The Sharper the Saw, The Stronger the Trail Crew
Near Seattle, there’s a garage with sawdust drifting across the floor, classical music playing over an FM radio, a wooden workbench with hand files, clamps, sandpaper and notes from old projects and over twenty crosscut saws hanging on the walls. This is where you’ll find Jeff Wright in a pair of canvas pants, leaned over a saw, fastidiously filing each individual tooth until they’re bent at the perfect angle to make life easier for the next trail crew. Jeff is a devoted volunteer — when he’s not sharpening saws, he joins the Pacific Northwest Trail Association on hitches and saw trainings, helping to educate the next generation of sawyers with his extensive background in the backcountry. Each crosscut that he sharpens takes about six hours. Jeff got his start in industrial tool sharpening, and he now puts those skills to work sharpening saws for PNTA’s performance trail crews.
“It’s like a multiplier in giving back to the trail world so more work can be done. I can spend four to six hours sharpening a saw, and a crew can take that saw and use it all summer long and clear trails with it based off my four to six hours of work,” Jeff said, “That’s just incredible when you think about something that was made over eighty years ago and still works today. Sharpening these saws is a skillset that’s pretty much lost except for some people like me that keep it alive.”
On a Thursday afternoon in January, Jeff walked us through the extensive process of sharpening a crosscut saw. Every part of the process was designed to make the saw more efficient when the trail crews use it — allowing them to exert less effort and ideally clear even more blowdowns from trail. A crosscut saw’s blade is composed of two essential parts: the raker and the cutter teeth. When a trail crew is hauling a crosscut saw back and forth across a log, the cutter teeth bite into the log to create the notch that the saw will be pulled through. As the cutter teeth create this notch, they leave behind wood shavings, and when they’re long and spindly, it indicates that the saw is sharp and the technique of the crew is solid. When this happens, the wood shavings are also known as “noodles,” shown in the picture to the right. Crosscut saws remain essential on many sections of the PNT, where federal Wilderness regulations prohibit motorized equipment and crews must rely on traditional hand tools to clear the trail.
The rakers are interspersed throughout the cutter teeth along the length of the saw, and “rake” out the extra wood shavings as the cutter teeth create them, casting them out of the notch so that the cutter teeth can continue to dig deeper into the wood. The cutter teeth are slightly staggered so that each tooth bends to the opposite direction of the previous tooth, allowing the saw to cut a wider notch in the wood so that it can continue to slide back and forth as it cuts. A key part of maintaining a saw is to make sure these parts can continue to work in unison throughout the life of the saw. In order for a crosscut saw to work most efficiently, all of these parts have to work together.
Jeff gave a brief overview of the process, “First, you have to create the arc on the top of the saw to get all of the teeth and the rakers at the same height. Then you wedge the rakers over so that they become more efficient at raking out the wood shavings. Then you lower the raker height below the teeth to your desired height. Then you make sure the teeth stick out far enough to create a curve the saw will pass through,” He interlocked his fingers with his fingertips sticking out slightly in opposite directions, “Then you sharpen the teeth and you have a good running saw!”
As you can see in the photo to the left, the gullets are the wide spaces in between the cutter teeth and the rakers. The cutter teeth are the four teeth in a row that look like a picket fence. The raker is the tooth that stands alone and looks like a fish tail.
Jeff began to walk us through each individual step on a retired saw we had brought from the office. The first part of the saw that he worked on was the rakers. First, he leveled them with a handheld short jointer. Then, he cut into the raker with an angle grinder to create a 60 degree angle on the raker teeth. This can also be done with a rod saw blade on a hack saw if a manual alternative is needed. Then, Jeff attended to each individual raker on the saw with a hand file to get the exact angle needed. The next step of the process involves some precision. The top two blades of the raker are ideally curved to form into two slight hooks to scoop the wood shavings out of the cut made in the wood. This is done by tapping the top of the teeth with a hammer until they curve over. The top of these two tips are ideally seven thousandths lower than the teeth when this step is done. Since Jeff is an experienced saw sharpener, he sometimes uses heat to make the tooth easier to curve. He used just enough heat to bend the tooth, but did not heat the steel enough to risk embrittling the metal. Then, Jeff sharpened the underside of the hook with a diamond file and a special tool that is designed to fit on the crosscut saw and allows you to sharpen each tooth to an exact degree. These tools are not in production anymore, and Jeff made his own, as you can see in the photo gallery. Then, he polished the gullet (the space in between the teeth) with a dremel sanding bit. Finally, he re-measures the rakers to make sure they are below the cutter teeth.
After this is completed — you’re ready to move on to the cutter teeth! First, Jeff uses another tool he made to measure the offset of the teeth to make sure their offset is wider than the widest part of the saw. This is a crucial part of the saw, as it both cuts into the wood to allow the saw to go deeper, and also cuts a notch into the wood so that the saw won’t get stuck as often. Traditionally, this step is done with a hammer and anvil, but Jeff has an alternative tool that he uses to be more precise. When the step is done with the hammer and anvil, the hammer curves the tooth to the appropriate degree and the anvil works to keep the tooth from bending too far. A side jointer is used afterwards to get them level with one another. Then it’s time to sharpen the teeth! Jeff used a file on each side of the tooth to sharpen it to the appropriate amount. Then, he double-checked the raker against the teeth height to make sure he didn’t file the teeth down too much. It’s important that they are still taller than the raker.
Finally, Jeff cleaned and sanded the saw and finished it off with a wax. Then you’re ready to test its efficiency on some wood!
During each six hour long shift sharpening a crosscut, it’s a fastidious labor of love to ensure every single tooth is sharpened and functioning properly. It’s a selfless act to devote every file stroke, every hammer swing and every measurement to making a trail crew’s life a bit easier when they’re in the backcountry. For Jeff, sharpening a saw isn’t just about steel and angles — it’s about keeping a tradition alive and multiplying the impact of every volunteer hour. Jeff parted the interview with one final sentiment for all those that want to get involved in preserving our public lands: “Go out there and work on trails — and if you can’t do that, volunteer!”