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["clanSkeen" <sgian AT planetc.com>]

In my distain for mechanized labor, I've often capitulated that someone with 
a chainsaw could cut a given pile of wood faster than I could with my hand 
saws.  Today, I'm not all that convinced.   Bowsaws and pulpsaws are 
excellent firewood tools but now of days, when no one uses them seriously, 
the toolmakers can get by with offering only crap sawblades.  Last year I 
went to a very old mon'n'pop hardware store and there were half a dozen 36" 
bowsaws with blades made in Denmark.  I bought one saw and took it to the 
woods.  It was like magic.  Efforless and ever sharp.  I went back and 
bought the rest.  The saws had probably been hanging there since the '50's 
with the original price.  There were also half a dozen even more 
magnificient 42" Swedish pulp saw blades but to this day I have not been 
able to find a 43" handle ... the blades are also left over from the 50's 
and were about $6.25 each.

The Danish saw blades lasted all season, cut a huge heap of firewood, garden 
poles, cleared brush and being like all things mortal, only lost their edge 
this fall.  They were put through really heavy use so a year's sharpness is 
excellent.

But I bought all they had and the person who originally stocked them in the 
store is likely long dead.  I bought blades at Lowe's, Northern, Home 
Despot. Ace, and a couple of local hardwares.  I can only guess they were 
made from melting down old rusty truck fenders.  The edge and set went out 
of them in a matter of hours.  What's to be expected, eh?  They are made to 
trim a limb off the apple tree (dwarf apple tree) or nip down a stray 
sapling once or twice a year ... not cut two cords of firewood.

I found a blade stocked in several hardware stores this fall made in 
Portugal and gave it a try.  Not bad but it dulled after less than 1/8 chord 
of wood.  I researched as best I could and came up with one Swedish company 
saying its blades were acutally made to cut wood:  Sanvik - sold in the US 
as Bahco.  It took a while to get some but after UPS delayed forever I got 
them.  Wow!  A blade made of real tool steel with a real set in it.  I don't 
know how long the edge is going to last, but I'm hopeful.  As to the 
sharpness and set, it is effortless to cut a 6" or 8" staff of wood into 
stove lengths.   Moreover the company offers the raker tooth blade and also 
a peg tooth blade, the latter for dry wood.  Most of the wood I gather is 
dead standing and already hard and dry.  Who'd a' thunk it but the blade 
without the rakers flies through the cut.

200K people within 40 miles of here and notone saw fit to cut wood to be 
had.


James