8 points
I’ve always heard that the nib was meant to help you gauge when to stop your pull stroke and start your push stroke so that you use the whole saw and don’t wear the teeth unevenly. Is this not the case?
2 points
Google says it’s a vestigial ornament to represent a handle from when steel quality was poor.
That is all saws used to have two handles because of poor steel quality. The nib was where the front handle would attach. Later the front handle wasn’t needed but the nib remained and was later shrunk.
A toolmaker could put a nib and still have bad quality teeth. Doesn’t seem like you would judge quality by the nib.
