Setting Saws with a Hammer & Punch | Paul Sellers

I want to introduce you to a method of
saw setting that I've used for 50 years and it's very simple it's very different
than using a saw set which has become quite normal for people to use saw sets
but sometimes when you're setting saws with very small teeth the plunger on a
traditional saw set is often too wide and it doesn't get you exactly where you
want to be so I use a nail punch here we call it a nail punch in the UK a nail set
in the US and this is just a simple 1/16 diameter nail set this is a little bit
different I like the idea of this one it has a little dimple in the end that I
can put on the corner of a tooth and I can locate it with that makes it central
to the tooth and when I tap it with the hammer I get the exact set without any
slippage and that's one of the nice things about having a dimpled nail punch
so I've got my plate suspended here the one thing you don't want is for this to
be rocking when you're working it take a piece of wood that's thick enough to
take up half the handle and then slide a wedge underneath the handle and that
will make the plate solid enough you can clamp it if you want to to the bench top
or to whatever find some way it's kind of hard to do but what we have to do is
we have to determine the teeth that are leaning away from them if this saw has
existing set now this is a newish saw and it does have set in it so I have to
determine which teeth are leaning away from me and those are the teeth I'm
going to set so I place my nail set on the in this case it's the second tooth
that's the tooth that it's leaning away from me
I angle slightly because that compensates for the set of the tooth
that's already existing and I take a this is a 12-ounce Stanley hammer
a cross peen hammer and it's perfect for this so I place this
the hammer on the nail set and then I just lift up and one tap I place my
hammer on the plate to stop movement tap hammer set tap hammer set and I work
across the saw setting only the alternate teeth so I skip a tooth with
each one of these taps oops and that glanced off the edge but it
didn't damage the tooth to make sure you locate that dimple all the way along
from one end to the other every alternate tooth then we come in from the
other side and we do the teeth that we've missed very simple so we flip the
saw over and do the same only other teeth this is very quick very effective so now we just want to discuss a little
bit about hoops again I slipped but it's not damaging the tooth hopefully it's
not make sure you pick up exactly where you left off so that was the one one
thing we want to discuss is the size of the teeth now you're going to get saws
that have 20 to 24 teeth to the inch up to 32 teeth to the inch and the reality
is they're very difficult to sharpen I would say they are impossible to sharpen
by hand most of those have been cut into the edge of the saw by some mechanized
method we don't really have the ability to set teeth or even to sharpen teeth
that small so generally I would recommend you don't generally need a saw
tooth pattern that has more than say 16 teeth to the inch I don't usually use
more than 16 teeth to the inch so tenon saw a mid size tenon saw and then a
dovetail saw dovetail saw I would say 16 teeth to the inch is great you can
resharpen a 16 points per inch saw and then when you drop down to a larger
tooth say 14 points or twelve points those are
very easy to set and to sharpen and that's why I recommend those sizes I don't want
to throw away saw never going to buy one except as an example of what
not to buy so that's what I would do so I keep working along this side of the
plate till I get to the other end and then I
flip over and I do exactly the same to the opposite teeth the teeth that are in
between once you've got these hammer set you can tight you can try the saw and
see how you feel with the saw run it into a piece of
wood and see how it feels that feels fine the only thing that I might say is
the set might be a little bit too heavy it looks nice and even the cuts are nice
and clean one thing you can do is take a second hammer lock it in the vise here and then take the saw like this and just
tap all the way along the saw and what this will do there's enough memory in
this steel this will spring back and it will give a very uniform set
to the teeth so not heavy cannot heavy hammer marks keep make sure it's
centered on that anvil which is the hammer now remember safety your issue you have to
take care of yourself flip over do the same from this side
what's stopping the hammer is the plate itself but the memory the steel of the
tooth is springing back because it does have spring in this steel work all the
way along you wear some safety glasses just in case and that's that so you're
not striking that very hard see what I have it this end here dovetails does that
work works great so that's taken off the heaviest set made it a little bit more
refined than I had with this one and very uniform and it's very smooth in the
cut so it's an ideal way for setting small tooth saws
perfect

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