Handsaws are incredibly useful tools for anyone who builds a ton of projects. However, they can be a bit expensive and may not be customized they way you need them to be. These easy steps for making your own handsaw will make sure you get the most out of your handsaw. The results may leave you completely amazed!

Let's Get Started!

The Step By Step Directions To Follow Are:

 1 Obtaining  Materials

The easiest solution is to buy a basic kit.
2 Blade

There are many sources of steel suitable for use as saw plate. One source is the throw-away hard-point saws. After those glass-hard teeth become dull, they are usually con- signed to landfill,  you can easily cut off  impulse- hardened section  couple of millimetres above  tooth gullets,  rest of  plate is workable spring steel.

 

3 Cutting  Blade
Clamp  ‘good’ side of  saw blank between two pieces of steel 3mm thick,  use  1mm metal-cutting wheel in  angle grinder. The thicker steel acts as  heat-sink to protect  saw plate, as well as  guide to keep  cutting wheel straight.

Cutting  straight lines for backed saws presents no problems, what if you want to make curved shapes for small saws without spines?   Cut as close as I can with  series of straight cuts,  fair  curves on  grinder. Use  light touch, smooth passes on  clean wheel and you won’t cause any damage by over-heating. Fine-tuning of shapes  with files,  final clean-up, polishing with sandpaper.

 

4 Cutting  Teeth

Use  existing set of teeth of  spacing, you require as  template. Clamp blank, template so  top of  blank just shows behind  template. Take  fine three-cornered file, place  against  back of each tooth,make  small notch in  blank . Apply pressure only on  blank.

Once  blank is notched, teeth are formed by filing each ‘valley’ (gullet) to depth.

The leading edge of each tooth of  hand saw actually leans away from  direction of  cut a little. The closer  edge is to perpendicular,  more aggressively  saw cuts. It also gives  saw a rougher action, especially in hardwood, so a little negative rake is required on most saws. All you need to know at this point is that  rake varies for each type, and the amount adopted is usually in the range of 5–10° for a ripsaw, and 8–15° for a crosscut.

Drill  small hole in  short piece of wood, draw  line at  angle you need beside it. Jam  file into  hole, with one side lined up against line.

By keeping  stick horizontal as you work,  file will always be at correct angle. Make each stroke firm. Don’t  cut too much at once, just make  couple of strokes at each notch.

It takes fewer strokes than you may expect to form a tooth. Watch  ‘flats’ between  gullets, judge if you need to apply little more pressure on shallow gullets.  Check  teeth from  side as well.

 

5  Spine
Metal spine stiffens blade, gives it balance. The easiest and most accurate way to obtain  spine is to slot  piece of brass bar.

Brass bar is readily obtainable in suitable sizes, and since it is easily worked, and adds a bit of bling to your saw, it’s a good choice. Most people find 10″ x 3″ bar to be sufficiently rigid and weighty for blades up to around 300mm long.

Slotting  bar requires some special gear. My simple slotting jig is made from scrap hardwood, arbor,  slotting sawblade. The base attaches to  drill-press, cover for  blade acts as an adjustable fence controlling  depth of cut. You will need  chuck large enough to accept the 5/8″ diameter arbor shaft.

Take time to set  jig up  accurately ,cut  full slot gradually in  series of light cuts. By advancing millimetre or two at a time, with a firm and steady feed rate, you  obtain accurate result. Making  push-stick for  brass is a sensible idea, because even though  saw is revolving at  slow speed, it could give a nasty cut.

The push-stick needs to hold  brass bar very firmly against  base, guide, or it will chatter, give you  rough slot. If your saw doesn’t quite match  sawplate, slot is a little loose for  blade, this is easily fixed by lightly clamping  spine in  vice until it is a firm fit. I prefer a ‘pinch-fit’ because it is easier to deal with.

 

6 Making Screw Holes in  Sawplate

The tungsten-carbide tipped builders’ drills that can handle wood and metal will cope with  steel,  are available in suitable sizes. Even with  hard backing to drill against,  exit side of hole may distort ,  rub off with  sharpening stone.

 

7 Saw Bolts

I started out making bolts by turning  head from brass bar on  wood lathe, attaching that to threaded brass rod, silver-soldered into a few turns of thread in the heads. I ended up with bolts that were acceptable and certainly did the job, but being threaded along the full shaft is a nuisance because threads can catch on  saw plate. A neater solution is to use 3/16″ brass rod,  thread only part of shaft, leaving  centre unthreaded.

 

8 Handles

Just about any hardwood will suffice. A fine-grained wood  that finishes smoothly and remains splinter-free is a good choice.

A truly good handle not only fits your hand like a glove, it sets  tooth line of  saw in  best position for sawing. Most handles are designed for  classic three-finger hold. Holding a saw like this is widely accepted as the best way, because the set of signals sent to your brain helps it to figure out where the saw is in space.

Hand sizes vary, so commercial handles are a compromise, but  basic design fits a range of hand sizes with reasonable comfort. If your palm is wider or narrower than average, you can extend or shrink grip a little so it really snuggles into your hand.

Don’t make  curve at  bottom that fits under your little finger too tight, don’t curve ‘horn’ between thumb , index finger down too much, it may dig into your hand when sawing.  Make  mock-up from scrap.

Be aware that  few millimetres of difference in  thickness or width of grip can make a big difference to comfort. If you find  grip you like, follow  dimensions and shape as faithfully as you can. Most old handles are made from 22–25mm thick stock. If your stock is  millimetre or two thinner than the ‘ideal’ handle you are working from, adding roughly  same amount to  width of the grip may produce a grip that feels comfortable.

When tracing  handle template onto  wood, pay attention to grain orientation, to get as much ‘long grain’ as possible extending through  weak points. The tongue of wood that connects grip to cheeks on a closed handle ends up with short grain. You can compensate for this to some extent by keeping it thick, but shaping edges to make it appear thinner and more elegant. After cutting out  basic handle shape, cut  spine, blade slots,drill bolt holes, because if you mess it up, you haven’t wasted too much time. Take particular care with  blade slot, it needs to be straight and clean, or  blade may warp.

I clamp  handle blank in a home-made vice on  drill-press, drill  counter-sink with  Forstner bit, switch to  bolt- size drill without moving  setup. Flip  handle, realign bolt hole with  drill bit, change back to  countersink bit,  complete process. If you leave the countersinks a bit shallow,  adjust them for  depth later.

When shaping  handle, guide lines  help maintain proportions. I ‘finger-gauge’ a series of lines, mark-  first set at centre,   set half  distance between edge, centre.

Sand and scrape to desired level of finish .

I like to use Shellawax buffed with a cloth wheel but any finish that doesn’t leave a build-up does the job.

Setting and sharpening of  blade is the last step, though it takes a bit of practice to do well.

Finished!

As you can making your own handsaw takes some work and a good amount of time but the end result turns out looking and working so fantastic that you may want to make several of them! Have you used these steps to make a handsaw yet?

Let Us Know How It Turned Out!

To find out more about making your own handsaw, you can go to:

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