Luke Dupont
03-09-2022, 10:48 PM
I've always graduated towards saws with fine teeth. Japanese saws, or Western Saws, around 12-18 TPI. I think most people tend to use saws in this range as well, for everything except rough dimensioning of stock.
However, I made those two bow saw blades for comparison... 8TPI, but from very thin steel and with very little set.
Well, I've been using those blades in my bow saw almost exclusively since then, to test them out, and I'm really liking them. They cut a very fine kerf and can handle joinery just fine, and are perfect for stock around 3/4". Much quicker than any of my Japanese saws -- even my coarser Ryoba, and capable of almost the same precision, though the Ryoba certainly has an advantage there when it comes to deep tenons due to its width, whilst the narrow bow saw blade needs to be used more carefully due to less registration surface. That narrowness of the blade also means it requires less set though :)
It even crosscuts acceptably well -- any visible end grain needs cleaning up on the shooting board to be presentable, but it's not as ragged as I would have expected off of an 8TPI rip blade.
So far, these thin but coarse blades handle any stock 1/2" and up quite nicely. Of course, stock any thinner than that starts to become problematic. I'm thinking 10 TPI might be the sweet spot for me, for an all around, general purpose saw. Maybe paired with a 6 TPI blade for more coarse ripping.
Perhaps all this time I thought I preferred smaller teeth, when what I actually preferred was a thinner plate and less set. You can indeed have the best of both worlds, with larger more aggressive teeth, and thinner plates with less set...
EDIT: Perhaps I should have said "lower TPI saws for fine work" in the title, as I'm aware 8-TPI is not all that coarse in general...
However, I made those two bow saw blades for comparison... 8TPI, but from very thin steel and with very little set.
Well, I've been using those blades in my bow saw almost exclusively since then, to test them out, and I'm really liking them. They cut a very fine kerf and can handle joinery just fine, and are perfect for stock around 3/4". Much quicker than any of my Japanese saws -- even my coarser Ryoba, and capable of almost the same precision, though the Ryoba certainly has an advantage there when it comes to deep tenons due to its width, whilst the narrow bow saw blade needs to be used more carefully due to less registration surface. That narrowness of the blade also means it requires less set though :)
It even crosscuts acceptably well -- any visible end grain needs cleaning up on the shooting board to be presentable, but it's not as ragged as I would have expected off of an 8TPI rip blade.
So far, these thin but coarse blades handle any stock 1/2" and up quite nicely. Of course, stock any thinner than that starts to become problematic. I'm thinking 10 TPI might be the sweet spot for me, for an all around, general purpose saw. Maybe paired with a 6 TPI blade for more coarse ripping.
Perhaps all this time I thought I preferred smaller teeth, when what I actually preferred was a thinner plate and less set. You can indeed have the best of both worlds, with larger more aggressive teeth, and thinner plates with less set...
EDIT: Perhaps I should have said "lower TPI saws for fine work" in the title, as I'm aware 8-TPI is not all that coarse in general...