Originally Posted by
David Weaver
In my opinion, and I've tried a bunch of japanese saws except the most expensive fully hand made...well, thanks to stan covington, I got to try a serious fully handmade saw, but they are generally out of my price range given the woods we work and their ability to break teeth (stans saw was a different animal entirely, equivalent in toughness to a western saw but a little harder).
Anyway, here's what I think:
* the saws that the borg carries are OK, but they're floppy. You could use them to see if you hate the saws or like them OK, and if you think they're a bit floppy, know that the machine made saws by gyochuko are a bit stiffer. The semi hand made and hand made saws are hollow ground usually and stiffer yet, some to the point that they're not suitable for a beginner (a bind can lead to a broken plate or toe).
* The z saws are decent, their crosscut saw is good. I broke the teeth off of the dozuki. Woodcraft shows some of the Z saws. I think other than the 240 crosscut (that's marked with an 8) and maybe an @330 saw or something coarse, I'd go gyochuko all the way
* woodcrafts prices, in my opinion, are unacceptable and you can do a lot better. That's a running theme there, it's probably just a consequence of franchising and having to have prices high enough to pay franchising and brick and mortar
* Gyochuko and z saws can be had all over the place on ebay, online other places (toolsfromjapan.com, hida tool, tashirohardware.com)
* the more expensive machine made saws that aren't gyochuko or Z, in my opinion, are sold by retailers who don't want to compete with people who can price low. I have used a couple (one from rockler, and a few from other places - though rockler does carry some Z)....anyway, in my opinion, you go gyochuko, then Z if gyochuko doesn't have what you want and if you can't find what you want there, then go to semi-handmade and handmade. In my opinion, the saws that are $70 or $100 and machine made don't offer you much and are often less durable than gyochuko. The only exception could be a rip dozuki if you want something with true rip teeth, but you are pleasing yourself with a saw like that - in the flow of a project, a saw that cuts a dovetail in 3 strokes instead of 4 doesn't really save you time - that's not where the time really is in cutting dovetails. You'll be pissed when those saws have chipped teeth.
If you don't have anything at all, in my opinion, you want a good combination dozuki, a decent crosscut kataba (a kataba doesn't sand the backside of a cut like a ryoba) and a coarse (270-300mm) and medium or small ryoba (210-240mm)
If the teeth have too much set, lightly stone them with a diamond hone or a sharpening stone, but with care, you can't move them back because they are impulse hardened.
I have broken teeth on every type of saw I've used except gyochuko, they just seem to be a little tougher. That includes the $100 rip dozuki from LV, the Z combination dozuki, some semi-handmade saws, and I could find others if I went downstairs and looked at my pile. I tended to use my japanese saws only in stuff that works in the vise, when it comes to work bigger than that, they can't hang with my western saws (ripping and breaking down hardwoods). For big work where you're breaking down lumber, unless you are a japanese saw fanatic, you'll work faster with inexpensive western saws. The only rip saw that I've tried that could come close was a custom saw that stan covington sent me, and it was close to 4 figures. It was a fabulous saw (really a work of art), but not an everyman device, and I'd have needed two to carry out my ripping and probably still lagged behind western saw speed.
I have never abused a japanese saw, though. You'll find that once you get into swift work in hard wood, if the saw isn't of stan covington's saw's quality, you'll eventually break teeth, and you won't even know it when you do it.
(brisk work, I'd consider ripping medium hardwoods at two feet a minute for 4/4 to 5/4, and pretty much laying the wood to crosscutting lumber when you're breaking it down - something you can do with one of those 12 tpi 26 inch stanley saws sold at the borg)