This tool should be in every man's arsenal, along with a hammer and a screwdriver, regardless of his occupation and carpentry skills. We are talking about a regular hacksaw. However, manufacturers have long adapted even ordinary tools for a variety of purposes - in stores you will find not only a hacksaw for wood and metal, but also specialized tools for drywall and foam concrete.

Wood hacksaw – select tooth size

Even if you already have a hacksaw on your farm, it is quite possible that it will not be suitable for your purposes, so sooner or later you may need to go for a new saw. When choosing this tool, knowledge about its structure and features will be useful. If the saw has straight teeth, it will be easiest for it to cut wood crosswise; to cut wood along the grain, you will need a tool with inclined teeth. In accordance with their inclination, the hacksaw will be transverse or longitudinal. If you craft often, you'll need both options.

A hacksaw with large teeth cuts the fastest, but with it you will not achieve a straight edge. For working in the garden or quickly cutting rough boards, this saw is quite suitable for you. For a cleaner cut edge, a tool with a fine tooth is used, but working with such a hacksaw is slower - it is more difficult to remove sawdust from the cut.

For cutting coarse-grained wood across the grain, a saw with large teeth is best; for general sawing needs, choose a medium tooth, and if you need precise work, choose a hacksaw with a fine tooth.

A carpenter's saw with a very fine tooth is used by professional carpenters; it is unlikely to be useful on the farm. There is also a mechanical hacksaw - this is a small machine with a mechanically movable blade, these are used in factories for sawing metal pipes and other metal elements; in a home workshop it will be replaced by a hacksaw for metal.

Hacksaw: tooth pitch and blade length

Tooth pitch is another characteristic that affects the quality and ease of cutting. It is measured in millimeters; this concept is the distance between the tops of adjacent teeth. The length of the saw blade depends proportionally on the size and pitch of the tooth - the larger these parameters, the longer the tool should be. The length of a small hacksaw usually does not exceed 350 mm, a medium saw reaches 550 mm, and a tool with a large tooth must be at least 600 mm.

When purchasing, inquire about the sharpening of the saw - if we are talking about triple tooth sharpening, then it will be convenient to work with any arrangement of fibers, both in forward and reverse strokes. In addition, when triple sharpening, such a technique as setting the teeth does not need to be used - the hacksaw will be effective without it.

Tempered saw - what is characteristic of such a hacksaw?

The steel from which the tool blade is made must be elastic and durable. Curvature of the blade when jammed, rapid dulling of the teeth indicate low quality steel. To maintain the sharpness of the tool for as long as possible without compromising the elasticity of the blade, manufacturers resort to a little trick - they harden only the teeth. In this case, they acquire a blue-black color, which makes it very easy to distinguish a hardened instrument from a regular one.. Such saws are especially convenient for cutting artificial materials such as plywood, plastic, and plaster. However, it must be protected from getting on nails, otherwise, if such teeth are damaged, it will no longer be possible to restore their former sharpness.

If you still have your father’s old tools in your workshop at home, you don’t need to throw them away, you just need to know some of the features of caring for them. For example, to prevent the hacksaw blade from jamming when cutting, it is necessary to regularly set the teeth apart and sharpen them.

How to sharpen a hacksaw for wood - step by step

If you are wondering how to make a hacksaw perfectly sharp, do not rush to grab a file - haste will only make things worse. Sharpening teeth is a separate process that has several stages. First, check if you have the right tool - when sharpening cross-cut saws, you cannot do without a triangular file with a fine notch and an angle of 60°; for a longitudinal tool, you will need a diamond-shaped file.

How to sharpen a hacksaw for wood - step-by-step diagram

Step 1: Align the teeth in height

To determine which tooth is lagging in height, take a smaller file and run it along the top of the teeth. Untouched tips will show us defects in the saw. In this case, all other teeth must be filed with a file to the lowest level. To avoid injuring your hands, you can cut out a nest for a file in a piece of wood, secure it in it, and then safely straighten the teeth.

Step 2: Saw the canvas

Check the teeth for their relationship to each other. Short elements make cutting difficult, especially after several sharpenings. In this case, cuts are made in the blade itself, which lengthen the teeth. We clamp the tool blade in a vice, setting the teeth at the same level as the edges of the vice to prevent the cut from being too deep. You will need a hacksaw for metal - use it to cut the blade to the desired tooth height. The saw will work best if the width of the teeth is one and a half times smaller than their height.

Step 3: Spread the teeth

It's time to start setting up the saw. If you do the cutting with ordinary pliers, then you will never be able to achieve a uniform, precise spreading to the sides - as a result, the saw will begin to tear the wood, creating a lot of waste and creating a sloppy cut. Therefore, prepare in advance a simple tool that you can make yourself - cut a groove in a strip of thin metal into which a tooth can easily fit, and drill several holes in it to secure the limiter. The limiter can be cut with metal scissors, giving it the angle required for wiring.

We attach the limiter to the bar and test it in practice, increasing or decreasing the bend angle if necessary. Using such a tool, the wiring will be exactly the same. It does not need to be done often, once every two or three sharpenings. Obviously, the teeth need to be moved in different directions, taking turns. When setting, you should not go too far with the distance at which the top of each clove is bent - too small a distance will not do anything, too much will complicate the cutting process and turn a large amount of material into sawdust.

Step 4: Sharpening

Now we come directly to how to sharpen a hacksaw for wood. It is most convenient to secure the blade on the edge of the work table, placing a board under the hacksaw so that the blade does not rest on the handle. Maintain the same sharpening angle as before. Go along one side of all the teeth first, moving the file away from the blade of the hacksaw towards the tip, then repeat the process, sharpening the other side. Having turned the blade itself over, go through the teeth again with a file in the same order.

Be careful not to shorten them by sharpening too hard. In total, the process will take you from half an hour to an hour, depending on how much you have already practiced in this matter. This time will more than pay off when working with a hacksaw.

A hacksaw is one of the most important tools on the farm. You often need to saw off, trim or shorten something, but you don’t always have a hacksaw at hand.
Today's homemade product is a kind of power tool designed for sawing small wooden parts. The base is a wide blade from a hacksaw for metal. Similar ones exist with large teeth for faster sawing.

Collecting materials and tools

For work we will need:

• Wooden block 30x7 cm, about 2 cm thick;
• The blade for a hacksaw for metal is wide;
• A small piece of mild steel sheet;
• DC motor for simulation;
• Wooden slats for traction and backing:
• Gear with 3 mm mounting hole;
• Push button switch;
• Adapter connector socket;
• 12V adapter;
• Superglue and wood glue (PVA);
• A piece of an old bicycle tube;
• Several wires, bolts and nuts and one window handle.

Tools:

• Drill with a core drill for the diameter of the engine housing;
• A turbine or electric sander for grinding the teeth of the blade;
• Hot glue;
• Soldering iron with solder and flux;
• Wrenches;
• Knife, screwdrivers, pliers.

Assembling an electric hacksaw

A wooden block will serve as a handle for our electric hacksaw, so it needs to be prepared. This is not just a piece of raw wood. It is desirable that it be evenly planed, with the same width of edges and planes.

We take a drill and make a hole in it with a hole saw for the engine.

Now we prepare the hacksaw blade. It needs to grind its teeth literally to the middle. This must be done on both sides using a turbine with an abrasive attachment or an electric sandpaper.

Next, we work with a piece of steel that needs to be bent like a sheath from the edges. It is in such a “sheath” that the ground part of the hacksaw blade will move. We mark a piece of steel and bend it with pliers.

To prevent the blade from sticking too tightly to the handle, it is necessary to secure it through a gasket. We make it from a thin wooden plank, which we cut to the size of the iron guides for the canvas. We sit this section of the plank on wood glue or PVA.

We attach the guides and place several mounting holes with a marker. You will need to drill them with a drill.

We fasten the guides with two self-tapping screws and cover the handle on all sides with aerosol paint. Don’t forget to also paint the rod made from the rest of the wooden plank.

It's time to mount the engine. The hole for it is made with a reserve, so to keep it firmly, we use a piece of an old bicycle tube as a gasket. We cut off the excess pieces of rubber protruding from both sides with a knife.

For the traction to work, we will need to attach a small plastic gear to the engine shaft. We use superglue for this.

We will install the connection between the gear and the rod with bolts. To do this, we fix the drive bolt at the base of the blade, and tighten it with a nut and a lock nut so that it does not unwind.

We make a hole in the gear with a small drill for the next connecting bolt. We insert it into the gear and also tighten it with nuts.

We mark the rod-bar according to the minimum size between the two bolts, and drill a hole in it for them.

We fasten the rod similarly to the nuts, but so that it moves freely on a pendulum stroke.

We attach a window handle to the upper edge of the handle for ease of use with the tool.

Despite the variety of power tools for woodworking, hand saws are still popular among home craftsmen. The advantages are obvious - low cost, compact size and instant readiness for work (especially if there is no source of electricity).

Any cutting and sawing tool must be sharp; not only work efficiency, but also safety depends on this. Using too much force with a blunt tool can cause you to lose control and injure yourself. In addition, the quality of the cut made with a sharp hacksaw will be higher.

To understand how to properly sharpen a hacksaw for wood, let’s look at the structure of a popular tool:

It would seem that nothing could be simpler - a steel strip with cut teeth. However, each design is developed individually; the shape and location of the cutting elements depend on the type of wood.

Important! The general principle for all types of hacksaws is that the width of the cut should be greater than the thickness of the blade.

If you do not follow this rule, the tool will jam in the cut as it goes deeper into the material. This means that, at a minimum, it is necessary to separate the teeth of the hacksaw. The cutting edge also has features - and this directly depends on the hardness of the wood and the cutting method.

Classification of hacksaws

1. 1. Canvas length. The comfort of work depends on this value (you make fewer reciprocating movements), and the teeth on a long hacksaw do not clog as intensely. The general rule is that the blade for a wood saw should be twice as long as the size of the workpiece.

1. 1. Tooth size. The speed and quality of the cut depends on this parameter. Moreover, the criteria are mutually exclusive. A hacksaw with a fine tooth gives a high-quality and clean cut, but the speed is lower and more effort is applied. A large tooth cuts faster and easier, but the edges of the cut will be “ragged” and rough. In the parameters, the tooth size is indicated in “TPI”, the number means the number of edges per 1 inch. The higher the value, the finer the teeth

1. 1. Tooth shape. This parameter determines the direction of the cut (along or across the grain), the type of wood, and the vector of the applied force (from yourself or towards you). Of course, there are universal canvases. Proper sharpening of a hacksaw is carried out in accordance with the shape of the tooth

1. Blade steel type. Classification of material is a separate topic; we are interested in the processing method. The canvas can be hardened, not hardened or combined. In the latter case, only the teeth are hardened. This can be determined by the shade of the metal - hardened steel is darker.

Important! Sharpening a hacksaw with hardened teeth is impossible.

This “disadvantage” is compensated by the slow process of dulling. If you don’t come across a nail or a hard knot, the hardened blade will last a long time. True and the price is appropriate.

Sharpening a hacksaw for wood with your own hands

Attention! Sharpening a hacksaw begins with setting the teeth.

If the instructions for the canvas do not indicate the exact parameters, the wiring is done according to the general rules:
The width of the cutting edge overhang should be 1.5 - 2 times the thickness of the blade. Wider routing is done for wet wood, or in the case of cutting along the grain. If, when processing such wood, the width of the teeth is small, the blade will jam in the cut.

He devotes a lot of time to his instrument, which comes out not only of high quality, but also damn BEAUTIFUL. Real works of art.

This time he took up a Soviet hacksaw, which he purchased at a junkyard. Her initial condition was far from ideal. But the quality of the steel from which the canvas was made is much better compared to modern Chinese products.

The old handle was mercilessly thrown away, and the teeth were sawed off, since the middle was sharpened, which led to the bending of the cutting part of the blade.
A piece of the canvas had to be cut off - it felt like nails were driving it - it was so wrinkled.
.The dents were knocked out and smoothed out with sandpaper on a block, as well as abrasive blocks. It is advisable to sand “wet”, that is, by wetting the surface to be sanded with water.

The result is such a shiny blank for the canvas. It will need to be cut to fit the new handle, and an additional hole will need to be drilled (the bottom one will go into sawdust). Drilling such steel with a simple drill is quite problematic. Vladimir got out of the situation using pobeditovoe.
And finally, the teeth. In order to cut them evenly and consistently, I had to make a special clamp that secures the canvas.

It consists of a pair of halves, between which it is clamped.

Using a ruler, mark the future teeth on the clamp (with equal pitches)

Using a triangular file, we sequentially cut them down to the piece of wood (this way the height of the teeth is adjusted).
Another indicator of the quality of steel is that one of the edges of the file has worn out significantly during operation.

It was not possible to separate the teeth with a cheap plate set - they are harder, so I had to order a good one. While she was on her way through the mail...

The next stage is making the handle. First, a blank of three layers with inserts of bog oak veneer is glued together - for beauty. The outer layers are oak, the inner layers are beech. They were glued together with a simple "Joiner's Moment".

After the glue has dried, remove the clamps. The shape of the handle was chosen to be anatomical. We print it on the printer and stick it on the workpiece. We select roundings with a Forstner drill
Next, cut along the contours with a jigsaw

The inner contour shows the rounding of the handle. Using a knife and rasp, we cut off the corner, welding the edges.
We finish with files
Clamping it vertically, we make a cut in the center to secure the blade.

We cut the blade according to the shape of the handle (I already mentioned this earlier)

We drill mounting holes (in the handle and in the blade). There are screws and nuts in the handle (brass, by the way), deepen them.
We sand the handle with sandpaper increasing the abrasive and coat it with oil.

Let's put everything together.

Even without sharpening, the saw cuts, or rather tears, wood perfectly. And if you sharpen it,
and even spread the teeth...

The end result was a wonderful hacksaw. You pick it up and immediately want to saw something.

Vladimir put it in his car spare parts. And we can admire the beautiful functional tools, and if the desire arises, we can do something similar.

To make a divorce on a hacksaw you will need pliers, a file and a little patience. The teeth on the hacksaw should be one at a time in different directions and they need to be sharpened from different sides. You will need pliers to bend each tooth in different directions.

It is the question “how” that can be answered in this way: using pliers, using a special adjustable comb, using a chisel, or in another way.

Why is divorce needed?

Setting the teeth in different directions makes it possible to avoid the saw blade getting stuck in the wood, which partially facilitates the work, but does not always speed it up; however, in the case of cutting a thick log, much wider than the saw, the setting perfectly saves the situation and eliminates those moments when the saw just won’t work. I couldn't get the log because it was stuck there.

Jam the saw maybe due to the fact that iron tends to expand and heat up during hard work, the expansion makes progress difficult, and the hot metal melts the resin and turns it into a paste, which slows down the movement of the saw even more.

To prevent the saw from jamming and sticking to the wood, a spread is made. However, the spread must be consistent with the density of the wood. A wide groove is useful in low-density wood, while a narrow groove is needed in high-density wood.

The offset is needed to provide a wider gap between the saw blade and the wood.

Pulling apart with pliers is detrimental to the saw teeth; they quickly break off, the bend is not even, and the pliers often slide out.

Setting the teeth with a special comb is convenient for use, does not break the teeth, but the angle of the setting is different, the teeth do not stick out to the sides evenly, and this position does not speed up, but slows down the work, and the saw blade will constantly get stuck in the wood. A crooked cut is especially bad on dense wood; the saw cannot make a groove, and it jerks from one jam to the next. In soft wood, jamming also occurs, but it is easier to jerk the saw blade out of the log, but when jerking, you can saw through not only the log, but also part of yourself, since the saw breaks out of the groove with a sudden movement and falls out of it without control.

It is best to adjust the saw with a chisel. It is inserted between the teeth and slowly tapped with a hammer from above, gradually moving along the line of all the teeth. The angle of the chisel is directed first in one direction, then in the other, it is necessary to change the direction after each passage of the line of teeth, and also change the angle of the teeth with the help of a chisel. This method is suitable for a working saw where the initial gap has already been and needs to be expanded, This option is not suitable for a new saw..

Determine the cutting width according to the formula

Sharpening hand saws

Features of sharpening a hand saw for wood

The most popular tool in woodworking is probably the saw. A wood hacksaw is used for sawing bars, fiberboard and chipboard, and with a two-handed saw you can “cut” even a log into dies.

This tool is made of special steel. However, despite the softness of the material being processed (wood), it is necessary to regularly sharpen the hand saw. The main thing is to know how to do it correctly. WITH chainsaw similar procedures must also be carried out.

In the absence of special tools, you can sharpen a hand saw using a triangular or diamond-shaped personal file. If the hacksaw is small in size, then it can be clamped in a vice; sharpening a hand saw for wood is carried out as a result of the translational movement of the file blade.

However, you should not put in too much effort. It is enough to achieve the appearance of a “fresh” strip on the main back surface of the tooth.

Hardened teeth do not need sharpening

In a bench vice, you can also set a hand saw, because if the teeth are located on the same line, the cutting process will be impossible. The reason is probable jamming, and the “culprit” here is sawdust that is not removed from the narrow slot.

If the hacksaw teeth are heat-treated (hardened), then the question “how to sharpen a saw” disappears by itself; such a tool is practically eternal and does not require sharpening. It is only important to protect the cutting edges and the teeth themselves from external influences (dynamic shocks). Hardened material, along with hardness, has a drawback - it is fragile.

Among professionals and amateurs, the most common hacksaws are those with a “raw” tooth, so every owner should know how to sharpen a handsaw. To simplify the sharpening process, you can make a simple device from two boards located to each other at a certain angle (optimally 37 degrees).

The hacksaw is attached using two or three slats to the top board. The sharpening itself is carried out with a triangular file parallel to the ground, moving away from you. This is the only way to achieve the correct cutting angle. Turning the saw over, sharpens the hand saw for wood on the other side. It is important to achieve the correct tooth geometry; ideally, it should be an equilateral triangle.

Setting the teeth of a hand saw using a plate

During operation, the teeth not only become dull, they also become deformed. Therefore, regular adjustment of the saw on wood (bending adjacent teeth in different directions) is a very necessary procedure. The wiring process is carried out using a special plate with a slot, the width of which must correspond to the thickness of the hacksaw blade.

For versatility, you can cut several slots with a grinder. Then you can set a hand saw of any thickness. The hacksaw is clamped in a vice using two bars, and a plate with a slot is “strung” onto the tooth. Only the upper part of the tooth is bent (about one third).

Sharpening hand saws is not difficult in itself, it just requires skill. It's enough to try once. Setting up a hand saw is not difficult either. A properly sharpened hacksaw will save both effort and time when sawing.

Tools

Wood is a fantastic material, as it can take, after simple manipulations, any form that is limited solely by human imagination. And just one of the tools that is intended for this task is a hacksaw for wood. It is no less popular than the electric and gasoline chain saws, jigsaws and reciprocating saws that we all know. There should be such a hacksaw in your arsenal of household tools, and it is useful for every man to know how to sharpen a hacksaw for wood with his own hands.

Purpose of a hacksaw for metal

There are a great variety of types and shapes of hacksaws for metal. Hacksaws for metal can be two-handed or one-handed. With the advent and spread of gas and electric saws, two-handed saws are used quite rarely today, but one-handed saws are found in almost every home.

The blade of a one-handed saw is made in the form of a knife with many teeth. It is characterized by sufficient rigidity, elasticity and strength to maintain its shape without various tension devices. A similar hacksaw for metal has a handle that you can hold with one hand when cutting material. By moving the saw back and forth across the object being cut, the teeth are driven deeper into it. For each movement, the hacksaw teeth cut through the material by several millimeters.

A wood hacksaw is used for sawing wood, boards, logs, chipboard and other wood materials, when installing wooden structures and carpentry work, for trimming tree branches and other work that involves cutting different types of wood. A wood hacksaw will also come in handy if you plan to work with laminate.

The teeth of the blades of such hacksaws come in three types - large, small and medium, they are measured by the number of cutters that fall on one inch. The more teeth per 1 inch, the better the cut. The number of teeth per 1 inch on a wood saw blade is indicated by the TPI marking. Remember that for quick and rough cutting you will need a hacksaw with a long blade and a large tooth. And if the quality of the cut is very important to you, then it is better to take a hacksaw with a fine tooth.

Saws with large teeth (3-6 pieces per inch) and an intertooth spacing of approximately 4-8 millimeters are most useful for sawing logs and thick bars, and a hacksaw, in which the intertooth spacing reaches 3-3.5 millimeters, is used to saw medium-sized boards. size. When working with small wooden products, it is easiest to work with a saw with a gap between the cutters of 2-2.5 millimeters.

If the hacksaw has straight teeth, the tool will be intended only for cross-cutting wood, but if you have to cut wood lengthwise, the best option would be a hacksaw with teeth inclined forward. And it’s best to have several hacksaws, rather than just one hacksaw, for different types of woodworking.

The need to sharpen a hacksaw

Any cutting tool will work well under one condition - if it is sharp. The hacksaw is no exception in this case. In a hand saw, the cutting element is the teeth, which are cut into wedges on the blade. During operation, it is these teeth that become dull, that is, the cutting side and front edges are rounded, because of this the hacksaw moves hard, and therefore you need to press hard on it.

Sawing with a dull hacksaw is a pain. You need to spend a lot of effort and time; with such a saw it is difficult to make a cut at a right angle. An incorrectly sharpened saw moves away from the cut line, gets pinched and jams in the cut. You can determine the sharpness of a saw by the sound of operation and the shine of the cutting edges. To restore the cutting ability of the teeth, a hacksaw is sharpened for wood, giving them sharpness and at the same time maintaining their parameters: angles, height and pitch.

However, remember that not all hacksaws can be sharpened. Hacksaws with hardened teeth cannot be sharpened. To identify a hardened tooth, you need to take a closer look at its color. If the tooth is hardened, it has a black color with a characteristic bluish tint. To sharpen unhardened teeth, use a finely cut file.

Hacksaw tooth alignment

Before sharpening a hacksaw for wood, you should check the tooth alignment. To ensure free movement of the saw in the material and to avoid pinching the tool in the cut, its teeth are moved apart as they deepen, that is, they are alternately bent by the same amount in different directions. As a result, the width of the cut becomes greater than the thickness of the toothed blade of the hacksaw, and free gaps appear on both sides.

As a result of this, the saw will move back and forth, without practically touching the surface of the cut with its blade; the cutting edges will gradually begin to remove the material layer by layer. When setting the saw, you should remember that the wider the teeth are set, the wider the cut will be and, accordingly, the lower the chances of the hacksaw jamming. However, an excessively large tooth set causes a too wide jagged cut and requires significant effort to move the hacksaw through the wood.

The setting value for a hacksaw for wood should be approximately 1.5 - 2 times the thickness of the saw blade, which is usually 1.5 - 2 millimeters. Therefore, it is customary to bend the saw teeth by 0.25-0.5 millimeters in each direction if such a hacksaw is used to cut dry hardwood, and by about 0.5-1 millimeter for raw wood or softwood.

To bend the saw teeth by the same amount, they use a special device called a set, which is a metal plate with a slot cut into it, which is wider in width than the thickness of the hacksaw blade. Often, the set design allows you to select the amount of tooth set to one side using an adjusting screw, which ensures the same amount of tooth set.

For setting, as a rule, the saw blade is clamped in a vice in such a way that the teeth protrude from it only slightly, and the device itself is fixed on the work table. The teeth are bent by setting them alternately in opposite directions along the withdrawal line, which is located approximately at half their height. Remember that you cannot bend the entire tooth, as this will cause it to break at the base.

After such manipulations, it is recommended to check the correctness of the setting, because it may happen that some teeth, when bent to the side, protrude more than others, they will slow down when sawing, reduce the quality of the cut and quickly become dull. Look along the line of the teeth into the light, and if you see that a tooth is bent too far or not enough to the side, then it needs to be corrected.

Rules for sharpening a hacksaw for wood

Sharpening a hacksaw blade is, in a sense, an art that requires attention, a good eye and faithful hands. This business is not difficult to learn, the main thing when working is to adhere to the following rules:

• Reliable fixation. The blade must be firmly secured in a special device made of wood, which should also be firmly installed in a well-lit work area, as shown in the video on sharpening a hacksaw for wood. Sharpening teeth on your knees or on stools does not give a positive result!
• Using quality tools. You should use your own personal file and then clean the sharpened edges of the teeth with a file or a file with a fine velvet notch. Of course, the file needs to be sharp and new. A used one can also be used, but it must be cleaned with a steel brush and rubbed with charcoal so that the file does not become dull or clogged.
• Removing the metal layer. When sharpening a tooth, a file must cling to its metal and remove the desired layer of metal, depending on the power of pressure. And if it suddenly slides over the tooth without removing the metal, this means that the file is worn out or the hacksaw teeth are overheated. In this case, you need to re-sharpen with a different file. If even after changing the file it still slips on the tooth, you should take another hacksaw.
• Press on the teeth. The handle of the file is clamped with the right hand, and its end is held with the left hand and the file is directed onto the saw teeth. The file pressure on the teeth should be uniform, smooth and, of course, in one direction. The file should not touch the teeth when returning to its original position.
• Proper file handling. Try to grind the metal from the edges of the teeth to approximately the same thickness, moving the file the same number of times with the same pressure, allowing you to maintain the pitch, height and angle of the teeth after sharpening.
• Removing hangnails. Burrs form on the edges of the hacksaw tooth on the exit side, they reduce the sharpness of the teeth, and if you do not remove them, they will chip while the saw is in use, and after that the teeth will become significantly dull. To remove burrs, the edges of the teeth are sharpened using a file with a velvet notch, and also removed from the side edges of the blade with a wet whetstone.
• Checking the quality of work. After sharpening the teeth, be sure to check their sharpness. Look at the edge of the razor blade and the point of the needle: they do not shine in the light if they are sharpened. And if they become dull, then, of course, rounded surfaces appear on the edge of the blade and on the tip of the needle, reflecting light and shining well. Checking the sharpening quality of hacksaw teeth is based on this. For this purpose, they place it in front of their eyes, examining its teeth along the canvas. If their cutting tips and edges are not shiny, this indicates that the saw teeth have been sharpened. And if suddenly some of the teeth shine (this happens often), then they need to be sharpened using a file with a velvet notch, that is, remove the burrs and check again the reflection of light above their tops and edges.

Do-it-yourself hacksaw sharpening

When sharpening a certain type of hacksaw for wood, you should pay attention to certain features of this procedure. Let's figure out how to sharpen each type of wood hacksaw.

Crosscut saws

To sharpen the teeth of cross-cut saws, use a triangular file with a fairly fine notch and an angle of approximately 60 degrees. To sharpen the teeth, clamp the hacksaw into a special device that allows its blade to be set at an angle of 45-50 degrees to the surface of the work table. Move the file at an angle of 60-75 degrees to the blade parallel to the work table and in this way sharpen the left edge of the first tooth.

The saw teeth are sharpened in several steps. Using a file, first go along the left edges of the odd teeth that are in the far row, tuning your hands to the same movements. Next, a file is passed along the right edges of these same odd teeth, thereby completing the sharpening of the cutting edges with sharp peaks.

After you have sharpened the odd-numbered teeth of your saw blade, turn the hacksaw blade over in the sharpening device to sharpen the even-numbered teeth that are in the far row. When sharpening the teeth of cross-cut saws, it is necessary to carefully ensure that each tooth produces sharp cutting edges with an angle of 60-75 degrees, that is, a sharp top and a short cutting edge.

Rip saws

To sharpen the teeth of rip saws with an angle of less than 60 degrees, coarser files or rhombic files with a fine notch are used, and triangular files with an angle of 60 degrees at the apex are not suitable for sharpening.
To sharpen the teeth of a longitudinal hacksaw blade, it is installed vertically in a clamping device, after which the device is fixed on the work table. Next, we will tell you about two methods of sharpening the teeth of a rip saw, which differ in the sharpening angle.

The first method is direct, when a needle file or file is directed horizontally to the blade at an angle of 90 degrees and a small layer of metal is removed from the back and front edges of the tooth to sharpen the cutting edge. In this way, all the teeth located in the far row are sharpened. After this, the blade is turned over in the clamping device and the teeth of the other row that are in the far row are sharpened. Many modern carpenters and hobbyists use this method when sharpening the teeth of such longitudinal hacksaws.

The second method is a scythe and differs from the first only in the direction of the tool itself in relation to the hacksaw blade - the sharpening angle is within 80 degrees. The back and front edges of the teeth are also sharpened, to start one row, and then the other. With this method of sharpening the teeth, you will get side edges that are used when sharpening a bow saw.

Mixed cutting saws

If you decide to buy a mixed wood hacksaw, you should find out how to sharpen it correctly. To restore the quality of cutting teeth, sharpen them using coarsely cut needle files or finely cut diamond files. Just like when sharpening a rip saw, there are two known methods - oblique and straight, and they differ in the sharpening angle (90 and 75-80 degrees).

Accessories for sharpening saws

The hacksaw blade for sharpening the teeth is installed in a special clamping device, which is then fixed on the work table. Let's look at the diagram of a clamping device that is used when sharpening the teeth of hacksaws for wood and makes it possible to install them at an angle of about 45-90 degrees relative to your work table.

Such a device consists of a base made of plywood measuring 550 by 200 millimeters and approximately 20 millimeters thick. On the base, two guide rectangular triangles (with equal legs) are installed, which are made of a steel strip with a cross-section of 20×30 millimeters. To install guide triangles at the base of the device, 4 studs are provided, which are screwed with PVA glue.

Next, support and clamping strips are installed to the guide triangles using bolts with wing nuts, which are connected to each other using hinges (size 400 by 150 millimeters), made of plywood, the thickness of which is 15 millimeters. To sharpen the saw, place it teeth up between the slats.

Before you start sharpening a hacksaw on wood yourself, set its blade so that the teeth protrude above the pressure bar by about 15-20 millimeters. This clamping device makes it possible to install sharpened hacksaws at an angle of 45 degrees and 90 degrees. When sharpening the teeth of mixed and rip saws, set them at an angle of 90 degrees, and when sharpening the teeth of cross-cutting tools, set them at an angle of 45 degrees. If the device is installed in the position of the slats at an angle of 90 degrees, then it is used to level the height of the teeth, as well as to spread them apart.

Let's also look at a jig for sharpening large hacksaws and two-handed saws. This device consists of two transverse strips about 550 millimeters long and a cross-section of 40 by 30 millimeters, two racks 1100 millimeters long and a cross-section of 60 by 40 millimeters, as well as two clamping strips measuring 450 by 150 millimeters, which are made of plywood 15 millimeters thick. The crossbar and racks are connected to each other with screws.

The device is assembled in the following sequence: the bottom crossbar is screwed from the floor at a small height to the posts, then the right leg is placed on it, and after that the attachment point of the second crossbar is marked so that the knee of the right leg rests against the second crossbar.

Because of this, the rigidity of the stand, which is leaning against the workbench or table, is ensured. To sharpen, wood hacksaws are placed between the clamping bars with their teeth up and then clamped with bolts and wing nuts. After finishing sharpening on one side, without removing the saws from the clamps, turn the device over and also continue sharpening on the other side.

Now you know how to sharpen a wood hacksaw at home. Follow the instructions carefully and adhere to the rules described above, and also remember to keep an eye on the hacksaw and determine when it is dull. Before sharpening a hacksaw, be sure to determine what material you will usually work with, and also carry out the procedure for setting and aligning the teeth of the hacksaw blade.

Sharpening and setting the saw

The main cutting element of any hand saw is a series of teeth cut on the blade and representing wedge-shaped cutters. Wood, in the manufacture of all kinds of products from it, is sawn along, across and at an angle Θ to its fibers; in this regard, transverse, longitudinal sawing and sawing at an angle to its fibers are distinguished, and in each case they use the appropriate type of saw, which differs from others in shape teeth

When cross-cutting, cross-cut saws are used, the cutting edges of the teeth of which, when moving in the wood, cut its fibers like a knife and form a cut. Longitudinal sawing differs from cross-cutting in that the direction of movement of the saw is parallel to the grain of the wood. The leading edges of the teeth of rip saws plan wood, like knives in planes, and, going deeper, form a cut. When sawing wood at an angle Θ, universal (mixed) saws with teeth that are an intermediate form of teeth for transverse and longitudinal saws are used to its fibers.

Sharpening the saw

Sharpening saw teeth is an art of its own, requiring faithful hands, a good eye, and attention. It is not difficult to learn this business, you must have the desire and strictly adhere to the following rules:

• The saw blade must be rigidly fixed in a special device made of wood, which is also firmly installed on a well-lit work table. Sharpening saw teeth on stools or knees does not give satisfactory results.
• You should use a personal file, followed by cleaning the sharpened edges of the teeth with a velvet file (with a fine notch) or a needle file. It is advisable that the file be new, sharp and with a mounted handle. If you don’t have one at the right time, you can use a second-hand one, but it must be cleaned with a steel brush and rubbed with charcoal so that the file does not become clogged or dull. When sharpening a tooth, the file must grip the metal and remove its layer depending on the force of pressure. And if it slides over the tooth without removing the metal, then the saw teeth are overheated or the file is worn out. In this case, it is necessary to repeat sharpening with a new file. If in this case it slides along the tooth, then you just have to take another saw.
• The handle of the file is clamped with your right hand, and its end is held with your left hand and the file is directed towards the teeth of the saw. How to use a file depending on the type of saw is described below.
• The pressure of the file on the teeth should be smooth and uniform and only in one direction away from you. When returning the file to its original position, it should not touch the teeth.
• You should try to grind the metal from the edges of the teeth to a minimum of the same thickness, moving the file the same number of times with the same pressure, which allows you to maintain the angles, pitch and height of the teeth after sharpening.
• Burrs form on the edges of the tooth on the side where the file exits, which reduce the sharpness of the tooth, and if they are not removed, then during the operation of the saw they chip and the teeth become significantly dull. To remove burrs, the edges of the teeth are sharpened with a file with a velvet notch and the burrs are removed from the side edges with a wet whetstone.
• After sharpening the teeth, you need to check their sharpness. Look at the point of the needle and the edge of the razor blade: although they are sharp, they do not shine in the light. And if they are dulled, then rounded surfaces appear on the tip of the needle and on the edge of the blade, which reflect light and shine well. This principle is used to check the quality of saw teeth sharpening. To do this, place the saw in front of your eyes and examine its teeth along the blade. If their cutting edges and tips do not shine, then the saw teeth are sharpened satisfactorily, and if some of the teeth are shiny (this often happens), then they need to be sharpened with a velvet file, remove the burrs and again check the reflection of light on their edges and tips.

Crosscut saws. The teeth of cross-cut saws are sharpened using a finely cut triangular file with an apex angle of 60°.

To sharpen the teeth, the saw is clamped into a special device that allows you to set its blade at an angle of 45-50° to the plane of the work table. The file is parallel to the work table at an angle of 60-75° to the saw blade and thus the left edge A 1 A 2 B 2 B 1 is sharpened in the first tooth.

The saw teeth are sharpened in several stages. First, a file is passed along the left edges of the odd teeth located in the far row, tuning the hands for the same movement. Then they pass the file along the right edges of the same odd teeth, finishing sharpening the main cutting edges with very sharp tips. After sharpening the odd teeth is completed, the saw blade in the sharpening device is turned over and thus the even teeth that are in the far row are sharpened. When sharpening the teeth of cross-cut saws, it is necessary to carefully ensure that each tooth has sharp main cutting edges with a dihedral angle φ = 60-75°, a short cutting edge and a sharp tip.

To sharpen the teeth, the saw blade is mounted vertically in a clamping device, which, in turn, is fixed to the work table. Below are two methods of sharpening the teeth of longitudinal saws, differing from each other only in the sharpening angle φ, i.e., in the directions of the file in relation to the saw blade.

The first method is direct, in which a file or needle file is directed horizontally at an angle φ = 90° to the saw blade and a small layer of metal is removed from the front and rear edges of the tooth, sharpening the cutting edges.

In this way, all the teeth located in the far row are sharpened. Then the saw blade in the clamping device is turned over and the teeth of another row, which are in the far row, are sharpened. This method is used by most modern carpenters and hobbyists when sharpening the teeth of rip saws.

The second method is oblique, differing from the first only in the direction of the file in relation to the saw blade, that is, the sharpening angle, which is chosen within the range φ = 75-80°.

The front and rear edges of the teeth are also sharpened, first of one row and then of the other. With this method of sharpening the teeth, side edges are obtained, and it is used by cabinetmakers when sharpening bow swing saws.

Mixed cutting saws. To restore the cutting qualities of the teeth, they are sharpened, like the teeth of a rip saw, using fine diamond files or coarser needle files. As with sharpening rip saws, two methods are used: straight and oblique, differing from each other in the sharpening angle φ, which are equal to 90° and 75-80°.

The sharpening angle φ = 75-80° is used by cabinetmakers when sharpening the teeth of tenon and fine-toothed bow saws. After sharpening the teeth, remove burrs from the cutting edges and check the sharpness of the teeth in the light.

Saw sharpening devices. To sharpen the teeth, the saw blade is installed in a clamping device, which, in turn, is fixed to the work table. The figure below shows a clamping device used for sharpening the teeth of bow saws and hacksaws and allowing them to be installed at an angle of 45° and 90° relative to the work table.

The device consists of a base measuring 550x200 mm, made of plywood about 20 mm thick. On the base, two guide rectangular triangles with equal legs are installed, welded from a steel strip with a cross-section of 20x3 mm. To install the guide triangles, four M6 studs are provided at the base of the device, screwed with PVA glue. In turn, support and clamping strips are attached to the guide triangles using M6 bolts with wing nuts, connected to each other on hinges measuring 400x150 mm, made of plywood 15 mm thick. The sharpening saw is placed between the slats with the teeth facing up. Its blade is set so that the teeth protrude above the pressure bar by 15-20 mm. This clamping device allows you to set saws to be sharpened at an angle of 45° (this position is shown in the picture) and at an angle of 90°. To do this, it is necessary to change the positions of the guide triangles based on the device, which is clearly visible in the figure. When sharpening the teeth of cross-cut saws, the support-clamping bars are set at an angle of 45°, and when sharpening the teeth of longitudinal and mixed saws - at an angle of 90°.

The device, with the slats positioned at an angle of 90°, can be used both to level the height of the teeth and to set them apart.

The figure below shows a clamping device for sharpening the teeth of two-handed saws and large hacksaws.

The device consists of two racks 1100 mm long with a cross-section of 60x40 mm, two transverse strips about 550 mm long with a cross-section of 40x30 mm and two clamping strips with dimensions of 450x150 mm, made of plywood 15 mm thick. The posts and crossbar are connected to each other with screws. The assembly of the device is carried out in the following sequence: the lower crossbar is screwed to the racks at a small height from the floor, then the right leg is placed on it and the place of attachment of the second crossbar is marked so that the knee of the right leg rests against the second crossbar. This ensures the rigidity of the stand leaning against a table or workbench. The saw blades for sharpening are placed between the clamping bars with the teeth facing up and clamped with M8 bolts and wing nuts. Having finished sharpening on one side, without removing the saw from the clamping bars, turn the device over and continue sharpening on the other side.

Saw layout

The wider the tooth spread, the wider the cut and, accordingly, the less likely the saw to jam in it. However, a cut that is too wide due to the large tooth set requires a lot of effort to move the saw through the wood.

When using an unset or slightly set saw, which happens after its repair or long work, when the set of teeth is greatly reduced, the width of the cut turns out to be close to the thickness of its blade, and the friction that arises between the walls of the cut and the blade causes its heating and expansion and, ultimately In other words, the saw gets stuck in the cut, which will require incredible effort to move. Probably each of us has experienced this nuisance when sawing raw wood with a low-cut saw. And yet, if there is no free gap in the cut for the saw blade, then it is difficult to control and it is pulled away from the intended direction.

The saw teeth are set using a special tool called a set. Some of its designs allow you to select the amount of spread to one side using an adjusting screw, which ensures the same bend of the teeth.

The saw teeth are set in a special wooden clamping device, in which the saw blade is installed so that only the teeth protrude slightly from it, and the device itself is mounted on the work table. The set of teeth is formed by bending them alternately in different directions along the break line, located approximately at half of their heights, but the entire tooth cannot be set back - it will break at the base. It may turn out that when bending, some teeth protrude to the side more than others, and during sawing they will slow down, reduce the quality of the cut surface and quickly become dull. To avoid this, the teeth are aligned by pulling them between the jaws of a hand vice, opened to the amount of spread. As a result, all teeth are aligned and their spread becomes uniform.

The amount of saw tooth set is determined by the elastic recovery of the wood in the cut, which is greater the softer and wetter it is. Therefore, for such wood the spread should be greater than for hard and dry wood. The amount of teeth set to one side and the amount of cut in wood are determined by the formulas:

where a is the thickness of the saw blade (mm), k is a coefficient depending on the condition of the wood, k = 0.25-0.4 for hard and dry and k

Example. Determine the amount of spread on one side for a bow saw and a hacksaw with blade thicknesses of 0.6 and 0.9. Wood to be cut: dry and hard for a bow saw and wet for a hacksaw. We select the coefficient for the bow saw k=0.35 and k=0.5 for the hacksaw. Then for a bow saw the size of the spread on one side and the size of the cut are equal:

Δ=0.35 0.6≈0.2;
b=0.6+2 0.2=1 mm;
and, accordingly, for a hacksaw:
Δ=0.5 0.6=0.3;
b=0.9+2 0.3=1.5 mm.

You should not choose any amount of set for saw teeth, without taking into account the condition of the wood being cut, as this affects the quality of the cut and the force of saw advancement. It is difficult to saw hard wood with a saw with a large offset - you get a wide, uneven, ragged cut of poor quality, the saw stroke is heavy, you have to put a lot of pressure on it, and as a result, its teeth quickly become dull. Therefore, the master must have several saws on his farm with different saw values: for dry and wet wood. And if he has one saw with a small gap and it is necessary to saw wet wood along the grain, then in this case, during the sawing process, a wooden wedge is inserted into the cut, which is moved behind the saw so that it does not pinch, and additionally lubricate its surface with laundry soap.

Saw routing devices. The saws are set using a special tool called a set. The figure shows general types of simple wiring and wiring with a stop.

A simple wiring is made in the form of a small steel die of arbitrary shape with a wooden or metal handle. The die has several slots of different widths.

The use of such a layout is very simple: select a slot in the layout that corresponds to the thickness of the saw blade, and, having grabbed half of the saw tooth with it, carefully bend it in one direction or another. When bending the teeth, you must strive to ensure that their inclination is the same along the entire length of the saw.

The process of setting saw teeth is greatly simplified by using a setting with a stop, which ensures an equal bend of the teeth. Before starting work, the tool is adjusted to a certain amount of spread, and then the stop is secured in the desired position with a wing nut and screw. The saw teeth are set in a wooden (carpenter's) and bench vice or in special clamping devices in which the teeth are sharpened. When using a bench vice, plywood strips corresponding to the size of the saw blade are laid between their jaws. The saw is clamped in a vice so that its teeth are very close to their jaws.

Alignment of teeth in height

Saw tooth shape

Each tooth can be imagined as an acute-angled knife with an apex angle β, sharpened from the sides with a one-sided edge with a sharpening angle φ = 60-75° (sharpening is shaded), and each of them contains two front and two side edges.

For example, in a drawn tooth, the front faces are A 1 B 1 B 2 A 2 and A 1 B 3 B 4 A 2, the lateral faces are A 1 B 1 B 3 and A 2 B 2 B 4. Edges A 1 B 1 and A 1 B 3 are the main cutting edges, and edge A 1 A 2, resulting from sharpening the two front edges, is called a short cutting edge. Each tooth, having the above cutting edges, saws the wood when it moves in both directions, that is, away from itself and towards itself. For example, in a drawn tooth, the cutting edge A 1 B 1 cuts the wood fibers when the saw moves to the left, and the cutting edge A 1 B 3 - when the saw moves to the right, and the short cutting edge A 1 A 2 stratifies the cut fibers and removes them in the form of sawdust from the resulting cut.

Cross saw teeth, which are isosceles triangles, are characterized by a sharpening angle β, a rake angle γ, a cutting angle δ, a pitch t and a height h. Points A 1, A 4, A 5 are the tops of the teeth. The sharpening angle β characterizes the ability of the saw to cut a particular wood. Typically, in cross-cut saws for soft and green wood, the angle β is taken equal to 40°, and for dry and hard wood - 50-60°. The angles in the tooth triangle depend on each other:

Rip saws. In rip saws, the teeth are cutters in the form of inclined wedges. The figure below shows two types of teeth, the first is the most common in saws, and the second is with a deep cavity, used in saws for sawing soft wood (linden, aspen, alder), which produces sawdust abundantly.

Ribs A 1 A 2, A 3 A 4 are the main cutting edges, and ribs A 1 B 1, A 2 B 2, A 3 B 3, A 4 B 4 are the side cutting edges. The teeth in rip saws, like cutters on planing machines, cut wood when moving only in the direction of the inclination of the teeth, in which the main cutting edges, when performing cutting, form the bottom of the cut, and the side edges form its walls, and when moving in the opposite direction, they make an idling motion, sliding along the cut without sawing the wood.

The positions of the cutting edges of the tooth form angles between themselves: α is the rear angle formed between the rear edge and the cutting plane; β is the sharpening angle between the front and rear edges; γ is the rake angle between the front edge and the perpendicular to the cutting plane; δ—cutting angle; π is the angle between the front and rear edges of adjacent teeth. Considering the triangle of the rip saw tooth, we find the relationships between the angles:

α + β + γ = 90°; α + β = δ; π

The quality of the cut surface and the performance of the sawing process depend on the correct choice of angular values ​​of the cutting saw tooth. The most important of all angles is the sharpening angle β; when its value is small, sawing wood occurs with less effort, but the strength of the tooth decreases, it chips, quickly becomes dull, and it has to be sharpened frequently. At a large value of this angle, the tooth strength increases, but the sawing force increases. Typically the taper angle should be at least 20°.

With an increase in cutting angle δ, the quality of the cut surface increases, but the sawing force increases, the cutting angle can be reduced due to the clearance angle, but at the same time the friction between the tooth and the wood increases and the tooth heats up excessively, releases, and its strength decreases, so the cutting angle δ is taken within 40-75°.

The angle γ determines the inclination of the tooth; its value is taken within the range of 10-20°.

Thus, the values ​​of the angles α, β, γ for the teeth of longitudinal saws are interrelated, and they are determined by practice - for example, the teeth of beam longitudinal (swing) saws are determined by the angles α = 20-30°, β = 50-60°, γ = 8- 10°, and the teeth of rip saws are at angles α = 20-40°, β = 40-50°, γ = 10-20°.

Mixed cutting saws. In hand saws, tooth designs are widely used, which can be used for both longitudinal and cross cutting of wood. The figure below shows some of the tooth shapes used in compound saws.

If the teeth of rip saws can be characterized as acute-angled wedges, then the teeth of saws for mixed sawing can be represented as rectangular or obtuse wedges with a cutting angle δ=90°+γ. Angle γ is anterior, equal to zero or a negative value within 10-15°. They cut wood with these saws in the same way as with longitudinal saws, when moving only from themselves, and when moving towards themselves they make an idling motion.

Ribs A 1 A 2, A 3 A 4 are the main cutting edges, and ribs A 1 B 1, A 2 B 2, A 3 B 3, A 4 B 4 are the side cutting edges. When sawing wood along the grain, the main cutting edges form the bottom of the cut, and the side edges form its wall, and when sawing wood across the grain, the side edges A 2 B 2, A 3 B 3, A 6 B 6 cut the wood fibers from the sides of the cut, and the main cutting edges A 1 A 2, A 3 A 4 stratify the cut fibers and remove them in the form of sawdust from the cut.

The teeth of saws for mixed sawing are determined by the point angle β, the cutting angle δ and the rake angle γ. Angles δ and γ are related by the dependence δ= 90°+γ. The quality of the cut surface and the performance of the sawing process depend on the correct choice of angular values ​​of the teeth. In practice, the following angle values ​​are chosen: in bow saws β=60°, γ=-10°, hacksaws β=45-50°, γ=0° or -(10-15°). Saws with teeth with a rake angle γ = -10° are widely used in bow saws (tenon, circular) as universal ones for sawing wood in any direction.