Thursday 12 December 2013

Re-sawing with a Ryoba

I was running a 18" long x 6" deep x 1.1/4" oak board through my band-saw last night to re-saw it and it must have been case hardened. The wood bound onto the blade. I tried to pull it loose and ended up pulling the blade off the wheels and bent it. Anyway rather than spend 15 minutes trying to find another one and put it in (I was on a roll as usual) I decided to carry on the re-saw down the existing kerf with a Ryoba.
The double sided Japanese saw ripped through that oak like a hot knife through butter. I was really surprised how easy it was and such a smooth finish but won't be making a habit of re-sawing by hand (life is too short :-)  ). Yes I do know that these sort of saws are intended for use with softwoods but needs must.

Here are mine http://www.rutlands.co.uk/sp+set-of-3-compact-japanese-saws+JP1174?tyah=y

A Ryoba saw has a double sided blade, with cross cut teeth on one side and rip cut teeth on the other side, which makes this an excellent all purpose saw. The rip side teeth are smaller at the heel for an easy start and gets progressively larger towards the toe to allow for fast ripping. You can buy expensive hand made ones as above or much cheaper mass produced ones with induction hardened teeth (as I have). As with anything in life you only get what you pay for but the ones I have are OK. I've never used a handmade one so don;t really know what I'm missing. Probably the difference between a cheap clone wood-plane knocked out by the thousand and a high end Lie Nielson bronze.

Anyway I'm more than happy with the Japanese saws I have.

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