charlie b wrote in message ...

Preface #1 to comments: I'm a tool junkie and a handcut dovetails
aficianado

Heh. Who wold have guessed it? :-)

[little snip of background comments]

Getting the cut started - where and how you want it is the hardest
part
of using any of these saws. Cutting dovetails, that involves two
alignments - one "on the line" and one on the vertical axis. Chewing
gum AND walking is sometimes a challenge for me so those two criteria
are enough. Add a bit of difficulty getting the cut started while
maintaining the saw's orientation and I'm half way to Screw Upville.

The "less expensive" barell handled saws are the worst to get started,
perhaps because of the teeth set and probably because they didn't come
very sharp.

The LN DT saw is next in line as far as getting the cut started. Even
with a very light back draw cut and then a more forceful foreward cut
it tends to chatter. That makes the start tricky. But once the cut
is started, right or wrong, it cuts straight and quickly with a good
cut surface.

Yep, that's been my experience as well. I usually only make one
"scoring" cut by drawing it back towards me (with basically no more
pressure than the weight of the saw itself) and then I go forward
(again using very little downward pressure. It can still skip, but if
you concentrate on "aiming" the saw rather than bearing down on it, it
works *most* of the time. And then, as you say, wherever your cut is,
it will go straight from there.

The dozuki starts the cut very easily, doesn't cut as fast as the LN
or the PAX and can flex and wander in the vertical axis if you're
impatient. The cut surface is good though.

I like to use a mini-dozuki "Z" panel-saw for cutting dt's in
softwood, and I've found that the shallow blade seems to help control
the flexing, as the spine is closer to the cut. But the kerf is small
and the surface is very good. To control it vertically, I tuck the
end of the handle next to my wrist/forearm so it becomes an extension
of my arm. Then as long as my arm moves straight, I don't have to
worry about any wobble off of vertical.

BTW, this brings up what may be one of the biggest advantages of
the western-style dt saw with a pistol-grip. A good saw with a
well-shaped handle will just naturally put your hand and wrist in the
proper position to saw. I remember the first time I picked up an old
western dt saw; it was like shaking hands with an old friend.

There's another thing that you have to be able to do when cutting
dovetails - and that's stopping at the bottom of the cut line -
on both the face and back of the stock. There's several tricks to
stopping in the right place - watching the back of the cut in a
mirror, pencil line on the saw blade etc.

On all of the western saws, the spine/stiffener on the top of the
blade is parallel to the teeth. If you can keep the top of the
spine paralleling the top of the stock you only have to keep an
eye on the bottom of the cut and the stop line. But on the dozuki
and japanese dovetail saw the spine and the teeth ARE NOT parallel.
The distance between the teeth and the spine decrease towards the
handle so watching the top of the saw works against you and
you need to see both the front and the back stop line.

Yep. I've tried the mirror trick and it just confused me. :-)
What I do now is start my cuts on the show side and go all the way to
the baseline there, concentrating on keeping the spine parallel with
the stock (or just shy of it with a dozuki). I then flip the board
and check to see if any of my cuts didn't reach the baseline on the
other side. If so, I cut from that side, making sure to angle the saw
slightly upwards so I don't cut any lower on the show side.

Because the japanese saws cut on the pull stroke, the sawdust is
pulled out towards you, slightly obscuring the stop line on your
side of the piece. Not a big deal but notable.

My biggest gripe with pullsaws in general. I use a stroke that
goes something like this: *pull* *blow* *pull* *blow* :-)

Anyhow, another outstanding post charlieb. I hope the folks with
questions will file it away for future reference. It's also good for
those of us who think we know it all ;-) as it makes us re-evaluate
our selection of saws and the techniques that go along with them.


Chuck Vance