This is a Pretty Serious Saw

[Chris Vandiver]

I kind of don't believe any of this. I don't know of a single owner of good custom Japanese saws who's willing to not only loan them out but to also ship them, unless he's given up on Japanese saws or he's close to death. Furthermore, Pam taught me how to use them properly, for speed and accuracy. She was taught by Odate (btw, she says it took him 5 or 10 minutes). Neither of us has any problem using them on any wood in any weather in any other conditions. She did give me a lesser quality hand made saw to start with, a ryoba, which is now broken. This reenforces my disbelief.

As shown, those appear to be great saws, they're certainly the right size and shape for great sawing, hard to say about custom or not. Also, there are a lot of very old Japanese rip saws on ebay that are quality, assuming you can sharpen the rip ones.

What's really unbelievable is that you would base your mean spirited post on assumptions and suppositions.

[Tony Wilkins]

What's really unbelievable is that you would base your mean spirited post on assumptions and suppositions.

I tend to agree. In my time on here, David has been nothing but generous with not only information but materials. I does not surprise me that someone would return that generosity.

[Jack Curtis]

Oh, come on people, I was commenting on the generosity, perhaps foolhardy, perhaps not, of the saw owner. Maybe I should have told a joke, inserted a smiley, not engaged in satire at all?

[David Weaver]

perhaps foolhardy

I doubt the owner needs to have anyone questioning their judgement. They may be reading this thread.

At any rate, the saw is on to the next person, perhaps it may show up here (in digital form on the creek) again, I don't know what it's complete route is.

If I didn't have two kids' college to fund, I'd probably see if I could get one just to see how good I could get with it, it's a really cool saw and I regret I couldn't use it as competently as a western saw, though I certainly could easily use it - I know there is some more speed to be had with it.

[Chris Griggs]

If I didn't have two kids' college to fund, I'd probably see if I could get one just to see how good I could get with it, it's a really cool saw and I regret I couldn't use it as competently as a western saw, though I certainly could easily use it - I know there is some more speed to be had with it.

Bah! You're kids can fund their own darn college! I love spending 1/5th of my monthly take home on student loan payments and I'm sure they will too. Buy one for yourself.

[David Weaver]

Bah! You're kids can fund their own darn college! I love spending 1/5th of my monthly take home on student loan payments and I'm sure they will too. Buy one for yourself.

I think you're an enabler!

[Chris Griggs]

I think you're an enabler!

I have a much easier time spending other peoples money than spending my own.

[george wilson]

David,possibly the reason for the high price of the Japanese saw is the large variations in the thickness of the saw plate,such as being much thicker at the tang(where it needs to be thicker). Probably a lot of time was spent honing or grinding the saw plate to get those variations. Certainly it would take a lot of time to do it. Also,the expertise of the maker deserves compensation.

I wonder if the maker has some modern means of thicknessing the saw plate,or if he has to do it by hand?

It sure sounded to me like Jack called you a liar.

After you send the saw to the next person,perhaps Jack can call both of you liars.

[David Weaver]

I'm not sure how they thickness the blanks, but I know I couldn't make anything comparable just chopping up spring steel and making a saw. The tapering on it is significant and it's done very evenly, and the scratches on the blade suggest at least the final scraping was hand done. I don't know what one would do to get saw steel that is dark straw or light brown temper like this one, either. I didn't file it - it's not my saw, so I don't know what it would do to a file, but I'd sure file it if I owned it.

And if I was the maker, I wouldn't make it any cheaper, either. It has a nice cloth wrap and a custom made walnut tooth guard just for the saw, and not just some straight piece of junky junk wood, either. It's nice, the maker took a lot of care in design and in making it. I really don't know what anyone could do to make a better japanese rip saw, I wouldn't pick any part of it to change.

[george wilson]

The temper is certainly plenty hard. Obviously not made of commercial spring steel,which is tempered a blue color. 1095,tempered bout is 52 Rockwell C.. You saw(I don't know the carbon content) I'm GUESSING must be above 56 R.C.. I'm guessing this hardness because it HAs to be soft enough to file,at least. And 56 is pushing it's fileability very hard.

[Chris Vandiver]

On these hand made Japanese saws, the plate is forged from carbon steel and an iron tang is forge welded to the plate(should be a forge line on either side of the plate). The plates are hand thicknessed with a soto-sen, a kind of scraper/file and are hammer straightened and tensioned. A lot of work and skill goes into one of these saws. Below is a photo of a sawmaker using a soto-sen. George is correct concerning the hardness of the plate.

[Jim Matthews]

Hidden under the study of this is a concern for many of us,
how do we do the more strenuous portions of working wood by hand,
when wear and tear have made that difficult?

I think the two-handed grip on this saw intriguing,
it sort of emulates the grip on my logging crosscut saw.

That saw is designed to crosscut green wood, and leaves a ragged mess.

I have to wonder if this saw was purpose made to cut a particular species?

My only success in using a Ryoba to rip was pulling down, with the board higher than my shoulders.
That allowed me to keep my wrists and fingers in tension, and engaged the larger muscles of my
back and shoulders. It's not convenient to saw this way.

The angled handle allows the sawyer to let the arms hang like ropes,
and that takes pressure off the wrists. It's an interesting solution to an old (and older guy's) problem.

[george wilson]

I'm not a user of Japanese tools. Didn't know the tang was welded on. It all still has to be blended and smoothed out,which takes time and effort. Isn't the blade also tapered?

Speaking of scraping steel,as toolmaker,I had to help make an 18th. C. type of scraper used in sword making. The Gunsmith's Shop was interested in making some swords,and forged up the scraper. But,it wouldn't scrape. So,they brought it to me. I saw that,once again,they had neglected at add relief to the cutting edge(they did this before on a tap they made which wouldn't cut). I took the scraper,which was sort of like a large,solid steel spoke shave made without a separate blade. They left the bottom flat. I hollow ground it for them. Then,it cut just fine. They had to sharpen it by honing the vertical front face of the scraper.

[David Weaver]

Hidden under the study of this is a concern for many of us,
how do we do the more strenuous portions of working wood by hand,
when wear and tear have made that difficult?

That is exactly the purpose of my whole challenging the saws to begin with. When we get to the nuts and bolts of actually using the tools to do work, are they practical. I see tons of people comment that it's not practical to rip by hand, etc, and I'm convinced that like straight razor shaving, there may be faster and easier ways to do it now (actually straight razor shaving is a bad example, because i don't think there's a better way to shave unless one has an unsteady hand from a clinical issue), but it's likely that with some skill and finesse, we can saw just fine, and given our outputs of several projects per year, it's really no hindrance to getting work done.

Supposing the japanese also did this, I couldn't tolerate the thought that they'd have to use their saws the way that I have to use my disposable ryobas to be able to rip (which is pretty much in the vise, or like you say, oriented from the other side).

I have a particularly lazy way of ripping wood. I'll send you a video link. You may have tried it already. I'm not overridden with wear and tear at this point, but I'm certainly not the athletic sawyer that a professional would be. I could do everything by hand except for resawing (you could do that by hand, but I really would choose not to do it because it is a real time soak. Cutting 4/4 wood at 3 feet a minute is not, to me, a real problem).

[george wilson]

I saw that video. Are you wearing pajamas in it? I don't think I have seen pants like those.