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RWW 120 A Crosscut Sawing Tip

7 comments
13 years ago
Hand Sawing     Videos

I recently had a marathon session in my shop breaking down rough lumber to size for several projects.  Besides creating a deep burn in my sawing arm I came to realization that having multiple saws tuned for different woods make this job much easier and accurate sawing can be an incredible time saver.

So while I was sawing away I decided to shoot this little tip and keep the camera running while I tackled a 3″ thick African Mahogany board that needed to be ripped to size for my Moxon vise chop. I hope you enjoy this quick video.

During this shop session I crosscut and ripped soft woods, medium woods, and very hard woods in thicknesses ranging from 4/4 up to massive 5 1/2″ timbers.  A few steps to my saw til to select my preferred weapon was all it took to tackle this variety and the work went pretty fast.

When I first started hand sawing, I would always cut my boards at close to an inch over the finished size I needed.  Whether I was fearful of messing up the cut or just hedging my bets that extra length would be needed I can’t tell.  In hindsight I realize just how much extra work I added.  Removing that extra inch becomes a real trial and usually I would end up grabbing another saw and sawing closer to my line then spending far too much time at the shooting board or with the board clamped in a vise planing away with a Jack plane.  The reality is that the closer you can get to your line the faster the work will go and the less waste you generate.  How many times have you tried to get two parts from one board only to come up 1″ short of that goal.  How badly to you want back that “safety measure” you added to your cut now?

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David Young

African Mahogany? Hope it’s not the same stuff I lost my fingertips to on the router. Sawing that length by hand in wood that hard. You’re nuts. LOL

    Shannon

    Actually it is Utile but most people don’t know what that is. Utile is a little softer but not much. Mostly it is just a well tuned saw that does the work with proper pitch for the thickness. It felt long than 3 minutes to make the cut believe me.

Glenn Thompson

I’ve been working on a saw till (finished) and a hanging tool chest (much simpler than the one for the HTS) and have realized the same thing. I was cutting not quite an inch from the final length and having to do so much work. I now know that the closer to the line (with proper technique), the happier I am.

Joe Cunningham

It’s a great sawing demonstration and good tip to try to get as close to your final cut as possible (without going over). Of course it is that fear of going over that causes people to cut a little ways from the line. I find I leave more meat on a rip cut than cross cuts.

Stepping back a bit from the demonstration and looking at the problem you are trying to solve, I would say that if you only had a piece of stock say, 5′ 11″, you’d be even less wasteful by just adjusting your design to use two pieces 35 and 3/8″ (for example). That would be better than using 36″ from one piece of stock and 36″ from a second piece. If it is for a shelf in a case that is already built, you don’t really have that luxury, but many projects can be adjusted to the size stock you have on hand rather than rigidly following a design.

jb @BuildingMoxie

Shannon. this is great stuff all the way around. Super stoked you sent this over and can’t wait to discover more.

Martin King

I doubt I’m the only one to be interested in the design of the saw stool/bench/horse that you’re using. Looks really clever and useful, but we only get to see it in the background of lurking under a piece of lumber. Could you do a podcast on that sometime please?

Great site and podcasts – keep up the good work!

    Shannon

    That bench is actually a Hand Tool School project. It is really just a typical 5 board bench design but I added a split top for a ripping notch. The bench while useful was actually meant to be more of a sawing exercise to apply skills taught in lesson 2 in my Hand Tool School first semester on sawing fundamentals.