You may wondering why not to take a 3/4 board and plan it as it would be simpler. Well it would be simpler for sure but where would be the fun? Moreover it would cost me near to nothing to make these boards by hand and it will be a good training exercise to improve my resawing skills.
So here we go, I took my lumber, cut it in five 14" long pieces as at the end I need 10 boards, I marked the center line all around the boards and the fun began.
I used the usual well documented and explained process of sawing from one corner then turn the board etc, no need to explain this here as you can find all this in numerous blog posts and article on the web.
I tried to make use of two different saws, both well sharpened, to find out which one would be the best. The first one is a Canadian Disston D8, 10 tpi.
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| My Canadian D8... |
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| ...10 tpi. |
The second one is a Disston D8, 5 1/2 tpi.
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| The D8 beast... |
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| ... with monster teeth. |
After having saw the 4 first boards it is obvious that the two saws are very different.
First the Canadian D8. The blade is shorter and a bit less flexible, however it requires more effort to be pushed through the wood.
On the other hand with the 5 1/2 D8, the blade is longer and more flexible what makes it, for me, harder to keep it on a straight line, but the cut is far more aggressive and requires less effort to be pushed through the wood what is helping down the line. That saw is going through like in butter!
The result I got while resawing were mixed, the best I could do is this:
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| Best result I could get... |
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| ...not bad but not a perfect saw line. |
I guess I need more practice! Anyway after resawing the board I have to plan them flat and to the right thickness. This is what the end result looks, not bad.
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| A flat board, flat enough for a drawer bottom. |
Now a little challenge... what is the plane that gives these nice thick shavings?
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| A bunch of nice thick shavings... |
The answer will come in a future post!
Most crosscut saws are cut with 10 TPI, and ripping monster around 5 TPI. As you noticed, the 5 TPI is a real ripping machine, that's what it was designed to be.
ReplyDeleteDon't expect perfect results from ripping long, wide boards. That's OK. Think how ripping boards on a bandsaw comes out. Needing work with a plane to smooth out. Same here.
Fun isn't it? And that's only half the fun :-)
You may want to try a frame saw for ripping. Like Ralph did using a Blackburn tools kit, AKA a Roubo frame ripping saw
Bob, warming up with his coffee.
How on earth did we go from plus 18C to -4, feel like -12C overnite??? OH I know, welcome to Canada :-)
Bob, that is good that the result is not perfect that allows me to play with my planes that I like so much!
DeleteGetting a frame saw is in the todo list (the one that has no end), maybe one day :)
Or you could just make a frame saw. I did (I'd link to the blog post, but still haven't recovered any of my old posts. I can't remember what blade I used--I think I got it from Highland. These saws have the advantage that the blade is thinner, but it can also be a disadvantage, as the blade does not track as well. So don't expect it to be an elixir for resawing.
DeleteI resawed by hand for about 10 years. The process got to be predictable. If the wood was quartersawn, green, or softwood, it would go relatively smoothly. If it was dry flatsawn hardwood, it was awful because of the tension pulling the halves apart, cupping each half together as I went down.
I learned a lot from resawing by hand, but one of those things is that it's really time-consuming and tiring. This led to the obvious conclusion.
Brian, I found the blades on Highland, they are quite cheap at around 10$. I agree that it is time consuming and tiring but time is not an issue for my projects and it forces me to do some physical activity :) At that point I never resawed big slabs, only small pieces to get planks of the correct thickness.
DeleteI have two rip-filed hand saws. One is 10 tpi and the other is 5 or 5 1/3 tpi. The 5 tpi is great for rips like this, but the 10 tpi is terrible. I hardly ever use that saw - recently I finally found something it is good for - cutting some 1/2" plywood - it tore right through that, though it has a tough time with 3/4" solid wood. Have to remember the rule of thumb for tpi. There should be between 3 and 6 teeth in the work while cutting. I guess that can't apply for resawing though - there'll never be a handsaw with teeth that big!
ReplyDeleteIt can apply for resawing; consider the Japanese Maebiki-Nokogiri. For resawing green wood, they're really something to behold.
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