The Wenzloff and Sons Saw Kit
Since I first saw a picture of one, I have wanted one of the Disston Half back saws, but when ever one is found in the wild, it is quite expensive. More expensive than I am willing to pay for a tool to be used in the shop. Enter Mike Wenzloff and his relatively new saw making business. He and his sons hand make saws based on those from history and the accolades of his saws follow him where ever he goes. His saws have graced the pages of a number of magazines, not in advertisements, but in use in articles.
Mike makes his saws available in both finished saws and kits. I have made a couple of saws using the steel from old Disstons that were irreparable, a stair saw and something similar to a pattern makers saws, as well as replacement handles for a few whose steel was good, but whose handles were is very sad shape. There is nothing like making a tool or making the intimate parts such as handles that makes it your own. You can customize it, making adjustments to the original so that it fits you perfectly. Besides, I am both impatient and cheap. The kits from Mike are less expensive than getting a completed saw. His saws have also become a big hit, so he and "the boys" are kept quite busy and, even so, the waiting time for a finished one can be a couple weeks, at least. So Mr. Cheap and Impatient decided to order a saw in kit form.
The kit came in a very large box, carefully wrapped and padded with plenty of paper insuring its safe arrival intact. Mike will cut teeth to your specifications and, if you desire, he will sharpen them for you. He claims that he enjoys hand sharpening saws and does it for relaxation. Contrary to historical correctness, I had him cut 16 PPI teeth (this particular model generally had much courser teeth than this) and allowed that I would sharpen them myself.
The kit came with very clear and concise instructions, and I referred to them throughout, but actually didn't follow them to a "T", but that is just me. First thing out of the box I began paring the mortice into which the folded brass back is to be inserted. This should be a snug fit, but not one that requires brute force. Careful paring and test fitting often is the key to this.
Once I had the proper fit, I noted that the holes for the saw bolts were not lining up quite right, and found that I had to adjust the location of the back on the blade as well as to deepen the blade kerf ever so slightly. Again, care needs to be taken in this operation because you want the blade to fit snugly against the back of the kerf. A thin kerfed Disston tenon saw did the trick without widening the blade kerf at all. The sawbolts are a near perfect fit to the holes drilled through the blade and the back end of the brass back should be snug against the back of the mortice when the holes in the blade are aligned with those in the handle.
Next I laid out for cutting the bevel on the section of the handle by the mortice for the brass back. I measured about 1/8" on either side of the mortice then eyeballed down an amount that looked pleasing and drew the lines for the limits of the bevel. With a chisel I cut down at an angle in line with the verticle behind the mortice, and pared back to that cut on either side. The picture below shows one side done and the other laid out.
After cutting the other bevel, it is time to start forming the handle. This is where you really start making the saw your own. Mike's instructions are really quite simple for this part. Mark out a center line in the areas that will be relieved, lay out parallel markings on the faces, then begin removing the excess wood by cutting a ~45 degree bevel about 1/2 way to the lines you laid out using a rasp. Since I had done this before with a few handles, I marked the center line on the edge of the workpiece using a marking gauge setting the marking wheel into the kerf for the blade and then setting the fence snug against a face, and marked the necessary areas. I mounted the handle into my vise as seen in the picture below and proceeded to go to town with my rasps.
This shows the handle in the vise with the closed area basically finished and the back of the grip ready for the bevel.
The above picture shows a close-up of the initial bevel on the back of the handle. The other side of the handle is done at this point, so the bevel may look deeper than it actually is. The center line on the edge is just at the visible edge on the bottom.
After the first bevel is completed, a second bevel takes the corner off of the face edge of the first bevel, and a third removes the other corner as shown below.
The Bubinga of my saw is some very hard wood. For quick cutting I found my round rasp to work quite quickly in removing wood for the initial bevel, cutting straight in at first and then using a sort of raking action with it to even things out. The half rounds worked for the second and third bevels using both the flat and rounded sides at appropriate places. My only smoothing rasp is an old Four in Hand and it sufficed to do most of the smoothing.
Now it's time for shaping the horns and softening the other edges of the handle. For this, I mounted the handle as shown below, flipping it for the bottom horn and areas.
It will make things much easier if you can clean up your rasp work, leaving as smooth a surface as you can before sanding. Here's a picture of the handle ready for sanding.
And after sanding.
I used my ROS to sand as much as I could, reaching into nooks and crannies as far as I could, and then a small spindle sander in my hand held power drill to reach completely inside. I power sanded to 220 grit, then hand sanded with 400. After a good splash with some boiled linseed oil diluted with mineral spirits, I padded on a good coat of shellac.
Once the shellac had dried and cured over night, I assembled the saw, filing the ends of the saw bolts flush to the split nut, and touched up the finish.
I've had a number of requests on how to get one of Mike's saws after initially posting this and when I went looking myself found his site somewhat difficult to track down. So I decided to add a link to Mike's Site here.