Recently I bought a fancy new Tenon saw, and in using it realized how blunt my other saws really were.

Previously I’d been G-clamping scraps of wood to either side of the tooth line and then placing that in a vice or some arrangement of items to sharpen my saws, it sorta works and I even managed to file entirely new teeth on a dovetail saw with this ramshackle method, but after seeing a recent episode of the woodwrights shop showing an interesting saw vice I figured I’d make myself one.

The main feature of this saw vice is its swinging legs- so you don’t need to re-clamp the saw to come at the teeth from another direction, also this makes it free standing so you can place it where the light is best for the task.

The jaws are tenoned in place on uprights held with coach bolts on the cross bar, a cam is held in place between the central legs which creates the gripping force. As well as the hollow cut out for the saw handle I made a tapered recess that runs most of the length of the jaws so that back saws can be sharpened on it as well. There weren’t any measurements to go by so I guessed at the height and judged the proportions to be pretty much the golden mean, made the jaws the length of my longest saw and went from there.

Roy’s one was made of oak, however I didn’t have any, so I used ash instead. I’m not sure if its the ash or if its normal but the cam is nearly impossible to turn, picture only shows it half cocked, not shown in the photos I drilled a 3/4″ hole through the cam for a lever but most attempts to used a wooden lever results in snapping, the only thing I found to work was a large set of iron dividers . . which probably isn’t the best use for them.

Not sure if the small collection of rusted saws are worth trying to fix, but they’ll make good practice pieces. Since making it I’ve managed to sharpen almost all my saws, mostly successfully – the main problem I’m having is getting the set right on the smaller saws.

Excuse the fuzziness of the photos, the aperture blades fell off inside my cameras lens so its stuck at a dreamy f/1.3.