we're going to talk about how we set a crosscut handsaw. It's the same way we set
a rip cut handsaw we press the teeth one from one side and then
one from the other so that the teeth are something like this they're bent one way
then alternately the other all the way down the length of the saw and this is
what we call kerf this is where we create a slightly wider entrance into
the wood than the plate of the saw itself which is very important because
if you don't have set then the saw doesn't cut into the wood it gets bound
up as you progress your cut with each stroke so I wanted first of all to talk
about the contrast between a rip cut and a crosscut saw I've got two saws here
this one's a rip cut this one's a crosscut what's the difference well when
you buy a saw say on ebay or buy even a saw from a store it usually will not say
crosscut saw or rip cut saw anymore that was how we sold all saws at one
time but today that's all change now we have a universal cut we have these but
they're not really Universal in the sense that they're designed to
rip cut most of them are used for crosscut
but we are defining our saws by a rip cut or cross cut because for fine work
we need to have saws that will do the task so we're going to talk a little bit
this is a rip cut tooth pattern and I'm hoping that we can show exactly what we
mean by a rip cut pattern it's got it is to do with the angles of the teeth but
what a rip cut pattern is is that these are like chisels going across the
surface of the wood so when we have a rip cut pattern this is representing the
strands of the wood of the Saw that goes into the wood this way and it rips down in
between the fibers and it severs the fibers this way we can't really cross
cut so easily especially when the saw gets big we can't cross cut quite so
easily with the RIP cut saw that said I sharpen all of my tenon saws for a rip
cut pattern because the teeth is so small they're more
commensurate with the size of the fibers that I'm cutting so my
mark of reference would be somewhere around 1/8 point saw if it was 8 points
or less 8 6-4 I would sharpen those specifically for either a rip cut or a
cross cut pattern I'll show you that in a second on my smaller saws I can rip
and cross cut with the same tooth pattern so I sharpen for a rip when I'm
making dovetails most of the work is a rip cut that I use so Tenons most of
its a rip cut so let's take a look at this one here I've made a cross
cut pattern to try to show you what the contrast is on the tooth pattern itself
you can see I think this has a bevel on it this side you should be able to see
that from your side a black line and then I go to the other side and it's got
a black line on this side every other tooth has this pattern and it's this
that defines which way you bend the tooth this has a bevel here has a bevel
here has a bevel here and a bevel here so this means that this tooth has to be
bent in this direction towards me this one towards me that means that this one
is now going in this direction and this one is going in this direction and that
is absolutely definitive because that then pushes this very tight this
pinnacle point is pushed to the outside of the saw plate this one is pushed to
the outside this one this way and this one this way by that alternating pattern
it means that we create a saw that's capably cross-cutting
the fibers of the wood and it's just glancing the tops of the teeth with this
very sharp pinnacle point and it severs the fibers and that parts one side of
the wood to the other very different than with a rip cut saw so now we want
to see which saw teeth we set so I'm going to show you that by coming in
closely on the cross cut pattern saw to show you exactly how we
press these teeth to get them staggered in the way I just described and that
will give you the crosscut saw set it's very simple we take a saw set like this
put it onto the teeth and we determine which teeth we have to bend I'll show
you how to do that now we're going to set a crosscut saw and
there are a few details that we need to look at when we set the saw into the
vise you can hold it freehand of course you don't have to use a vise but when we
set the saw set to task we're looking at the teeth and what
I want to see is in this case the first tooth has a bevel on both
sides so I know that when I place the saw set to the tooth I'm pushing that
tooth away from it so the plunger comes out it hits the disk now you can see
numbers on the disk ignore these numbers for now because all these are is preset
distances where the tooth will Bend I'm using a number 8 for this particular saw
it's got nothing to do with the number of teeth it's only to do with the amount
of set so I set the plunger or the hammer against the tooth and I push
squeeze this and that bends that tooth I skip a tooth so now I still have a
pinnacle tooth where I've got a bevel on both sides and I can see that bevel I
squeeze until the hammer stops and I skip a tooth and squeeze until the
hammer stops and I go all along the saw from one end to the other skipping every
other tooth checking that I am on indeed on the right type of tooth in this case
because it is a crosscut saw not a rip cut saw it has a bevel on both sides of
every tooth that I'm setting and I can see that bevel so I know I'm pressing
against the right tooth now when I've gone all the way to the other end I turn
the saw around because I can only use a saw set in one way and that is to always
be pushing the tooth away from me so I'm going to turn the saw around when I get
to the other end and then set the teeth that are leaning away from me from the
opposite direction
I'll flip it around now we've gone all the way along doesn't matter which end
you start from you remember the first tooth was the one that was bent from
this direction towards me so now I'm going to the second tooth again I can
see the double bevel on either side of the pinnacle point so now I set the set
right on to that tooth on the center of the tooth the center of the point
determines where I place the saw set and now I use the plunger again to push the
teeth the alternate teeth in the opposite direction so on a crosscut saw
it's important that you understand that you're pushing the teeth out so that
the pinnacle point is on that outer edge because when you start to use this
saw you've done it the opposite way the interior corners will be cutting
into the wood and the outside won't so it will just tear and rip and you won't
be able to get the saw into the wood very different than a rip cut saw all the
way down this side like this and you'll start to feel these teeth you can
definitely feel these pinnacle points on the outside edge so you've got these
super sharp corners on the outside edge and that really is the simplicity of saw
setting using a saw set like this one there are several different types and
you completed saw setting so now you saw it ready to use