The Unknown Tooth
Char Miller-KingI’m not a huge hand tool guy, but I do have some nice handsaws in my shop. A few of them were given to me by my mentor George Johnson. One of those saws, a rip saw, has a weird little tooth or hook on its top edge, near the far end of the blade. I’ve often wondered what the deal was with that tooth, and took advantage of Char Miller-King being in the shop to talk it through.
Char’s guesses
Char had a few ideas about the tooth. Is it an indicator of where to stop on the pull stroke so you don’t pull the saw out of the kerf? Could it be related to nails in boards?
From George
Some people say it could have to do with hanging the saw on a wall, but there are reasons that doesn’t make a lot of sense. Maybe it’s a “starter tooth” that you would use first to create a starting point for cuts.
The bottom line
At the end of the day, neither Char nor George know exactly what The Unknown Tooth is all about. But it’s very fun to speculate why it was once added to handsaws. If you have an idea, leave it in the comments.
More about handsaws
Whether you’re a hand tool user or not, handsaws definitely have a place in a wood shop. Get the lowdown on handsaws to help you choose the best saw for your shop.
Char just did a great video clip for us about different kinds of hand saws and how to identify what saw is best for what you're doing. As a result of that, we were talking about this particular saw, which is neat for a couple reasons. One, a lot of you know my dad died when I was real young and I had this great substitute dad. These saws were his, now they're mine. I love having them in my shop.
But this rip saw has got this weird, gangly, diddly-bob. I know that's jargon. That's technical jargon. It's got this weird high spot on the end. And I've researched that a little and what that is for.
But you're telling me you think you have a little, you got a little information. I might. This is like being on, what's the PBS show where people bring stuff in and they're like, what's The deal with this? The antiques show. There you go.
All right. We're antiquing today. Great history behind these saws. I'm a huge history buff, right? I love to know where things come from.
It looks like a tooth. Here's what I'm thinking, George, tell me what you think. I think this is a stop for when you are pushing and pulling the saw. So this tells you, stop pulling here so that you don't hit the curve with the front teeth. What do you think?
Think about it. Maybe, so it's a visual? Right. It's a visual when I'm running the saw, that I can see from the top so that's true. And that so I don't, you're saying, so I don't run the blade out 'cause this has happened to me where, you know, you get real enthusiastic and you come too far and you end up with this.
You don't want that. And you don't want that. Okay. So it's a visual stopping point to not use those, okay. Exactly.
I, okay, I'm not saying no to that. Maybe, right? Sure. You could use it for that. Sure.
Option two, what do you think about this one? Nails in boards. As you're pulling the saw through, it's breaking up tiny nails. Which is why, wait, wait, wait. Which is why they stopped making saws with this on there because it would just break off.
Look how thin it is. Option B, maybe. I'm with you on the first one. I'm not with you on the second one. Okay, all right, your turn.
'Cause well I don't know. 'Cause the reason I'm saying nay to that is by the time you get to this, are you not past the nail? 'Cause the teeth already went through it? You might be. Down here?
So I dunno. So I, the little bit I saw, I mean some people are saying stuff as simple as use that as a hanging device to put this on a wall. But you got a big hole here. Right. So that's like, that's completely counterintuitive.
Other people I have seen said we're both like moderate hand saw users, not huge hand saw users. And one of the problems with starting is, especially with an aggressive rip blade, is getting the cut started. So you're on end grain, which as you've mentioned in a couple videos it's hard to start on end grain. Right. And the teeth are big.
So as some people have said, you go this way and you use that tooth as a breaker to just kind of score that end grain a little bit. Then you come back this way and make the cut. And I kind of dig that idea. I'd buy that and I'd buy your visual. That's okay.
I won't tell anybody. So I, at the end of the day, we kind of still, not kind of, we still don't really know what it was for. But here's the beauty of the internet. Someone in comments is gonna tell us probably how stupid we are for not knowing, you know? 'Cause it's the internet.
Right they'll let us know. But yeah, so if you know what that gangly, dilly-bob thing is for, it's technical jargon, yeah, fill us in. Yeah. Let us know, make us cool. Yeah.
And as Ernie just said we're just trying to seek the tooth here.
I was taught it was for nicking the edge of a board for cutting. You can safely draw the blade against the wood with your fingers keeping it aligned and nick the edge for your cut, then flip the saw over and get your fingers out of the way and start the cut in the nick. Eric Sloane's A Museum of Early American Tools (pg 67) in an illustration just says "note ornament" pointing to these teeth. So, perhaps it's both. It was some odd ornament that turns out to be handy for starting cuts!
I've been an eighteenth century restoration blacksmith making tools and hardware for over fifty years. If you really do some research you will find that the "nib" you are talking about goes back to at least the 12th century. It can be found on hand saws of all types even curved saws. The older the saw is the more elaborate the nib is, basically because like many older tools it was a form of decoration with no technical purpose at all.
To quickly identify a rip saw instead of a cross cut
According to Dilltons and sons handbook for woodworker the nib has no purpose other than breaking the line of back of the saw and as a decoration
I would guess it is a 'nib' (not a tooth) to hook one end (or a leather loop on that end) of a full length tooth guard around, as the other end would just hook onto the heel of the blade. Seems more plausible than what George and Char were proposing. Those nibs were on saws for a couple of centuries or so. There had to be a practical reason to create that much more work for the saw maker.
could it be a buffer??