fret saw vs. coping saw

[Mark Kosmowski]

How are these two tools different? Is it just the way the blade is held?

Does one do certain jobs better than the other?

[harry strasil]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v81/irnsrgn/wood/coping-fret.jpg

A Fret Saw has a deeper throat to reach farther in from the edge. Scroll saws eventually replaced the Fret saw.

[Jim Koepke]

My experience could be all wrong, but for what it is worth, a coping saw uses blades of a set size that have pins at the ends to secure the blade into the say frame.

A fret saw has little clamps at each end to hold the blade. The back is adjustable to hold different length blades.

here is a picture of some fret saws:

147519

I do not have a picture of a coping saw.

jim

[Peter Evans]

Jim shows a selection piercing or jeweller's saws. These take the same pinless blades as a fretsaw, illustrated here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fretsaw.

The advantage of a piercing saw is that as the fine blades break you shorten the saw and keep on using the remaining blade bits. They are also available in a wide range of tpi and profiles for cutting metal (this is a jeweller's saw after all) and wood.

The coping saw uses pined blades that cut faster, are stronger, but do not cut curves as easily, they are designed for coping cuts.

For dovetails I have used all three, but prefer a coping saw making two quick diagonal cuts, followed up by a cut to clean the bottom, leaving only a smidgen to chisel, hopefully. Much less fiddly than a piercing saw for a ham fisted person like me. The fretsaw has a longer reach but is unwieldy in use, and new ones are pretty hopeless; some vintage fretsaws are strong but fairly light, using an elliptically shaped forged frame

Cheers
Peter

[Chuck Nickerson]

I'm far from an expert on this, but the one difference not yet mentioned:
Coping saws allow the blade to be twisted in the frame, fret saws don't.
Practically, that means a coping saw can work deeper than it's throat in one dimension, but a fret saw can't.

[Rob Young]

I'm far from an expert on this, but the one difference not yet mentioned:
Coping saws allow the blade to be twisted in the frame, fret saws don't.
Practically, that means a coping saw can work deeper than it's throat in one dimension, but a fret saw can't.

Use some needle-nose pliers and put the twist into the blade. About one quarter twist works great for sawing the dovetail waste in the middle of a run.

However this is NOT the same as being able to adjust back and forth with the little tabs on a coping saw. Twisting the blade more than one or two times is likely to snap it. :)

I've also played around with putting spiral blades in my jewelers saw and while it did work for swinging in and cutting waste near the center of the run, it also seemed like the blades were "fatter" (likely due to the geometry of having the teeth spiral around) and also more brittle. YMMV.

[Greg Wease]

A fret saw is ideal for "fretwork" or making interior cuts. The pins on a coping saw blade require a much larger hole for the blade to pass through. In addition, very thin fret saw blades are available for extremely fine work. I have used down to 6/0 blades for marquetry and regularly use 2/0 blades. The narrow kerf cut with my Japanese rip saw makes even the 2/0 width a tight fit when cleaning out dovetails.

[Mick David]

A fret saw is ideal for "fretwork" or making interior cuts. The pins on a coping saw blade require a much larger hole for the blade to pass through. In addition, very thin fret saw blades are available for extremely fine work. I have used down to 6/0 blades for marquetry and regularly use 2/0 blades. The narrow kerf cut with my Japanese rip saw makes even the 2/0 width a tight fit when cleaning out dovetails.


What does the 6/0, 2/0, etc., numbering system mean? Can someone explain that?

[Mark Kosmowski]

What does the 6/0, 2/0, etc., numbering system mean? Can someone explain that?

6/0 can also be represented as 000000, or six-ought, which is finer than a 5/0 and so on. Paint brushes (maybe more for artists) are numbered similarly.

I don't know how these numbering systems arose historically, though I suspect they came about because someone wanted something smaller than a #1, so they called it a #0. Then someone else wanted something even smaller, this was called #00, and so on. Again, I don't know that this is what happened, it is just my reasonable thought.

[Jim Koepke]

I'm far from an expert on this, but the one difference not yet mentioned:
Coping saws allow the blade to be twisted in the frame, fret saws don't.
Practically, that means a coping saw can work deeper than it's throat in one dimension, but a fret saw can't.

Chuck,

In many cases, this is correct. However, there are many different flavors of fret saw. Some allow for the blade to be twisted in the frame.

There is a picture of my Great Neck 250 fret (or piercing) saw in this post:

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?p=1380060#poststop

The blade is at an angle to the frame to allow cutting out the waste on a tail board that is about 20 inches wide.

I like Wikipedea as source material, but one must remember, it is written by anyone who happens to take the time and is subject to as much error as any of us may be at any point in time.

jim

[Gary Roberts]

Peter is spot on. The fret saw has a very deep throat. It was a more common tool during the 1870-1910 period of time when fretwork was a very popular hobby. Those little foot powered 'scroll saws' are really foot powered fret saws. Fretwork was always done with thin wood and typically complex designs. Some of these derived from Arabic and Indian traditions.

[Chuck Nickerson]

Chuck,

In many cases, this is correct. However, there are many different flavors of fret saw. Some allow for the blade to be twisted in the frame.

There is a picture of my Great Neck 250 fret (or piercing) saw in this post:

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?p=1380060#poststop

The blade is at an angle to the frame to allow cutting out the waste on a tail board that is about 20 inches wide.

jim

Wonderful! I thought I didn't need any more coping or fret saws, but I was wrong.

[george wilson]

You can take a pair of pliers and bend each end of a jeweler's saw blade,near the chucks, to an angle up to 90 degrees, to make cuts that need more throat depth. Of course,you can't do this very many times to 1 blade.