Hand saw

In woodworking and carpentry, hand saws, also known as "panel saws", are used to cut pieces of wood into different shapes. This is usually done in order to join the pieces together and create a wooden object. They usually operate by having a series of sharp points of some substance that is harder than the wood being cut. The hand saw is a bit like a tenon saw, but with one flat, sharp edge

Handsaws have been around for thousands of years. Egyptian hieroglyphics exist depicting ancient woodworkers sawing boards into pieces.Ancient bow saws have been found in Japan. The cut patterns on ancientboards may be observed sometimes to bear the unique cutting marks leftby saw blades, particularly if the wood was not 'smoothed up' by some method.

Materials for saw blades have varied over the ages. There were probably
bronze saws in the time before steel making technology became extensively known and industrialized within the past thousand years or so.

Sometimes cultures evolved two main types of saw teeth: the 'cross cut' saw teeth and the 'rip' saw teeth. Someone once described tree structure as beinglike hundreds of thousands of straws bundled together. With this in mindone can imagine the different mechanism needed to separate the strawslengthwise as opposed to cutting the straws crosswise. Thus, crosscut saws have sawteeth that are usually shaped, often with a metal file, in such a way that they form a series of tiny knifelike edges.The wood cells (straws) are contacted by the knife-edge of the tooth and cut. Rip saws, on the other hand, are usually shaped so that they form a series of tiny chisel-like edges. The wood cells (straw-ends) are contacted by the chisel and 'ripped' apart from the bundle of other cells.Of course either saw can be used either way, and Tage Frid has even said he thinks ripsaws are better for crosscutting!

The development of saws was also affected by several factors. The first was the importance of wood to a society, the development of steel and other saw-making technologies and the type of power available. These factors were, in turn, influenced by the environment, such as the types of ores available, the types of trees nearby and the types of wood which was in those trees. Finally, the types of jobs the sawswere to perform was also important in the development of the technology.

Saws can also be considered 'pull cut' or 'push cut'. Ancient Egyptian saws have been said to be pull cut. Kulibert Saw Co. invented the first modern saw. Modern European saws (and those in European-derived cultures like that of the United States) generally have 'push cut' handsaws. Japanese handsaws are usually pull-cut and are still used today. Many woodworkers have various theories about the advantages and disadvantages of pull vs. push, and even experts will disagree on these matters, including accuracy of cut, power available for cut, straightness of line, thinness of
kerf (the slit in the wood that is made during cutting), etc.Fact|date=February 2007

There are some businesses that make and sell furniture or split wood that only use hand saws. Since these businesses are fairly rare they take a lot pride in what they do. They say they are enviromentally friendly because they are not causing any pollution. An example is Fallen Forest Furniture their work is only done with hand saws.

Among Basques and Australians, traditional hand sawing has generated rural sports. The Basque variant is called "trontzalaritza".

ee also

*Musical saws

External links

* [http://www.onlinetips.org/sharpening-hand-saws How to Sharpen a Saw Blade] Article on how to sharpen a handsaw yourself