Seems like I am always late to the party with these things.  But here is
what is on my bench!!

 

http://www.extraordinarylight.com/aa-onbench/

 

Currently I'm building myself a half back saw.  Just because I like the look
of them.  :)

 

Along with it is a gloat.  I recently found out about a fellow that closed
his sharpening business 12 years ago and was now selling his equipment.  I
spoke to him about his listed Foley retoother.  Turns out he had two of
them.  The one that was in use in the shop and a spare unit in case the main
one broke down.  When I arrived to see it, the spare was brand new in its
original box having never been used!!!  He gave me 14 ratchet bars and 12
carriers.  I pitched him a fair price based on what I have seen retoothers
sell for and we both ended the day happy campers.

 

Merry Christmas everyone!!

 

Brent Parkin

Regina, SK

Canada Eh!

Nice score- now we know who to send the saws to!
I had an old Foley saw filer that I gave away to one of my 'tool guys'-
(you know-the guys that go to all estate sales and so on), because I didn't
have any of the ratchet bars that went with it, but he had the saw filer
with the bars.  The bars are the things that get lost on these things
because families don't know what they are and they end up in the scrap
yard.    I think both the re-toother  and the saw filers use the same or
similar ratchet bars and saw holding bars - but I'm not sure if the models
have changed over the years.  It's basically just a long rack that the
machine clicks through, one tooth at a time.  Maybe you could take some
photos of your machine and put them up on line?  There are several websites
that were around years ago that had tons of helpful advice.  Videos of a
new machine in operation would be very nice also.
  By the way, if the anvil or die is missing from your Foley re-toother,
Foley (Foley Belsaw I think its called now) will still sell you these parts
that fit their old re-toothing machines, but they are kind of pricey as I
recall (I called them a couple years ago- maybe a couple hundred dollars?
Anyway, probably still cheaper than getting a local machinist to make a die
pair and heat treat them for you).
Cheers
Claudio

On Tue, Nov 28, 2017 at 1:25 PM, Brent Parkin 
wrote:

>
> Along with it is a gloat.  I recently found out about a fellow that closed
> his sharpening business 12 years ago and was now selling his equipment.  I
> spoke to him about his listed Foley retoother.  Turns out he had two of
> them.  The one that was in use in the shop and a spare unit in case the
> main
> one broke down.  When I arrived to see it, the spare was brand new in its
> original box having never been used!!!  He gave me 14 ratchet bars and 12
> carriers.  I pitched him a fair price based on what I have seen retoothers
> sell for and we both ended the day happy campers.
>


Brent

There are a couple of places Mark Stansbury has organized which have lots
of info on the Foley subject.  One Facebook page, and 2 blogspots

https://www.facebook.com/groups/215796871946901/ (most recent updates)

http://foleyfiler.blogspot.com/ (more recent updates)

http://sawfiler.blogspot.com/ (oldest)
-- 
Kirk Eppler in HMB, CA, owner of a F16 filer, and a Burr retoother, seen
here.

https://kirkhmb.smugmug.com/Woodworking/Tools/Saw-Sharpening/i-NPCNSBn

Of course, if there were two Foleys and Brent only got one, that leaves one more
somewhere.


---- Kirk Eppler  wrote: 

=============
On Tue, Nov 28, 2017 at 1:25 PM, Brent Parkin 
wrote:

>
> Along with it is a gloat.  I recently found out about a fellow that closed
> his sharpening business 12 years ago and was now selling his equipment.  I
> spoke to him about his listed Foley retoother.  Turns out he had two of
> them.  The one that was in use in the shop and a spare unit in case the
> main
> one broke down.  When I arrived to see it, the spare was brand new in its
> original box having never been used!!!  He gave me 14 ratchet bars and 12
> carriers.  I pitched him a fair price based on what I have seen retoothers
> sell for and we both ended the day happy campers.
>


Brent

There are a couple of places Mark Stansbury has organized which have lots
of info on the Foley subject.  One Facebook page, and 2 blogspots

https://www.facebook.com/groups/215796871946901/ (most recent updates)

http://foleyfiler.blogspot.com/ (more recent updates)

http://sawfiler.blogspot.com/ (oldest)
-- 
Kirk Eppler in HMB, CA, owner of a F16 filer, and a Burr retoother, seen
here.

https://kirkhmb.smugmug.com/Woodworking/Tools/Saw-Sharpening/i-NPCNSBn
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> On Nov 28, 2017, at 5:22 PM, Claudio DeLorenzi  wrote:

Yes, I missed this one a few weeks ago … but I have had a peaceful morning with
bright sun glistening on the snow outside.  Good day to catch up.

>  I think both the retoother and the saw filers use the same or
> similar ratchet bars and saw holding bars - but I'm not sure if the models
> have changed over the years. 
I have seen some of the very early machines up close and they definitely used
different bars, but I have been given to understand that most Foley and Foley-
Belsaw bars are interchangeable.  They absolutely are in my #2400 and #387
filers, #385 retoother, and #392 auto-setter.

> By the way, if the anvil or die is missing from your Foley retoother,
> Foley (Foley Belsaw I think its called now) will still sell you these parts
> that fit their old re-toothing machines, but they are kind of pricey as I
> recall (I called them a couple years ago- maybe a couple hundred dollars?
Foley had a long history of charging prices based on what the market would bear,
and doing what they could to make sure the market would bear perhaps more than
was justified by the true market opportunity for their customers.  My "cousin-
in-law” (who gave me these machines in exchange for driving 700 miles to come
get them) provided me a long discourse on how it took years to recoup the cost
of the machines and the virtually mandatory training course to operate them
effectively.  The prices he paid for new machines and that course were stunning
to say the least.  A particular point he made was that if someone didn’t have
the training course manual and good notes from that course, it was (apparently
intentionally) very difficult to learn all the secrets of how to set up,
maintain, and operate the machines in a time-efficient manner.  He also
emphasized that commercial customers were strongly encouraged not to let people
who didn’t take the course see the training texts.  Fortunately, he gave me his
copies and notes as he had decided to completely retire after some 25 years in
his second business as a sharpener.

Obtaining a set of toothing bars as Brent mentions could mean he has some ‘gold'
among users, unless he just has duplicate sets of the standard bar set.  C-I-L
said the optional toothing bars were usually only bought by sharpeners with a
significant clientele base, and even he didn’t have them.  I bought them right
away, at a price that gave me significant pause at first, and fortunately so as
they have a few pitches that match my saws.  Foley exited the business a year
afterward, and none were available when I called to inquire about more bars and
spare parts at that time.  I found that Moon Supply in Florida was a good source
for used and new parts, but haven’t had to seek anything from them in over a
decade.

As a general tip to someone getting started with these machines — they don’t
easily handle anything above 14 tpi, so dreams of having Brent take on 22 tpi
dovetail saw to be retoothed, set and filed on his machines are only dreams.
The advancing mechanism doesn’t have the capability of working that finely.  I
experimented with modifying the ratcheting system to achieve it, and found it
was not worth the effort as several major parts would need to be modified to
incorporate precision bearings where only plain ‘bearings' exist at present.
Someone else’s 'mileage may vary’ on that point, and I wish them luck at finding
a better answer.
 
I’ve actually found that I can file just about any saw in my tills by hand
faster than by machine, so I don’t often use them any more.  When I had a few
Galoots over years ago to tune up their saws, we ran the machines for hours.
The volume of work still would justify that today because if I’m inclined to do
a batch of 3-4 saws with the same pitch, I’d take the sheeting off and fire up
the machine without hesitation.  It’s the setup time when changing pitch and/or
tooth angles that takes up most of the time involved.

So — nice gloat indeed, Brent!  Most of the machines for sale that I have seen
or called about are offered by people cleaning out a sharpening business or
estate, who thought the toothing and carrier bars were worthless junk and threw
them in a dumpster.  Big mistake, as what they have are virtually small boat
anchors without those bars.  Carrier bars can be made from stock steel, but the
toothing bars are a different matter altogether.

Charlie Driggs