-----Original Message-----
Ed Minch sed:

> We recently had a thread on old saws and someone mentioned that all
> saws were filed rip a while back.

To which Steve Reynolds sed:

	> And for the record, a few of us don't think that is correct.

I'm thinking that might have come from my attendance at the Colonial
Williamsburg WW conference in January.  I reported that Mack Headley, master
cabinetmaker at Colonial Wmsbg (I'm pretty sure it was Mack who said this,
but it might have been one of the veneer-making guys, because he did a talk
about saws) said that all of the saws they had found from that period
(early-ish/mid-ish 18th Century - pre-American Revolution to Revolutionary
era) were filed rip - at least from the evidence they had found - I think
they also were talking about Benjamin Seaton's tool chest somewhere in
there.

Anyhow, I don't think they meant to imply, and I did not mean to imply that
there were no saws filed crosscut; they just said that they had found
evidence only for saws made and filed rip - but of various TPI.  A fine rip,
very sharp, will get a pretty clean cut in dried hardwood, as they
demonstrated for us.

- Billy T.
- Checking the C.W. website weekly to catch when the sign-up for next
January's WW conference opens up

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