I really liked this picture I took this morning. Thought you might like it. It’s a huge oak with a stunted stem and flailing immeasurable branches.
I continued sharpening a range of hand saws with the original Bahco saw file again today. I want to see at what point the file becomes too dull to readily surface, shape and sharpen a saw. One thing that I have noticed is the difference in hardness between saws in that some saw teeth are so hard they can dull the file in one filing. As soon as the file hits the teeth of a saw like that I can tell and I usually do not sharpen it further. Saws like this frequently have a few teeth missing and that is often indicative that the steel used was hardened too much and was left brittle. Of course there is always overset teeth on the other hand, which causes breakage, or setting the teeth one way and then making a mistake during setting and setting the opposite and wrong way. This can also result in broken teeth. An isolated tooth or two in different areas of a saw is not usually an issue, a bank of missing teeth together can mean one section of the saw was for some reason overheated and therefore brittle or the user hit an extra hard object that then snapped off the teeth. If a lone tooth or two is missing, simply ignore the gap and allow the tooth to emerge with subsequent sharpenings. This usually takes 4-5 sharpening sessions depending on the number of teeth per inch of saw length. There is no point (no pun intended) in filing a hundred teeth to regain just one or two.
I have introduced a new refinement to my method of sharpening saws that further enhances the teeth and I am looking forward to releasing it in the near future.
Today went really fast and everyone finished their shelf units on time. Relief seems to ease its way to ease tensions from the workshop and smiles, jokes, chats back and forth all happen simultaneously as the clamps come off. This success cannot be bought or measured by income but outcome. The outcome has health built in, wellbeing permeates the room and so too real sanity for everyone including or especially me.
Turning off the lights is a sort of ritual for me at the end of class. It’s a private moment every time when everyone else is gone. I close the door behind me as I leave and my mind races as I watch someone place their project on the backseat of the car.
