It is no secret that I am a fan of Bad Axe Toolworks and Mark Harrell. I have 2 of his back saws and Mark has restored 4 of my vintage hand and panel saws. All of these saws work like a dream and just the other day I took delivery of a new 26″ rip saw that Mark had restored and listed for sale on his site. Just like his other work, this saw performs fantastically.
The real secret to all of his saws is his sharpening technique and a keen sense of how saw tooth geometry relates to the wood and type of cut being made. I talked about this a bit in my hand sawing lesson as part of the first semester of The Hand Tool School, but really glossed over a lot of the fine points. Just recently, Mark sent me a document that distills all his saw sharpening smarts into one place. It is a great article that I will go so far to saw should be the saw sharpening manifesto. The really great news is that Mark has just published this article on his site for everyone to consume. Go check out the Bad Axe Toolworks site and read the article. I’ll warn you there is a lot of information crammed into it and it is not really light reading.
Oh yeah and Mark was very kind to throw a plug for The Hand Tool School in at the end and all school members get 10% off a new Bad Axe saw just for being a member. I hope you all know that despite this humbling plug from Mark, that I would be writing this endorsement anyway. You cannot beat the quality of product that Mark puts out and know that he is sharing some of his sharpening secrets with us all, you just have to go check it out…be careful it is a hard site to escape from without spending some money.
I whole-heartedly agree with the Bad Axe comments. I own three of his saws and they are superb to say the least. I sure wish I could get a refurbished 26″ rip from him. I’m keeping my eye out for one. Better yet – I wouldn’t mind him adding large hand saws to his product inventory.
Rick, subscribe to Mark’s newsletter and he will let you know when he puts newly restored saws up on his page. You have to move quickly to get them. Sorry I grabbed up the 26″ rip. I think he has another one on there right now but it depends on the ppi you were looking for. Of course the other option is to find a vintage one and send it to him for restoration. Just email Mark, he may have something in his collection that he just hasn’t gotten to yet.