Veritas dovetail vs crosscut carcass saw

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Philw

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Hi guys,

Looking to buy a moderately priced first decent saw, predominantly for dovetails.

I am unsure between the two above. The main difference between the two I can see is the depth of cut at 40mm on the dovetail and 60mm on the carcass.
Now I have some 40mm stock that I would ideally like to dovetail so the carcass is looking promising but don’t want to miss a trick and struggle with thinner stock. Any advice please?
 
Try both buy which you prefer, there is simply no difference apart from the amount of plate you get. I personally would always go for the wider plate. It will last longer, ie you can sharpen it more than a thinner blade. Equally I find it easier to keep vertical with a wider plate, but that could be just me. Anyway, you can sharpen it to be what ever you want it to be, higher or lower tooth count, cross or rip. Both should be rip cut sharpened.

The one thing I don’t like about these modern saws is that they glue the plate into the back, this means that you can’t tension the blade if you drop it / glue cracks. I’d personally buy an old saw off an auction site / car boot for a few pounds and spend a couple of hours getting it into a top notch user. I wrote a thread about how to do it a few years back. The piccies got jumbled on each post at some stage when they updated the WEB site and I can’t fix it. However, I believe it still is fairly easy to read.

https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/thread...ng-of-a-99p-saw-completed.98494/#post-1068749
 
You want a saw with rip teeth for dovetails. Being small teeth they will do an ok job at crosscutting as well. The crosscut toothed saw on the otherhand will do an ugly looking rip so not ideal for dovetails.
Regards
John
 
TLDR: More teeth per inch (TPI) = smoother cut. Less TPI = faster cut.

Now the long version. The dovetail saw is smaller in all ways and has more teeth per inch with a ripping profile. As the name suggests they are designed for doing dovetails and I doubt the actual joint will often make the 40mm depth an issue, which is another reason why the saw is smaller, you wont be asking it to cut huge amounts of stock in one go so you might as well take a few extra strokes and have a surface which needs little to no work to be ready to join - this is of course if you're into the whole 'perfect' dovetails concept or just want a functional joint. The saw is shorter as well, presumably for more control but once you get used to a saw I'd question that theory. The carcass saw is sized between a dovetail saw and a tenon saw and is intended to be used for cutting the timber for making the carcass of traditional cabinets. There is actually a rip cut and crosscut version of these saws with the difference being the number and profile of the teeth. They both will have less teeth than a dovetail saw so will be rougher but will complete the cut quicker, with the crosscut being the fastest of the lot.

My recommendation is simple - if you can spring the budget for 2 saws - get the crosscut carcass and the dovetail saw. If you can only get one, maybe consider the rip carcass saw. It will crosscut small timber fairly easy and leave an okay-ish finish for dovetails. Option 2 is buy the dovetail now for it's intended purpose and then if you find you want the crosscut further down the line to do carcass work, no problem. I personally cut most of my dovetails to be strong functional joints so I'm not too bothered about having completely gapless joints. You'll find that to be a feature that only woodworkers look for whereas your average person really doesn't care or notice. Like all small mistakes we make, we are most commonly our own worst critics. Don't point it out to anyone and it will never be noticed.
 
You want a saw with rip teeth for dovetails. Being small teeth they will do an ok job at crosscutting as well. The crosscut toothed saw on the otherhand will do an ugly looking rip so not ideal for dovetails.
Regards
John
+1 don't get a crosscut fleam tooth saw for dovetailing
 
Well, it’s about 5 mins work to change a fleam cross cut into a rip cut, not a reason not to buy one if it’s the right price.
 
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