Hand saws swap

Ken, check your yellow pages. There should be a sharpening company in your area. I would send the blades out to be sharpened rather than trying to find a saw vise and saw set and file. Or at least to get them back to spec for sharpness and tooth pitch/set. Then you have something to work from when they need sharpening again.
You have one, correction two, of the original cordless tools there!
 
I'm going to respectfully disagree with Rich on a couple of points. First, I agree that having a saw properly sharpened will give you a good bench mark. But I would definitely not choose a sharpener from the yellow pages. Many saw sharpeners simply use a machine, and may not do the job right, plus you may spend $25 per saw for the service. Also, the quality of the saw in the first place helps dictate whether or not putting more $$ into the saw is worthwhile. The quality of the handle, how nicely it is shaped, the type of wood, the quality of the steel, whether or not there is pitting, all matter.

If you decide to have the saw professionally sharpened, use a reputable saw person, that you find through other woodworkers. Bad Axe saws is one

http://www.badaxetoolworks.com/

and he may be able to direct you to others. Or find a sharp saw from someone else for comparison, and then go about sharpening your saws. Pete Taran has a lengthy primer on saw sharpening:

http://www.vintagesaws.com/cgi-bin/frameset.cgi?left=sawcare&right=/library/primer/sharp.html

I know I know TMI. I told you it's a slippery slope. Toss me a rope will you?
 
I'm going to respectfully disagree with Rich on a couple of points. First, I agree that having a saw properly sharpened will give you a good bench mark. But I would definitely not choose a sharpener from the yellow pages. Many saw sharpeners simply use a machine, and may not do the job right, plus you may spend $25 per saw for the service. Also, the quality of the saw in the first place helps dictate whether or not putting more $$ into the saw is worthwhile. The quality of the handle, how nicely it is shaped, the type of wood, the quality of the steel, whether or not there is pitting, all matter.

If you decide to have the saw professionally sharpened, use a reputable saw person, that you find through other woodworkers. Bad Axe saws is one

http://www.badaxetoolworks.com/

and he may be able to direct you to others. Or find a sharp saw from someone else for comparison, and then go about sharpening your saws. Pete Taran has a lengthy primer on saw sharpening:

http://www.vintagesaws.com/cgi-bin/frameset.cgi?left=sawcare&right=/library/primer/sharp.html

I know I know TMI. I told you it's a slippery slope. Toss me a rope will you?


I stand humbly corrected Ken.
Those saws from Bad Axe are some nice pieces.

Funny, I remember my grandfather telling me how one of the things he did every day was after dinner he would sit down and sharpen his saws, planes and chisels for the next days work, this he learned from his father who did the same thing. I still have his (my great grandfather's) Sargent VBM 422 joiner, would have loved to have had some of his other tools. I'm the only one in the family since my grandfather that went into carpentry, all his sons became electricians and one accountant...

I find many times a properly tuned and maintained hand tool will still out perform a power tool in certain tasks. And they are so much quieter to use!
 
Ubetcha.

Oh Rich, I didn't mean to correct, just wanted to take a different approach.

No sweat Ken! I'm glad you did. You forced me to think! :D
There is a completely different art to sharpening a hand saw than sharpening a knife or chisel or plane blade, or a circular saw blade for that matter.
Sharpening a handsaw is a dieing art I'm afraid.:(
 
I struggled literally for years to try to learn how. Saw an in person demo by Chris Schwarz, which helped, but I still didn't get it. Tried a bunch of times, read everything I could find.

Finally, one day it all clicked, and I did a saw that came out pretty nice. Still haven't done many, but at least feel like I can tackle one with ok results.

I have 4 Disston saws sharpened by the late Steve Cook, who was a well-respected sharpener, and a new Wenzloff, so I had a benchmark to aspire to.
 
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