeming new convertible in my 20 year old toyota truck. I'm happy with what i've got, but that's quite a looker - hard not to notice.
Congrats Travis on a great little project. There are a lot of finesse tasks involve in that. Glad to see it when someone's not afraid to improve on a tool design and experiment in order to execute it.
paulh

[Travis Johnson]

Thanks guys for the nice comments. I did end up giving this saw away, to a family friend who happens to be a carpenter and truly appreciated the saw...for its small fine details, and for the work that went into it.

As for your sage advice Paul, you probably would be happy to learn that I started my next project and intend to do the same sort of thing. Its actually a pretty simple tool, a slitting tool. I decided I needed one when I cut the felting on the presentation saw backing board.

The slitting saw has only one feature that is prominent and that is a cutter. The versions I see are like the Lie Nielsen nickers on the LN #140. Even when I machined these at Lie Nielsen I thought the design was lousy. First off, the nicker is hard to adjust to any sort of depth. It is either not engaged or engaged 100%. The second issue I have is that the knicker is custom made and a replacement blade has to be purchased. This is silly when most of us woodworkers buy ultra sharp utility blades by the 100 pack. What if the slitter had an tool-free change mechanism and used utility knife blades that was adjustable to a thousandths of an inch?

Stayed tuned for my next project.

[Paul Hubbman]

Sweet! A manual paper shredder.