New Skelton Saw

A new saw arrived from Shane Skelton last week which, as usual, is a beauty.

The beautiful Honduras rosewood handle looks and feels great.

It's a very specific saw with a pair of fixed blades and is designed to cut two kerfs which enables perfectly sized dovetail pins to be achieved. The spacing is quite small which is ideal for small to medium sized boxes. A larger pin, say for large chests, can be achieved easily be made by moving the saw along one cut and creating three kerfs.

The idea of a kerf starter is nothing new with various types, both commercial and homemade in use.

Run up against a square (the teeth have no set) it creates two square and evenly spaced kerfs. These are great if cutting dovetails freehand as well as with my magnetic dovetail guides.

Here are the cuts which have gone down about 1 mm.

And here is the result, identically sized pins straight from the saw.