The Grim Rip Saw

For some time, I've considered the the idea of making a veneer saw - not the wee thing used to trim delicate veneers, but a Veneer Saw.

From Hugh Chapman Mercer's Ancient Carpenter's Tools of 1929

Once, this is how logs too precious for pit sawing were reduced to veneer-thickness sheets. 

I've never worked with veneer, but I don't have a bandsaw, and I imagined such a saw might be a faster way of resawing planks for drawer sides and the like. Also, I enjoy large, fast saws, and the frame would make it possible to employ a saw blade toothed for frightening savagery. 

 

I should have made this a year ago. It took less than a day, and I wasn't particularly picky about the wood used. In the past, with smaller frame saws, I've riven the stock to be sure the frame members were straight-grained and clear, but here I just sawed out quartersawn ash ends and maple stretchers. 

To size the saw, I stood with my fist against the wall and drew my arm back, as though withdrawing the blade from a cut. This distance turned out to be 28" to which I added 6" more for gusto and figured this was my maximum stroke-length. 

How does it work? Beautifully. I assumed I would need to reshape the teeth on the 3tpi bandsaw blade I scavenged, but not so. Its first true test was sawing a stopped slot in an 8" wide slab of walnut and it was cruising downward at about 3/4" per stroke. At this point, I've probably lost the attention of any who isn't a woodworker, so I will address myself directly to you folks: This is outrageously fast.  And easy to steer. And awesome.   

The Real Thing

Truly, I felt like George Nakashima last week on the drive home from a sawmill in Lincoln County with a huge, gorgeous and raw slab of Walnut in the back of the truck. In the following days, this slowly turned into a small, floating dining table for a client. 

The very beginning is so often the best moment of a project. This time particularly so. The day before I started work, I visited my Great Uncle in his shop. He's been cleaning and sorting the shelves and boxes out, and we played a game I love: "do you know what this is?" I've gotten much better at this over the years, but that day, he stumped me with a few slender bits of stone. 

"What on earth are these," I asked.

"Really? It's soapstone. Your Great-grandfather used this for his rough layout. You just rub it to a sharp edge."

He drew a line with a piece on the lid of toolbox and held out a handful of stones.  

"Put 'em in your toolbox," he said. 

Next morning, I stood beside that walnut slab with a saw and that stone, still sharp from the hand of Olaf Nilson, dead fifty-five years, whose blood is in my veins.