I saw Frank do this live in person on a couple of occasions when I lived in
NJ.  His shop was about 15-20 minutes from where I lived.  He did it once at
a NJ CRAFTS meet and once at a local club meet at his shop.

The the back, oh, 1/3 or so of the saw blade is horizontal with the teeth
pointing towards the side, but vertical like any other normal blade in the
front part.  The transition is diagonal, so that the horizontal part starts
out as just a thin bit and then gets wider as you go towards the rear end of
the blade.

He starts the cut with the front part of the blade, cutting normally, and
then when he gets to the bottom, makes a quick push to transition to the
horizontal part of the blade, which he uses to cut across the bottom of the
waste.  As I recall, the blades are (were) imported (from Belgium?
Hungary?).

- Bill T.

-----Original Message-----
From: oldtools-bounces@r...
[mailto:oldtools-bounces@r...] On Behalf Of Waylan Limberg
Sent: Wednesday, August 20, 2008 4:57 PM
To: joe@j...
Cc: oldtools@r...
Subject: Re: [OldTools] Re: 3-Minute Dovetails

On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 4:41 PM, Joseph Sullivan
 wrote:
> How did he get his blade to turn and cut the bottoms out so smoothly?
>

According to the second paragraph under the video:

> Frank is using a bowsaw blade that was manufactured with a 90° bend in it.
So after
> he saws down to the bottom of the tail or pin he pushes the bent section
of the
> sawblade forward into the cut. That's how he turns the corner so
effortlessly. The
> sawblade isn't made anymore (according to Frank and our research), but boy
is it
> amazing.

Personally, I'd like to see some more information on that blade. It's
hard to see from the video - although for the last couple tails it's a
little clearer if you look real close as he's putting the blade into
position.

--
----
Waylan Limberg
waylan@g...
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