Crosscutting with dovetail saw?

[Jeff Cord]

I recently purchased a dovetail saw and am wondering if I can make crosscuts with it (small tenon shoulders for example)?
Is this detrimental to the saw or is the only down-side that the cut may be a bit slower?
thanks,
Jeff

[george wilson]

You can cut any way you want with it. If it is filed rip,it will cut a bit slower,but it certainly won't hurt anything. Some woodworkers file all their backsaws rip. In the 18th.C.,saws were not filed to as acute an angle as crosscuts are now filed,we think. At least,the crosscut saws in the Seaton chest are filed halfway between rip and crosscut.They remained unused all this time.

[Robert Rozaieski]

As George says, there's not a lot of evidence of crosscut filed saws in the 18th century. I have tried cross cutting with a rip filed saw and it can be done but it does not leave the best cut line behind. If you intend to do this for joinery, i.e. dovetail and tenon shoulders, make sure you scribe your shoulders deeply with a knife. Don't use a pencil. The knife line will ensure a clean cut at the shoulder where it's important and help to guide the saw into the cut.

[David Keller NC]

Jeff - I do this frequently on small tenons - it's just easier to flip the workpiece onto a bench hook and saw the shoulders than to go get my dedicated cross-cut carcasse saw. But what Robert noted is good advice - a rip-filed saw will tear up the wood fibers pretty significantly, so it's very important to have a deeply scribed shoulder line all the way around the tenon.

I'd add two more observations - the rip-filed dovetail saw seems to work quite well when used in a cross-cut in soft, secondary woods. In my experience, the harder the wood, the less well it works - it wants to jump and catch in the kerf in anything harder than mahogany. The second note is that I've tried using a cross-cut filed saw in a rip operation, and that's no good at all - it tends to wander all over the place, and will not follow a line accurately.

[Luke Townsley]

If I could only have a rip or a crosscut, but not both, I would choose the rip filing for my shop. Of course, my shop is pretty much all handtools, so those long rips are important to me and that would be miserable with a crosscut.

Rip saws are also easier to file.

As noted above, they leave a rough cut on crosscuts and tend to blow out the back more. For a carpentry finish, they are fine for crosscuts on things like tenon shoulders. For fine work, you might want to do a bit extra work as noted above or switch to a crosscut.

In any event, crosscutting won't damage a rip saw's teeth.

Of course, a lot of rip saws are filed somewhere between a "true" rip saw and crosscut.

[Pedro Reyes]

I agree with all that's been said.

Just a brief note, for something like a dovetail saw where the PPI can be assumed hi (very small teeth), then little to no difference.

/p

[george wilson]

You guys are right. I got good results with my fine tooth saws,but crosscut is better.I shouldn't post when tired out.

[Pam Niedermayer]

This is so easy to figure out on your own: simply try making some cuts. If the results are satisfactory, you're golden. If not, buy a crosscut.

Pam

[Derek Cohen]

I often use a rip dovetails saw for small crosscuts, such as tenon faces.

To do this, scribe as deeply as you can with a marking knife. I mean DEEP - go over the line several times. Get it at least a 1/16" deep. Then undercut the line with a wide chisel. Use this as a fence for your saw blade. It will not only make sure you cut where you want, but keep the shoulder clean (a rip face will tear up a crosscut, even the fine teeth of a dovetail saw would otherwise leave a fine fuzz).

Regards from Perth

Derek

[lowell holmes]

I have both crosscut and rip LN saws. I find there is no reason to not cut crosscut with the rip saw.
I even have a 10 point rip cut panel saw that will cut crosscut reasonably well.

Tage Frid sharpened all of his saw to rip cut. :)