Homemade Bucksaw

My newest homemade 30-inch Moore-brothers-design bucksaw.
Made from laminated oak & maple.

The Clemson design

Patent drawing for Clemson's buck saw

My Buck Saws

36-inch bow saw, ca. 1990

30-inch Moore Brothers-type buck saw

William Clemson-type Buck Saw, Patented in 1859 (US Pat. #159,562)

This is a prototype that I made before looking at any real wooden buck saws.

Buck Saw Patents

I started looking through old buck-saw patents, trying to figure out the concept behind the ubiquitous double-bow design of the Fulton buck saws sold through the Sears catalogs during a period spanning more than the first quarter of the 20th century.  I discovered that the design was patented by Daniel & Edwin Moore, of Brooklyn, NY, in 1860.  (US Patent #94,500)

Illustration from 1860 Buck Saw Patent #94,500 and Fulton Clipper from 1915 Sears & Roebuck Catalog

From what I gather, the idea is that tightening the rod at the top will cause the upper bow to bend downward, pressing on the lower bow, forcing it to straighten out, thus tightening the saw blade at the bottom. The inventors didn't really explain why this is superior to using a single straight stretcher, but the popularity of this design shows that it must have either worked better or wowed the manufacturers and users by its elegance. Intuitively, it does make sense that spreading out the compression & expansion forces would allow for a lighter and/or stiffer frame.

The early Sears catalogs (1895-1902) sold both this "braced frame" style (54-cents) and a cheaper 35-cent "plain frame" saw. Later catalogs, through at least 1929, sold only the braced frame models. Most years there were 3 models offered. The more expensive ones were painted red. As far as I can tell, these all had 30-inch blades.

Sears & Roebuck 1895 "Braced Frame" Buck Saw (54-cents) & "Plain Frame" Buck Saw (35-cents)

At some point, at least some of these saws began to be manufactured with two rivets holding the bowed stretcher together, reflecting the Christopher Eisenhardt patent of 1888 (#394,477).

Christopher Eisenhardt 1888 patent #394,477 and Fulton Special buck saw sold by Sears & Roebuck for 64 cents in 1913

The oldest US buck saw patent that I could find was given to James Haynes of Hollis, Maine in 1859. He replaced the upper tightening mechanism (usually a turnbuckle, threaded rod, or twisted cord) with a solid bar, and put a ratcheted tightening device at the end of the blade opposite the handle. This mechanism somewhat resembles the tightener on the handle end of a modern metal bow saw. Apart from the criticism that this exposes the tightener to abuse by sawyers who, like me, use their tool as a walking stick, it seems that this would put excessive stress on the upper bar, which appears in the patent's illustration to be a wooden stretcher with pinned tenons. I have trouble picturing these joints holding up to the outward force that would be generated by tightening the blade and putting the saw to work. His 1861 improvement, which expanded the center stretcher, got rid of the first criticism, but would still have put a lot of outward pressure on the top bar.

Haynes 1883 reissue of Patent #25,015 & his 1861 Patent #31,045

A couple of other early patents were given in 1860 to William H. Livingston of New York City. These designs (US Patents #30,073 & 30,076) used various hardware to stiffen the basic buck saw.

Patent Illustrations for buck saw improvements by William H. Livingston, 1860.

A variation on the Moore brothers' double-bow design was patented ten years later, in 1870, by William Hankin, Sr.  (No Google, I did not mean Hank Williams, Jr.), who apparently worked for the Harvey W. Peace, Ltd. tool company in Brooklyn, NY.  His design used a single double-forked cross piece in place of the two bent bows.

Wm. Hankin Sr's US Patent #104,847 with Harvey W. Peace Co. Ltd. "Elliptic" Saw Frame
"The strongest frame ever made.
The above engraving represents my Elliptic Forked Saw Frame, which commends itself to the trade for its simplicity of construction.
The Forked Brace being all in one piece, without any centre bolt, secures for the Frame great strength and durability.
NOTICE.
We are informed certain parties are imitating our justly celebrated ELLIPTIC SAW FRAMES,
placing them on the market as NO. 116 and PETITE.
We claim these are infringements of our patent, and will protect it to the fullest extent.
HARVEY W. PEACE CO. (LIMITED) BROOKLYN, N.Y."

A point that should probably have been made earlier in a discussion on buck saw design is that in most cases, the stretcher (the center support between the tightening rod and the blade) should have loose unglued tenons or be otherwise held so that the verticals (i.e. the handle and the other vertical support) can pivot freely upon it. A glued tenon would be apt to break from the angular change from tightening the saw. In any case, the blade and tightening rod will hold it together as long as they are in place and fairly tight. An advantage of allowing the saw to fall apart when loosened is that it can be stored and transported more easily. In fact, the most common use of this type of buck saw today is probably the portable, self-storing version made of lightweight piping and advertised for backpacking.

My point here is that I have doubts about the Hankin/Peace design. From the illustrations, it does not look like there would be much independent flexing between the upper and lower branches of the stretcher's forks. This would cause the verticals to pivot on the upper branches and pull away from the lower ones. This would stress the upper branches, and depending on the grain orientation of the wood, would be likely to cause it to crack. Indeed, I don't see this type advertised widely as antiques, so I assume they were failures.

Winter view of the Great Wall

A view to the North toward the great wall of buckthorn during today's 15-minute break from snowfall.

More about tools:  I have an old 36-inch bow saw that got pretty dull years ago, but I haven't been able to find a replacement blade in the local hardware or home & garden stores.  I finally bough a pair of replacement blades (1 green-wood & 1 dry-wood blade) over the web and have been using the green-wood blade in my old saw.  I find that I do use the full length of the blade in most places, and in others I like the added reach that the saw gives me.  I have not found dry-wood blades to be much of an advantage on the dead wood that I've tried them on, so I usually use the green-wood blade on everything.

The 36-inch saw frame, however, is no deeper than my 30-inch saw, so the few larger-diameter trees that I've encountered require a little extra thought and maneuvering to get down.  So, I made a rudimentary rectangular prototype of a bucksaw, using 3 strips of maple, a threaded rod, and my old dull 36-inch blade.  It seemed to work OK on the few small branches that I tried it out on, but I'm sure it's way too flimsy for any real work.

What I'd like to make is something like this turn-of-the-century Fulton Clipper buck saw from Sears.  I bought one on eBay so that I can use it as a template, but I'll have to scale it up for the longer blade.  These were made of maple and painted red.  I may use laminated wood with a maple core and oak faces for extra strength and then apply a clear finish.

This is a buck saw from a sears catalog from around 1900.

The Deforrestation Continues

The pace of clearing the invasives has slowed.  I estimate that about 90% of the buckthorn and honeysuckle have been removed.  All the ash leaves have fallen and the most of the maple leaves have turned and have been falling.

From deck looking northward toward great wall of buckthorn.
The pot contains this year's vegetable garden.

The buckthorn leaves of course have remained mostly green, but many of them have fallen, and the berries are beginning to drop easily when the branches are shaken. So it's too late to avoid spreading the seeds, but the presence of the berries still allows quick identification of the invasive tree. So there's still some incentive to keep lopping and sawing before everything is bare.

The great wall of buckthorn (our huge brush pile along the northern border) has gotten almost too high to toss branches onto. I may have to scale the monster and do some stomping before I clear much more brush. I predict that the heavy snows this winter will help to lower the brush level considerably. Catie suggested that we could use the pile as a sledding hill this winter.

Hackberry?

I noticed an interesting tree in the extreme back right (Northeast) corner of the lot after removing the buckthorn and grape vines from around it. It has light colored, very sculpted bark. I thought at first it was a species of elm, because I had recently identified several smaller elms hidden amongst the invasives elsewhere on the lot.


Celtis occidentalis bark.
But the bark didn't really match any examples of elm that I could find. Eventually, I saw an example of hackberry bark and thought that it looked like the bark on our tree. So that's what I'm calling it for now.


Celtis occidentalis leaves.
One problem is that the literature describes fruit that ripens in the fall, and I haven't seen any fruit on this tree.


Possible galls on the hackberry tree leaves.
One potential plus for this identification is the apparent existence of galls on the leaves, which is said to be common with hackberry trees. If that is actually what these spots are, they were caused by jumping plant lice.

What Remains After the Invasives are Removed

One of the more enjoyable aspects of this invasive species removal project (along with just being able to engage in an outdoor activity and see progress being made) is finding items (mainly trees) that I didn't previously know were there.  Most of the time I don't know what specific kind of tree they are until I look them up, which is part of the fun.  Several of them are still a complete mystery to me, and many I'm not completely sure of.

Typical area after invasives were removed.

As I lop down the invasive vegetation, I try to be careful not to damage any of the other flora.  As I've mentioned, there are not many other things visibly growing under the honeysuckle and buckthorn.  Probably the primary tree that I find is ash seedlings -- I don't know at what point they technically change from a seedling to a sapling, but most are shorter than a foot.  Because of their prevalence, and the number of larger ash trees in the woods I'm not excessively careful with these.  I also consider the fact that several New York counties have been infested with the emerald ash borer, so encouraging ashes to remain the dominant tree in the woods may be unwise.

Small strawberry plants.

Another plant that I find plentiful is strawberry.  I know that we have many in our yard, and they stand up pretty well to mowing, even producing a few minute berries if left un-mowed for a while in the spring.  Maybe now that they're getting more sun, some of the plants in the woods will produce a few strawberries too.

Poison ivy around a buckthorn stump.

As I've mentioned before, we do have poison ivy, and it's one of the more plentiful of the native plants.  I haven't done anything to control it lately, though I did spray Roundup on the poison ivy plants in the trails one of the first years we lived here.  The presence of poison ivy helps me maintain my carefulness about removing the exotics.  It's easy to get the toxin on about any exposed skin surface, so I'm careful to wash thoroughly when I take a break from lopping and sawing.

 

Panoramic view from near the compost bin at the back of the lot.

Exotic Bush Honeysuckle

To be clear, when I've mentioned honeysuckle so far, this is mainly the stuff I'm talking about:

 

Lonicera morrowii (Morrow's Honeysuckle) - mid September

There are a number of species of non-native and invasive honeysuckle in this part of the country, including:

• Amur honeysuckle (Lonicera maackii)
• Bell's (or Pretty) honeysuckle (Lonicera x bella) (hybrid of Morrow's & Tartarian)
• Dwarf (or European fly) honeysuckle (Lonicera xylosteum)
• Fragrant honeysuckle or Sweet Breath of Spring (Lonicera fragrantissima)
• Morrow's honeysuckle (Lonicera morrowii)
• Standish's honeysuckle (Lonicera standishii)
• Tartarian honeysuckle (Lonicera tatarica)

I think that most of what we have on our lot is Morrow's honeysuckle.  Studies have shown that this plant is negatively allelopathic, in that besides blocking light and soaking up nutrients to take over an area, it is also toxic to certain other plant species.  What I have seen bears this out -- the areas with the thickest honeysuckle infestation are pretty much bare dirt once the honeysuckles are removed.

Some references that I've found helpful for identifying and controlling honeysuckle are:

• http://www.na.fs.fed.us/fhp/invasive_plants/weeds/bush_honeysuckle.pdf
• http://www.invasive.org/eastern/midatlantic/loni.html 
• http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/forestry/invasivetutorial/bush_honeysuckles.htm
• http://www.nps.gov/plants/alien/fact/loni1.htm
• http://www.ipaw.org/invaders/honeysuckle/Honeysuckle.pdf 

Not all of these agree.  For example the Invasive Plants Association of Wisconsin (IPAW) says that they don't recommend pulling up loose honeysuckle, preferring that all bushes be cut and treated with herbicide so that the soil is not disturbed, which would encourage weeds.  My thinking is that something needs to replace the honeysuckle anyway, so I'll take a chance and see what comes up there.  If it's a maple or black cherry tree seedling, that's good.  If its garlic mustard, more honeysuckle, or other invasive, that's bad and someone will deal with it eventually, or not.

Front edge of back woods looking North.  Large bush in center is honeysuckle.  01-Jan-2009

 Same view today with Honeysuckle and buckthorn removed.

That was a segue into garlic mustard, which is another invasive exotic that I have seen on our lot, both in the woods and in newly seeded areas of the lawn.  It doesn't survive repeated mowing, so the lawn infestation was only temporary, and I also mowed down the patch in the woods.  But now that the woods is getting to be more open (even a bit damn sunny), I'm anticipating a problem with it next spring.  I am tamping down all the soil that I disrupt when pulling buckthorn and honeysuckle, but I'm sure that some garlic mustard will show up next year.

Garlic mustard in the woods. May 2007

What I Learned Today

I learned that though these are loppers:

This is a lopper:

Loppers aren't like scissors or pliers.  A pair of loppers is actually 2 of them, which makes a lot more sense.  What good is one scissor or one plier anyway?

I first bought an Ace compound anvil lopper a year or 2 ago at Ace Hardware (appropriately).  It's the one on the lower left in the top set of pictures.  It's still in good shape, but the arms are getting a little close together when the jaws are closed all the way.  I think it's because I tried to bite off too many large-diameter dead buckthorn branches.  Live branches close to 2-inches in diameter can be cut with this thing, but it's better to cut dead branches that big with a bow saw or just snap them off if you can.

So late this summer I bought a Corona lopper at another hardware store and found that these 2 loppers are very similar, apparently made from mostly identical parts, down to the color of the fiberglass handles. One exception is the anvil, which has an overhanging nose-like appendage on the Ace lopper (to keep branches from sliding out as they are lopped).  This feature helps a little on larger branches, but it gets in the way a bit when biting away at a honeysuckle stump.  Another difference is the black handle-cushions, which as you can see on my 2-year old Ace lopper are still in good shape, but on the newer Corona lopper the much softer sponge-like foam started to get torn up by thorns and twigs right away, one so badly that I ended up ripping it off as you can see in the lower right photo.  But that's mainly a cosmetic problem.  I've considered putting some handlebar tape on it to spruce it back up.

So, I wouldn't recommend one of these loppers over the other,  but I would recommend using a good heavy-duty compound anvil lopper instead of a bypass lopper (the kind with the scissor action).

 30-inch Bow Saw

I was about to recommend this 30-inch bow saw that I bought from Traditional Woodworker in Texas, but it appears that they just removed it from their web site's list of bow saws.  (They must have made an exclusivity deal with Bahco.)  This was a no-name saw from Italy, and it's quite stiff.  I've found that proper tension on the blade is important.  I have an older more flexible 30-inch saw that is really hard to use, even with a new blade, because the blade can curve within the saw cut, causing it to bind.

One of my smaller bow saws has a tension adjustment, so based on my experience with my flimsy old 30-inch saw, I cranked the tension up real high, but found that too much tension also causes a binding problem when the saw is not held parallel to the cut, as is often necessary when working between branches.  That saw also has a hand grip and protector, to prevent smashed knuckles I guess.  I didn't find that useful at all.  I use different hand positions on the saw depending on my angle to the tree I'm cutting, so the grip and protector just got in the way.  In fact, since I can use a lopper on many branches, much if not most of my cutting is done at the base of the tree, trying to leave as little stump as possible.  There I usually use two hands: one on the bend of the frame, and one where the blade attaches to the frame.  I often start out actually holding the blade itself so that I can twist it to control the angle of the cut (wearing leather gloves of course).

 

Those are just observations from my short personal experience with bow saws and loppers.

To Hell with Honeysuckle

I just got driven in by a thunderstorm from pulling up some of the smaller honeysuckle bushes from the wet soil.  Much of the honeysuckle in the more shaded areas (notably the areas that had the most buckthorn) can be pulled out by hand, especially when the soil is wet.  Although it could be found most everywhere in our woods, honeysuckle was established best on the edges where it could get sunlight.  The interior plants contained a lot of dead wood and many could be pulled up by hand, even in dry weather.

A lesson that I finally learned working around honeysuckle is to wear long pants.  Although it doesn't have thorns like the buckthorn does, the stems, especially the dead ones, are very brittle and can make pin-cushions (or punji-stick-cushions) of your legs, especially when you climb up on the brush pile to stomp it down.  Long pants also provide less area for poison ivy exposure.

Last week I got one of these toys: a Red Dragon BP 223 SVC 100,000 BTU Weed Dragon Back Pack Propane Vapor Torch Kit With Squeeze Valve.  I knew from experience that both the honeysuckle and buckthorn sprout right back up from the stumps within days, with nice healthy bright green leaves.  I was considering treating the stumps with chemicals late in the fall as prescribed as the most effective way of dealing with the unpullable stumps, but I decided that this flame thrower would be more fun and ecologically friendly, as long a I don't burn down the neighborhood.  I had tried a small plumber's soldering torch on a few stumps, but that only seemed slow the regrowth down a little.  (No, the small plumber was not named Mario.)

After giving this bigger torch a try, I realized that I would need to create a good burning strategy.  Wandering around the woods on a damp drizzly morning, hitting each spot where I spotted invasive plants sticking up was not going to be healthy for me or the woods, especially near areas with visible poison ivy.  I need to get all of the pullable stuff up first -- it's not always clear by looking at a plant whether it can be pulled by hand, and many of the bad guys are near seedlings of more desirable trees that I would like to protect if possible.  This thing puts out a lot of heat, and I don't know what damage it may do to nearby vegetation, even if it doesn't go up in smoke.

 

Buckthorn resprouting from stump soon after cutting.

They sell a 500,000 BTU version of this torch.  It's hard to imagine the benefit of that much more heat.

Invasive Ambivalence

We moved into a teenaged house on a half-wooded 2-acre lot a little over a decade ago.  It was a typical boring exurban house and lot.  The fairly flat mowed area was cut in the shape of a rectangle within the larger rectangular lot so that there were trees on 3 sides and a road the other, with the gray colonial-style house stuck right about in the middle of the mowed area, exactly 100 feet from the road.  Outside of the wooded area, there was only one decent size tree, an ash, which made a pretty good backyard shade tree and later clothesline pole.

Ash tree / clothesline pole, Sept. 2010.

(Items on the line have been censored.)

The woods itself was very dense.  With the exception of a deer path along an old stone fence, under a row of large maples on the eastern edge, people really couldn't walk around in the woods without getting their eye poked out until I cut some paths using a pair of big old loppers.  That made it sort of like a maze, giving people who walked trough it the sense that the lot was huge.   I identified non-native bush honeysuckle as one of the reasons that the woods was so hard to penetrate.  There was little else growing in the understory.  Above it were mostly tall, spindly ash trees and a lot of what I thought were various kinds of cherry trees.

Rhamus cathartica (European Buckthorn)

Most of these "cherry" trees had small black berries, which I guessed were choke cherries.  Indeed, failing to spit one of these out after giving it a taste would cause the taster to choke or do something similarly bad with his or her body.  I recently discovered that these were actually invasive European buckthorn trees (Rhamnus cathartica).  [Note the cathartic part of the subspecies name].  I had admired these trees because of the tangled form that they took in the woods, how cool and dark they made it in there, and how green they stayed, right up until winter.  (We're talking Finger Lakes region of NY here.)  Even though I knew that it was invasive, I also liked the honeysuckle because of  how early it leaves out in the spring and because I didn't think there would be much left if it was removed.  The whole dark maze mystique would be gone if I removed both invasives.

So it was with a lot of ambivalence that I started removing the honeysuckle and then the buckthorn from our lot of invasive species.