Crosscut Saw Thread

I was cleaning up this warranted superior saw this afternoon when I saw a circular etch on the plate and thought "Sweet, this might be a Disston or Atkins after all" A few strokes with a sanding block later and I saw an arrow. As it turns out the saw is an almost never used Stiletto rip saw. That surprise made my day. It's hard to read but in the arrow? it says STILETTO. Sorry for the wonky pic.
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I actually know the locations of 2 stiletto hammers, a stiletto farriers rasp and a stiletto 4lb? double bit. All those are on my need to get radar. None of them are going anywhere fast though.
 
Does anybody know who made 2 man Craftsman cc saws over the years? There's a perf lance bucking locally, looks like 60", that's seen very little use. I imagine it was Atkins, Simonds, or Disston. But if anybody has some ideas or a way to ID the manufacturer I'd appreciate it! I'm trying to figure out whether it's worth picking up.
 
Anyone know what these are for? They were free and going to be left outside all winter so I snagged them. One of them is marked California Saw Co so I figured they were for something crosscut saw related. Better pics will come if requested.
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A17 said:
Anyone know what these are for? They were free and going to be left outside all winter so I snagged them. One of them is marked California Saw Co so I figured they were for something crosscut saw related. Better pics will come if requested.
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That's a Biltmore stick. It's a timber cruisers tool, or log scalers.
You can use it to measure standing tree diameter, height, and scale logs.
 
The different log scales shown in the last page- Comparison Of Log Tables -lists all the different scales. The primary reason there were different scales was for different areas of the country. A lot of the reason they needed to be different was because different area forests had different species of trees. The uses of the scaling sticks was to tell the mill that was buying the logs how many board feet of lumber would come from each tree therefore how much the mill should pay the logger. Different species yielded different amounts of board footage. The two scales I ran into the most were Doyle's Scale with eastern hardwoods and Scribner scale in the western forests. A Biltmore stick is a timber cruisers tool used to estimate board footage when the tree is still standing.
 
That Stiletto clearly has a Disston D8 handle. Made by Disston for sure.

I picked up one split in exactly the same way, repaired it with epoxy and a brass screw up through the bottom.
 
crosscutsawyer is still not letting me register. emailed crosscutsawyer@gmail.com again yesterday.

Since i last posted here, i picked up a Simonds 221.


Two slices through a 24" diameter blowdown. Took about 400 strokes (1 stroke = forward and backward movement) for each slice, with a Simmonds 221 4' blade i got off ebay.
221 was thinner blade than i expected, so difficult to exert much force when pushing without flexing blade. There is a chipped cutter near the front as well.

Does 400 strokes seem like a high number? Curious how sharp this saw is. I have not sharpened any saws yet. When i look at chips, i see no noodles. Sometimes on a push i would think i saw a noodle or two in the air, but on later inspection see no noodles on ground.

IMG_0284 by gffna, on Flickr


Bob
 
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Just eyeballing it those rakers look long (to my eye they look longer than the cutters)? At any rate if the wood was dry you won't really get noodles as you do from green wood.
 
I'm not famiiar with the Simonds 221. My guess is that you have a saw cut from flat plate rather than taper ground. They tend to have more flex in them. With any old saw it's a safe bet that they need sharpening. Saw sharpening an exacting science with exacting tools. You should expect to pay $25/foot for a good saw filer.

Raker height is typically around 12/1000 shorter than the cutter so it's not soemthing that can be eyeballed with accuracy.

Not all wood will create noodles. A dry hardwood is unlikely to produce many noodles even with a very sharp saw. Still, 400 seems like a lot of strokes for that size log. Is that oak?
 
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