Reply To: Handsaw Skills
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I have to second (or third, or fourth…) the ideas presented here. I, too, struggled a long time with sawing more than any foundational skill when working with hand tools. I can now rip and crosscut towards a scribed line, or knifewall, relatively accurately – but getting there took a LOT longer than chisel work or plane work. Here’s what worked for me:
1) Get a known sharp saw. Knowing what a good known sharp saw feels like made a world of difference in how I was applying the saw to the cut. Someone earlier mentioned that you really aren’t trying to saw. That’s the saw’s job – your job is to move the saw back and forth efficiently and effectively with no added pressure. Let the weight of the saw and gravity do the work of cutting. but you can’t KNOW what that feels like unless you have a known sharp saw. Another benefit of this is that you aren’t taking agressive cuts, going too fast (slow down!), and getting way off line quickly.
2) Now that you have a sharp saw, and can feel what that sharpness feels like with gravity, learn to sharpen a saw yourself. The cool thing about this is that it’s an easy skill to learn, Paul Sellers has some great, free videos on it, and you’ll get lots of practice sawing. I, too, wanted that curl of wood at the bottom of the kerf. Well, learning to sharpen my saw gave me that because I could compare my skills with my known sharp saw.
3) Use the knife wall and the chisel nick as much as you can to get started. And learn to plane end grain. Once again, you aren’t trying to saw so much on the line (as an amateur…) as you are trying to saw near the knife wall. The knife wall is your best, most favorite friend. Look at Paul Sellers almost every time he crosscuts – he pops out the number 4 and planes the end grain to that square knife wall. So, leave the knife wall in and use it to get square after you cut. This was the biggest epiphany to me when struggling – rip cuts weren’t a problem because, of course I was going to plane them to the pencil line. Use the plane along with the crosscut and knife wall – and viola! Square and crisp, just like Paul Sellers. To belabour the point, I just today had to cut-to-length 4 boards to 42 5/8 in. Using the above method worked perfectly – 4 boards EXACTLY 42 5/8 square and straight by planing a face and edge, using these to scribe a knife wall all around, crosscutting, and then planing the end grain down to the knife wall – checking for square as I planed. This one is hard to accurately describe – you aren’t so much cutting AWAY from the line as you are cutting TO (or near to..) the line. The saw kerf should be very very near the knife wall without obscuring or crossing over the knife wall. And if it is drifting away, then bring it back.
4) Once again, slow down and lighten up! If you are having to work hard when sawing, your saw isn’t sharp enough, or you are bearing down too hard, or both. Aggressive cuts go off line quickly. What worked for me was to get the mindset that “… if I had to hand saw all day, could I keep this pace up?” If not, then I’d slow down. This was hard as I have a tablesaw that cuts beautifully, quickly once it is set up. And many times I would use this as a crutch. Then two things hit me: a) I hate the sound and dust of the tablesaw which is what got me into hand tools in the first place, and b) I am not doing this work for money, but rather for enjoyment – why do I have this mindset that what I do for enjoyment has to be fast? It doesn’t. And so, I tried slowing down which gave me a lighter touch. Lo and behold, slowing down, letting the saw work, gave me much greater accuracy.
5) Read as much as you can and try it – if it doesn’t work for you when you try it, file it away and come back to it later. You just might not be ready for that particular lesson, yet. There is a wonderful article that pops up on Google if you search ‘Popular how:to:saw’ (leave the colons in when searching and it will be the first result). But it didn’t fully make sense to me until I changed my mindset about what I wanted out of my sawing technique – 30 minutes to cut a perfect tenon! That’s just silly, I thought. Now, after slowing down, it all kinda makes sense…
If all this sounds like some kind of ‘Zen and the art of sawing’, it kinda is. It’s practical, it gets you started, but it doesn’t get you mastery right away. Sawing is kinda like that – or calculus. It’s frustrating, people can point you along a path, and then you just kinda ‘get it’. Paul Sellers, or Joshua Klein, or Roy Underhill, or Christopher Schwarz, and countless others have handsawn thousands upon thousands of cuts. They didn’t start out being Saw Masters day one – or even day 101. I, too, am just ‘getting it’ after being very frustrated like you – heck, I was too embarassed to ask, so good on you for having courage to ask (I wish I had…) Andwhen I say I am just now ‘getting it’, I mean like, within the last two months, getting it – so… not a Master… just barely an apprentice!
Last bit of advice in a lomg wimded post – Speed comes with proper form and technique. Right now, speed is your enemy – Slow. Down. Really – S L O W D O W N! Get a sharp saw, don’t try to saw, and SLOW DOWN!
- This reply was modified 6 years, 8 months ago by Spencer Gaskins.
- This reply was modified 6 years, 8 months ago by Spencer Gaskins.
- This reply was modified 6 years, 8 months ago by Spencer Gaskins.
- This reply was modified 6 years, 8 months ago by Spencer Gaskins.
- This reply was modified 6 years, 8 months ago by Spencer Gaskins.