Dovetail Saw

Its been a while since my last post because I have been traveling for my work.

This week I have been working on two projects. The first was a modification to a cheap dovetail saw that I had lying around that I rarely used. The saw was a cheap deer brand dovetail saw from WoodCraft. Here is a picture of what the saw looked like before my modifications:

So two things I didn't like about this saw were the straight handle and the teeth were set to cut a wide kerf. My first modification was to remove the straight handle and replace with a traditional open wood saw tote. Here are a few pictures to help describe the process:

I used a saw tote template from Blackburn Tools: http://www.blackburntools.com/articles/saw-handle-templates/index.html.  It made things a little easier to get a traditional look for my saw tote. I glued the template to a block of wood that I harvested from some logs I have been toting around from Oklahoma (I think its some kind of oak). With the template attached, I cut the rough design out with my bandsaw. In the picture you can see the result with the template still attached. Here is a close up of the other side:

Next, I laid out the grove for the saw plate, the mortise for the saw back and the holes for the bolt and nuts. With the layout lines in place, I because to cut the grove mortise for the saw plate and back. This went fairly well since I had already researched and found a way to cut them with little error (I got a lot of help from Matt Cianci's video Build a Custom Backsaw). Not that I could prefit the saw plate and back into the handle. I could drill the holes for the bolts and nuts. With the holes drilled, I was able to preassemble and ensure that everything looked good. Everything went together very well. So the only two things left were to shape the handle and finish the handle. I used a simple wood rasp that has coarse and fine teeth for straight and curved shapes. The shaping was easier that I had thought it would and the handle turned out great. With a little natural danish oil, I was able to finish the saw modifications.