Help! Japanese saw.

[MIGNAL]

I bought this Japanese Kataba Z saw recently, mainly for x- cutting but I decided to try a replacement rip blade as well. The one handle accepts both types of blade.
It's absolute rubbish. :shock: I've had western saws that have stood in damp cellars for 100 years that cut better (faster) than this rip blade.
What am I doing wrong? I've tried cutting at different angles, a few types of wood, a few different thicknesses of wood. I just can't get it to 'work', except on anything under 5 mm's thick. . . I mean thin. It cuts slow, yet the blade feels sharp.
Fortunately the x-cut blade cuts superb. Effortless! I'm not new to Japanese saws either. I bought one in the very early '90's from Tilgear, although I don't think I've ever had a dedicated Japanese rip tooth pattern before. Perhaps that's my problem, lack of experience with the rip tooth. I do have a Japanese universal blade that cuts much better than this rip so something seems to be amiss.

 

[Trafalgar]

Japanese ingenuity seemed to have stopped with the design of crosscut teeth. I've read on other forums that Western rip saws are highly prized by some enlightened and open-minded Japanese carpenters. I think now you know why.

 

[woodbrains]

Japanese ingenuity seemed to have stopped with the design of crosscut teeth.

Clearly the absurdity of that statement is lost on you!

For millennia, a whole nation of wood craftsmen and temple builders, shoji makers, who could not efficiently rip wood to width and thickness; hmmm.....

The panel below ended up cut into two 3/8 in thick finished boards. Only 1/8in waste allowance!

I think Mignal's problem might be that the Japanese saws are quite specialised and a- is probably designed for softwood and b- might only be designed for a certain thickness. The teeth look very aggressive, but I bet 1 1/2in is the limit. The Japanese equivalent to a big Western rip saw, would be something like an anahiki (beam saw) which is a different animal altogether. Also, cutting on the pull stroke needs some weight on it to resist the cutting stroke, Western styles of working might not be efficient with a rip saw. It might not be a bad saw, just needs to be put to the correct use.

Mike.

 

[MIGNAL]

Read my post again Woodbrains. I've tried it in various wood types (softwood included) and at various wood thickness. In fact I think it does a slightly better job in hardwood in comparison to softwood. Any sharp Rip saw (at least Western) should pretty much fly through 3/4" softwood. It doesn't. It cuts of course but just not very fast. I'm not impressed at all. If it was a western rip saw I'd be reaching for the saw file, thinking it was dull.
Not so with the X-cut, which really does slice through wood.

 

[MIGNAL]

Progress!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0sI3VUeNyk

His method does work much better. You present the saw teeth flat or square on to the end grain, rather than at any angle. So your timber would be mounted vertically in the vice rather than at an angle. That method seems to be giving a much better (and faster) cut with less judder.

 

[woodbrains]

Read my post again Woodbrains. I've tried it in various wood types (softwood included) and at various wood thickness. In fact I think it does a slightly better job in hardwood in comparison to softwood. Any sharp Rip saw (at least Western) should pretty much fly through 3/4" softwood. It doesn't. It cuts of course but just not very fast. I'm not impressed at all. If it was a western rip saw I'd be reaching for the saw file, thinking it was dull.
Not so with the X-cut, which really does slice through wood.

Hello,
I did read your post, it mentions nothing about the types of wood you used, nor the thicknesses, just 'various', which does not pin things down to anything much.
So i'll 'Tell you what, I won't bother trying to help again, especially since my assumption was that your technique was OK, but the application was not so good. Obviously your technique was poor, so pardon me for giving you the benefit of the doubt.

 

[MIGNAL]

Fine by me Woodbrains.
You'll be missed.

 

[Trafalgar]

Japanese ingenuity seemed to have stopped with the design of crosscut teeth.

Clearly the absurdity of that statement is lost on you!

For millennia, a whole nation of wood craftsmen and temple builders, shoji makers, who could not efficiently rip wood to width and thickness; hmmm.....

The panel below ended up cut into two 3/8 in thick finished boards. Only 1/8in waste allowance!

I think Mignal's problem might be that the Japanese saws are quite specialised and a- is probably designed for softwood and b- might only be designed for a certain thickness. The teeth look very aggressive, but I bet 1 1/2in is the limit. The Japanese equivalent to a big Western rip saw, would be something like an anahiki (beam saw) which is a different animal altogether. Also, cutting on the pull stroke needs some weight on it to resist the cutting stroke, Western styles of working might not be efficient with a rip saw. It might not be a bad saw, just needs to be put to the correct use.

Mike.

Mike, the Japanese saw's rip tooth (being discussed in this thread) is nothing more than the Western rip-style rip tooth with a severe rake angle optimized for pulling the saw while holding the work on a very low trestle *usually* with one's feet or knee.

As I said before, some Japanese carpenters appreciate that heavy ripping is best done on the push stroke with the work a bit higher. It's no different than Western style woodworkers appreciating the *sometimes* advantages of the Japanese crosscut saw.

And besides, Western architecture, building, and furnituremaking ain't too shabby.

While I appreciate Shoji in a general sense I certainly don't believe it surpasses the best of Western woodworking or really not even less than the best of Western woodworking. It's a bit hard to warm up to it, for me, since I can't think of a use for it. In its context it does have appeal.

Think about it like this: it's perfectly possible that all of the innumerable masterpieces of Western furnituremaking where built with crosscut saws that were, relatively speaking, inferior to the ones used by the Japanese masters. Certainly, the converse could be true?

Alan Peters took at the time what was a more or less required pilgrimage to Japan for serious furnituremakers. He recounts in his book Professional Cabinetmaking his surprise at learning that practically all of the articles of furniture he admired while in Japan were actually Korean, a people who by the way use tools that cut on the push stroke, or so according to Peters though I have heard this elsewhere. They do so because, as I understand it, they tend to work in harder woods across the spectrum of building and furnituremaking than do the Japanese.

So, at least Alan Peters had his eyes opened a bit. Perhaps yours will be too.