I built both my shaft and butt machine. They work Great. I got the general idea from Chris Hightowers Book. A truly worthwhile investment. I have saved so much time and learned so much from that book I just cant thank him enough. Anyway the shaft saw machines I have were easy enough to build. Its basically a lathe running over a saw blade. The blade is flat ground with as much relief as possible. Trick is getting your butt or shaft centered over the blade properly. I have 80 tooth blades with about 3/16 wide teeth. They come off the machine like they were sanded with 320 grit. You want to built them so they can make slow and faster passes. That way when you roughing out shafts you can speed it up a little bit and slow it down on final cuts. They arent hard to build and I think I have less than 500 in each machine. They blades are costly and the spend the money to have the best place sharpen them. Good luck.