How far can we take " kerf " ?

steve mackay

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146
Location
El Paso, TX
Finnished cleaning the goop out of some grooves that ran around some turned legs. Pondered the operation for a few days ( and asked here also ). Then tought of that fancy stair saw I made from an old Disston blade. Worked peeeeerrrrrfect ! Now I'm wondering about wider grooves that are still to small for a riffler or gouge. If I cut up another blade for my stair saw ( I used cap screws instead of rivets so I could inter-change blades ) and set the teeth : #1 - far to the right, #2 - down the middle, #3 - far to the left, and so on. Maybe stagger the pattern over a four or five tooth string ? How wide a cutting patern ( groove ) do you suppose we could acheive before we end up with a frizzy mess ? Just pondering out loud . D I do this often !
 
You could certainly use different thicknesses of blades, or stamp spring steel yourself in the proper thickness.

I don't fully understand what you're doing, but seems you want a wider kerf to accommodate a small dado type slot.

I wouldn't take the kerf too far and expect it to stay consistent, I suspect you'll get varying width in that case.

You could make special blades for a router plane, and use a fence, if a dado is in fact what you're trying to accomplish.
 
Roger that . . .

Just considering what tool would be handy for grooves/small dados up to the point of bringing out the big gun of a router plane. I've fashioned a couple different blades for the stair saw for different things. Its fun to be able to change them for the task at hand. Of course that does'nt mean I don't need an excuse to talk SWMBO into that vintage Stanley router plane right ? Hmmmmmmmmm.
 
Steve,

There are many ways to skin a cat, and being a woodworker is merely being able to work though them. Most anyone can work through the simple problems, it's the difficult problems, or worse the non-apparent problems as they arise...this is where experience and/or ability to see things through come into play, IMO.

This is not rocket science after all, it's working wood. :thumb:

Without context, I can easily be confused at why you would need to slot different sizes in such precision. Are you fitting cardboard shelves into your project? Paper holder that holds single sheets between the slots? Steel shelves? Maybe you could provide a context so we don't need to be creative on our own! ;)

Fitting steel is one of the only reasons I can think of to have such precision in woodworking myself, and even so it would be wise to work with the easiest sizes to accomplish that. IOW, just make sure you buy the same thickness stock as your stair saw blade.

I suspect I'm seeing something quite different than what you are doing.
 
Maybe I am injecting where I shouldn't, but since you mentioned the router plane, why wouldn't a Lie Nielsen small router plane be just what you are after? Of course price, quality and the company itself comes into play too. At the same time, if you are like me, you would rather spend ten times the hours making your own woodworking tools than buying something off the shelf.

I just was not sure if you were aware that LN made these small router planes? Interestingly enough that was what I was making on my last day there.
 
Actually you just described my question better than I !

I make models for my supper ($) and need smaller daddos and grooves than a router plane makes. Hence my effort for a " custom " stair saw. I'd just like a selection of blades that will cut slightly larger or smaller daddos/grooves. I'm probably STILL not making any sense right ?

By the way . . . you were with LN ? Afraid I can only worship from afar ! Sanding on rusty used Stanleys here but we can dream ! LOL !
 
I call it my 90 day plane making apprenticeship. A good place to buy tools, but not a good place to work. We'll leave it at that..

By the way I too make wooden models. You can see some crappy pictures of my stuff via the first link. If you like old Stanley planes you might like to take this link. Its of an old Stanley #140 I rebuilt "just a little". It was a fun project...

Models
Stanley #140
 
I make models for my supper ($) and need smaller daddos and grooves than a router plane makes. Hence my effort for a " custom " stair saw. I'd just like a selection of blades that will cut slightly larger or smaller daddos/grooves. I'm probably STILL not making any sense right ?
Not exactly, but I understand what you want to do.

Think about this. If you had a small custom made router plane, like a "Witch's Tooth", you could make blades the width that you want. You will have more control over the slot that you're making with a router plane than a saw, IMO. Look at this small router plane from LV, as an example.




It comes with a 1/4" wide blade in it, which is probably way too big.

If you made blades for a small router plane like that, you could make them as narrow as you like. I think it's important to understand that it's difficult to use such a tool against the grain (not impossible, but more difficult) as it doesn't have knickers.

What are the actual thicknesses that you would need to slot Steve?

You could make a small router plane like that fairly easy out of wood, and it would work fine for your needs, IMO.

OTOH, a saw as you've been using could work against the grain better, and in that case I would think that less set on the blade would be preferred as you will most likely not need to go too deep.

I have a Foley retoother, so can stamp teeth for blades, but the problem is in getting the various plate thicknesses. I am using .018" for small dovetails, and some folks use .020". Most steel needs to be purchsed in larger sections, and the price starts going up quickly as the thickness does. To give you an example, 8' of .018" 1095 spring steel costs about $34 from McMaster-Carr for 2" wide. For a stair saw you wouldn't need that wide, but you would need to buy in QTY.

If you went that route (no un-pun intended :D) you might be able to find various thicknesses of drywall blades that could be retoothed, but those will cost about $6-$10 each also, and you'll need to cut them to width which might not be so easy without metal cutting saws. You might be able to do that yourself with a hack saw, not sure.

Interesting project. Please keep us informed on what you decide.

Myself, I think I would go the small router plane, find a used one cheap, those can be had for about $10, and make yourself some custom cutters for it. I think you would have more control over it that way.
 
The other part of the Stair Saw saga . . .

is that I've still got about a foot and a half of the old Disston saw blade I cut up for it. The bottom feeder in me says to use it for SOMETHING. I've got all the scrapers I can handle. A selection of blades for the stair saw would be unique and usefull. The thought also crossed my mind for a drywall / keyhole saw " MY WAY " ! THAT won't get out of control ! Yea, right !
 
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