Handsaws: Rip, Crosscut and Panel Saws Explained

In the workshop, handsaw usually means the full-size Western saw: a tapered steel plate with no stiffening back, a handle at one end, and teeth that cut on the push stroke. With no back to limit it, the saw can cut as deep as the board is wide, which makes it the tool for sawing boards to length and width before the finer work begins.

The names are less fixed than the tool. One reference gives full-size handsaws as 20 to 32 in long and panel saws as shorter, 16 to 20 in saws used at the bench. Thomas Flinn’s Pax range, by contrast, uses panel saw for its finer-toothed crosscut saw and makes it in 20 to 26 in lengths. When comparing saws, read the length and tooth count rather than the name.

Two details of a well-made plate are worth knowing. Pax describes its blades as taper ground — thinner toward the back — and its tooth line as breasted, slightly curved so that fewer teeth are in contact with the wood at once, which it gives as a way to reduce friction.

Wood is made mostly of long cells lying along the grain, so cutting along it and cutting across it are different jobs, and saw teeth are shaped for one or the other. Veritas puts the difference plainly in its saw instructions: rip teeth are “a series of little chisels”, crosscut teeth “a series of little knives” (see the plate above).

• Rip teeth are filed straight across, so each tooth has a square edge like a tiny chisel. Cutting along the grain, each tooth chops the end of the fibres and lifts out a chip. Pax describes its rip saw as intended “for cutting down the grain”.
• Crosscut teeth are filed with a bevel on the front of each tooth, alternating side to side. The points score two lines, one on each wall of the kerf, severing the fibres across the grain before the waste between them is cleared.

Rake and fleam

Two angles describe the shape. Blackburn Tools defines rake as the angle of the tooth’s front against a line perpendicular to the tooth line, and fleam (or bevel) as the angle of the front against a line perpendicular to the plate. Less rake makes a saw cut more aggressively; more fleam makes it cut more cleanly.

Figures vary by maker and purpose. Veritas files its rip carcass saw with a 10° rake and its crosscut carcass saw with a 15° rake and a 15° bevel across each tooth. A reference published by Rob Cosman gives typical rake of 0 to 12° depending on the wood, and fleam of 20 to 30° on crosscut saws, higher for softwoods.

General-purpose and hardpoint saws

Many saws sold for general use have teeth meant to cut both ways, and many are hardpoint saws. Their teeth are induction-hardened to stay sharp longer, but they cannot be resharpened: when they dull, the saw is replaced. Richard Maguire of The English Woodworker describes them as optimised for crosscutting and slower when ripping. A traditional saw with unhardened teeth can be resharpened with a file when it dulls; Veritas notes this of its high-carbon steel saws.

Tooth size is given as pitch: how many teeth, or points, fall within an inch of the tooth line. The two counts differ by one, because an inch of teeth has one more point than it has gullets between them.

More teeth give a finer cut and a slower one; fewer, larger teeth remove more wood per stroke and leave a rougher surface. RS Components groups saws as coarse (fewer than 7 tpi), medium (7 to 11) and fine (12 or more). Full-size rip saws sit at the coarse end: Pax makes its rip saw at 4½ tpi and its crosscut handsaw at 7.

The plate carries the teeth and has to pass through the cut after them. To stop it binding, the teeth are set: bent alternately outward so that the kerf is slightly wider than the plate. Blackburn Tools describes set as creating clearance for the plate, reducing friction and binding.

Set is a balance. Too little and the saw binds, especially in damp wood; too much and the kerf is wide, the cut is rough and the saw steers more easily off the line. Fine joinery saws carry very little set, which is part of why they track well.

Start from the cut rather than the saw. The direction of the grain decides the tooth; the size and finish of the cut decide the tooth count and length.

However good the saw, the cut depends on the method: where the kerf goes and how the cut is started and tracked. The foundation guide to cutting straight covers that, for hand and machine cuts alike.