Home Construction Shop and Guide

Hello , and welcome to Home Construction Shop In this presentation we are going to look at couple very common hand tools. To the learned tradesman they are a part of his life , but to the learning layman , there may be just a few important things to be pointed out. But in all there is always something to learn here at Home Construction Shop. Lets take a look a very common hand tool , the hand saw. There are a few different types of  hand saws , for different types of cutting such as ripping and crosscutting. Whenever we cut in the direction of the grain of the wood, we are said to be ripping, and so to rip a piece of wood we use …yes… a Rip Saw. In turn to cut across the grain of a piece of wood , we use the cross-cut saw.

RIP SAW

CROSS CUT SAW

Now when looking at these two saws , there doesn’t seem to be much of a difference from this view except the rip saw has larger teeth. Having these two types of saws in your Home Construction shop it is important to understand their differences.  For these saws to do the work efficiently for their purpose, their teeth must be configured in a certain way. Lets look at the difference between the two teeth patterns.

As Home Construction Shop  takes a closer look at these, we see a huge difference. On the left we have the Rip Saw and on the right we have the Cross Cut Saw. Notice the beveled teeth and serrated edges of the Cross Cut Saw on the right. Designed to tear into the wood expelling large wood fibres as it cuts across the grain. With the rip saw the teeth are not beveled and not much of a serrated edge.

These teeth are designed to take a finer cut through the wood as the cut is made along the grain rather than across. The wood fibres during a cut with a rip saw are much finer and the cut is much smoother.

Below Home Construction Shop again takes closer comparison, You can easily tell which is a rip saw and which is a cross-cut saw. The top one is the rip saw ,
and the bottom is the cross cut saw, if your still guessing. The teeth on each saw are bent to the left and to the right alternately which makes the kerf, which is the width of the cut, the teeth are bent enough to make the kerf wider than the saw to make smooth passage through the wood without binding. If you notice, as Home Construction shop has indicated in the images shown, the teeth on the cross-cut saw are smaller. Since the teeth are smaller then you would have a smaller and more shallow kerf, since the bends in the teeth would not be as extreme as a rips saw.

Acknowledging that characteristic you will understand that when using a crosscut saw to rip, you will run into continuous binding.
With this short study at the Home Construction Shop of two very commonly used saws,we can see as common as they are, they are quite different in their configuration and purpose.

I hope some of you gathered some new understanding for the use of these two hand tools in your next home construction project.

Continue to browse through the Home Construction Shop, there is beginning basic knowledge, and there is more advanced instruction and techniques. Enjoy!