Head Slap Saw Filing Moment

I was filing a miter box saw the other day and whether I just wasn’t focused or my heart wasn’t in it I was struggling to maintain the rake and fleam angle even with the help of my super fancy Rakemaker II. Suddenly I realized that I always file from the heel to the toe on the saw like I have been shown by many great saw filers before me. But I’m left handed and that positions my body on the toe side of the saw and forces me to work in towards my body with every file stroke.

Very quickly my arm gets crammed up against my body and I’m constantly shifting my stool over to make room. Moreover the file and my hand blocks my view of the next tooth so I’m constantly having to check to make sure I’m filing the correct tooth and it slows me down.

Suddenly like a bolt from the blue I decided to switch and file from toe to heel and therefore working away from my body. Now my arm was unhindered and I had a much better line of sight to the toothline and can just plow ahead confident I’m working on the correct tooth without having to change my file alignment. Now all of the sudden I’m more comfortable and my back isn’t getting tight. I finished off the tooth line of the 30″ miter saw in a few minutes and produced probably the most consistent looking tooth geometry I have ever created.

Yeah…I’m a little slow sometimes. Maybe this video will clarify what I’m talking about.