Resawing, a personal best

Hola! Tonight I have a lot of pictures to show you. Pictures of resawing ancient wood with ancient tools. That’s right, your favourite kind of blogpost! In the attic above our cottage I have some mahogany planks. They’re from the 1960’s and from South America so it’s the good stuff. And they’re huge. I went up with a cross cut panel saw and took a meter off. Why a meter, I hear you (the voices in my head more like it) ask..? Because then I could make a one piece rim for a tenor. If I ever wanted to make a tenor.

Here’s the board. 40 cm wide. That’s 100x40 cm to rip. 



You know the frame saw I built with a blade from Bad Axe? Of course you do! It’s not a bad frame saw but for a board this wide the blade is a bit short. Hard to clear the sawdust from the gullets (the space between the teeth). Lucky me and lucky you then, last year my beautiful wife and me found this HUGE frame saw, this beast of a tool, at a flea market. The blade was rusty but the teeth in good condition. Price was 250 SEK. Google it. It’s cheap. So here I’m cleaning the blade. 



I also sharpened it with a couple of strokes on each tooth with a file. I left the set as it was, but maybe it should have been adjusted for a wee bit wider kerf. 



Then I planed all edges of the board and began slotting them with the kerfing plane. That is hard work, let me tell you. 



Next up was nothing less than my behemoth saw. I could really have used someone at the other end but the only option would have been one of my old parents. I didn’t want to risk their health, our relation, or my mahogany board so I did it on my own. The saw is heavy but cut fairly straight. And fast, probably due to its weight. 



Almost an hour later I got it apart. I was soaked in sweat and really tired but hey, not bad huh? The plan was to rip this board into three pieces, then rip a walnut voard of almost the same size into three or possibly four pieces but this one cut was enough for one day. And it’ll be enough for two or three ukes. 



But resawing something of this width is hard. The blade sometimes wants to bend in the wood, giving you an uneven surface. In severe cases it’ll ruin your yield because you’ll saw through into the next slice. Mahogany isn’t as bad as cherry but I got some humps. I planed them out roughly just to make sure no one laughs at me when I take this home on the bus tomorrow. I think if I set the teeth to a wider kerf this’ll help. If you know otherwise drop me acomment or an email.