Journals Projects Workshops Reviews

Cross cut vs rip cut for joinery saws

1479 Views 21 Replies 13 Participants Last post by derekcohen, May 26, 2022

Evansm22

Discussion Starter · May 11, 2022 (Edited by Moderator)

So I haven't done much in the way of work with hand tools until the past year but I finally invested in a high quality dove tail saw and I love it. I was reading up on joinery saws and found a Paul Sellers video in which he says a rip cut filed saw will cross cut just as well as a dedicated cross cut blade if it's 10 TPI or more. I'm curious what others think about this. My dovetail saw is rip filed and seems to cross cut just as well, but is there any particular benefit to keeping all the blades rip filed? The only thing I can think of is for easier sharpening.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

1 - 20 of 22 Posts

Unknowncraftsman

· #2 · May 11, 2022

I'm sure Paul Sellers has been woodworking long enough to make most any type of saw work for him.
I recommend you have a cross cut saw and a rip saw to get started.
That's what I use.
Maybe someday I'll be able to have one saw for all my handcut joinery. I wouldn't recommend it for starting out
Good Luck

MadMark

· #3 · May 11, 2022 (Edited by Moderator)

2

A rip saw will cross cut (sorta) but a cross cut saw doesn't rip well.

Have you seen the reasonably new triangular profile blades that cut equally well no matter what?

Line Rectangle Font Audio equipment Slope

See less See more

SMP

· #4 · May 11, 2022 (Edited by Moderator)

So I haven t done much in the way of work with hand tools until the past year but I finally invested in a high quality dove tail saw and I love it. I was reading up on joinery saws and found a Paul Sellers video in which he says a rip cut filed saw will cross cut just as well as a dedicated cross cut blade if it s 10 TPI or more. I m curious what others think about this. My dovetail saw is rip filed and seems to cross cut just as well, but is there any particular benefit to keeping all the blades rip filed? The only thing I can think of is for easier sharpening.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

- Evansm22

This doesn't make sense because I have followed Paul Sellers and he personally uses like a custom hybrid file pattern. And he says only under 10ppi then go crosscut? I've never seen a fine 5 ppi crosscut saw from say Disston etc. I feel like something got mixed up there

MikeTN

· #5 · May 12, 2022

I use a rip filed dovetail saw for crosscutting very frequently and to great effect. it all has to do with the small teeth relative to the size of wood fibers and the width of the piece being cut. The dust being generated has to be cleared from the cut and the process works better if the piece being sawed is around two inches or less for saws having around 12 TPI or more. Fewer TPI causes the teeth to lift the fibers instead of effectively severing them while the higher TPI on a sharp saw manages quite well. it still works on wider pieces but becomes less effective as the width increases. My crosscut back saws are reserved for wider stock and are the most seldom used saws in the shop. All you have to do is try the various saws for the different sawing tasks and you can see the end results. I tend to go with what works instead of what I read. If I had to eliminate a saw from my shop it would be the crosscut cut short backsaw.

AlanWS

· #6 · May 12, 2022

The advantage of using a crosscut saw is the cleaner cut. If you use a rip saw with small teeth and you prepare the entry with what Sellers calls a knife wall, you can get a clean entry that way. Tage Frid used bow saws with a very thin plate (because tension held them flat) all filed rip. It works, but you need the knife wall in more situations.

tvrgeek

· #7 · May 12, 2022

Dovetail, usually rip.
Tenon saw, again usually rip
Carcass saw, crosscut.

All of these will have way less set than a panel saw as shown above. ( Those Fatmax are great "round the house" but not a joinery tool IMHO. )

Or get a Ryoba and see if you can learn it. I had a cheap one and could never cut strait, but bought a better one and I am slowly learning it. Harder to steer, but if you start strait, it tends to stay so. Plus, with no back it is not limited in depth.

SMP

· #8 · May 12, 2022

. ( Those Fatmax are great "round the house" but not a joinery tool IMHO. )

- tvrgeek

You have obviously not seen Richard Maguire use his orange plastic Irwin hardware store saw!

controlfreak

· #9 · May 12, 2022

I ran into this last night. I have been milling stock for a box to store my carving chisels in. It has been mostly a labor of hand tool love. I cut all the parts out of a shelf harvested from a large wardrobe, Sapele or Mahogany I don't know but it looks nice. I sized all starting with larger cross cut and rip saws and as I got close to marking gauge lines switched to planes. I will say I am getting my planes to work well, so all were S4S but needed to refine length. Shooting board on one end of all and a knife wall (Sellers student) for the other. Now to finally tie this in to the OP's question. I went to reach for my saw and stopped to contemplate "Tenon or Dovetail?" Dovetail is very fine and that is good but my cheap Lynx tenon has a cross cut filing pattern although very fine. I decided to use the tenon saw but in retrospect I probably should have tried one with each. All that blah blah said I did bind a bit probably due to poor saw motion but I can only imaging it to be worse with dovetail saw, more testing required. Now onto Dovetails.

See less See more

derekcohen

· #10 · May 21, 2022

You can use a rip dovetail saw for a crosscut as the teeth are small. For example, one might do this on the shoulders of a tail board. Smaller teeth (say, 20 tpi) will produce a cleaner result than larger teeth (15 tpi). It also depends on the hardness of the wood, with soft Pine prone to tearing out more than hardwoods.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Sylvain

· #11 · May 22, 2022

https://paulsellers.com/2014/03/questions-answered-3/

MrRon

· #12 · May 22, 2022

When you are making a dovetail or box joint cut, you are usually making it on the end of a board which is a rip cut. You are cutting parallel to the grain of the board. Although you can use a crosscut saw for a dovetail, a rip is the correct blade.

MrRon

· #13 · May 22, 2022

I ran into this last night. I have been milling stock for a box to store my carving chisels in. It has been mostly a labor of hand tool love. I cut all the parts out of a shelf harvested from a large wardrobe, Sapele or Mahogany I don t know but it looks nice. I sized all starting with larger cross cut and rip saws and as I got close to marking gauge lines switched to planes. I will say I am getting my planes to work well, so all were S4S but needed to refine length. Shooting board on one end of all and a knife wall (Sellers student) for the other. Now to finally tie this in to the OP s question. I went to reach for my saw and stopped to contemplate "Tenon or Dovetail?" Dovetail is very fine and that is good but my cheap Lynx tenon has a cross cut filing pattern although very fine. I decided to use the tenon saw but in retrospect I probably should have tried one with each. All that blah blah said I did bind a bit probably due to poor saw motion but I can only imaging it to be worse with dovetail saw, more testing required. Now onto Dovetails.

- controlfreak

For a tenon joint, you are cutting across the grain and also cutting with the grain, so you really need both saws to execute the complete cut, but generally we use only one saw. The crosscut would be best as it cuts well both cross and rip.

WoodenDreams

· #14 · May 22, 2022 (Edited by Moderator)

If you hand cutting the joinery, have you considered using the 'pull saw' or 'flush cut saw'. A japanese style pull saw like this one, has different size teeth on each side of the blade. https://www.menards.com/main/tools/hand-tools/hand-saws-saw-blades/double-blade-fine-cut-pull-saw/213103/p-1444436145584-c-9123.htm?tid=8924494037686999280&ipos=2 This one may not be the best quality. But works for me.

Menards also offers this dovetail saw https://www.menards.com/main/tools/hand-tools/hand-saws-saw-blades/irwin-reg-7-3-4-plastic-handle-dovetail-hand-saw/2011491/p-1534228089619-c-9123.htm

derekcohen

· #15 · May 22, 2022 (Edited by Moderator)

So I haven t done much in the way of work with hand tools until the past year but I finally invested in a high quality dove tail saw and I love it. I was reading up on joinery saws and found a Paul Sellers video in which he says a rip cut filed saw will cross cut just as well as a dedicated cross cut blade if it s 10 TPI or more. I m curious what others think about this. My dovetail saw is rip filed and seems to cross cut just as well, but is there any particular benefit to keeping all the blades rip filed? The only thing I can think of is for easier sharpening.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

- Evansm22

I think that I should clarify my earlier comments.

In essence, Paul is correct, however I would argue (from experience) that anything below 15 tpi rip is not recommended to saw across the grain. A rip dovetail saw with 20 tpi (used for soft wood or 1/2" and under boards) will work very nicely as a crosscut saw. The 10 tpi end of the spectrum is quite coarse. This would be a saw for tenon cheeks. You would want a crosscut saw for the shoulders.

The reason Japanese saws work so well on both rip and crosscuts is that they have such fine teeth. 24 - 32 tpi is not uncommon. Even the coarser teeth, in the 12 - 15 tpi range work well because many of these saws have crosscut teeth, and the teeth are shaped differently from Western teeth.

The article linked to by Paul Sellers is to be avoided. He writes with some truth but with such an overlay of bigotry. Everything to him is about cost, and he does this to appear the saviour of woodworking. Yet he is all about making money - the pot calling the kettle black. Japanese impulse hardened saws are not made this way to encourage a throw away society. These saws last a long time. I have had some for over 10 years. They cost about 1/10 of the Western version. How many here actually sharpen their Western saws? I do … I also make my own, and own some of the best production backsaws as well. If you do enough handsawing of joinery, you need to sharpen your own saws.

Article: http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ShopMadeTools/MakingADovetailSaw.html

You may not need a crosscut filed saw for the tail board when nipping off the ends in dovetailing. A small-toothed rip filed saw will work just fine. However, you do need some fine crosscut filed backsaws for shoulders if you want to do the best work. One work-around is to saw close to a knifed line, and then finish with a chisel. The very fine toothed Japanese saws, however, can give you a finish cut off the saw.

Regards from Perth

Derek

See less See more

Sylvain

· #16 · May 23, 2022 (Edited by Moderator)

In essence, Paul is correct, however [...] Everything to him is about cost,

Derek Cohen

I guess if the OP ask himself if one saw is enough, it is because money might be a concern.

Once one has started woodworking, found it enjoyable and acquired some skill, one would surely want more than one saw.

In other articles, Paul Sellers even mention sharpening according to the task.

Evansm22

Discussion Starter · #17 · May 25, 2022

Thanks for the thoughts everybody. I guess my question was just out of curiosity more than anything, I am not extremely limited by my budget but that is a factor. The more I have heard and read (and used the limited number of hand saws I have) it seems like it is worth it to have a few saws that are dedicated for the different cuts. I have been working on a small dovetail box with nothing but an 8" dovetail saw with 14 tpi (rip). Overall it has been just fine but there is a bit more tear out when using it for cross cuts compared to ripping, and particularly on thinner stock (1/8").

I plan on purchasing more hand saws and will probably start by adding a x-cut filed carcass saw and then a larger tenon saw with a rip pattern. In the meantime, this is interesting food for thought. Thanks again for sharing.

surrywood

· #18 · May 26, 2022

Evansm22,
So for what you are describing above, it sounds to me like in your case it is more about tooth count than about rip or cross cut at least for 1/8 material. 1/8 material with 15tpi is not going to leave as fine a cut as a 20+ tpi saw. My first exposure to that was when I was looking for my first dovetail saw and Veritas had 2, one with 15 (or 16?) tpi and one with 20, so I looked into it and they indicated the finer tooth count was for the thinner stock. Just my experience though. Oh, and I heartily endorse getting more saws,

Sylvain

· #19 · May 26, 2022 (Edited by Moderator)

Thinner stock needs more tpi.
There must be a number of teeth simultaneously in the wood for the saw to work well.
Stumpy Nubs has a video about this.

for thin material, you might want to try a Zona saw, 32 ppi.
https://paulsellers.com/2015/08/zona-modellers-saw-pulling-a-few-strokes-for-different-folks/
https://paulsellers.com/2015/08/zona-push-power/

Evansm22

Discussion Starter · #20 · May 26, 2022

"Thinner stock needs more tpi.'

I can't believe I didn't put that together until now! Someone above suggested using Japanese style saws which I tried for a while but I could never get very accurate cuts (I'm sure because of poor technique on my part). I have a small Japanese dovetail saw but it's 25 tpi and I just can't get very straight cuts with it because it takes so many strokes compared to a more coarse western saw. I tried more western saws after watching Rob Cosman cut a 3/4" dovetail in about 3 strokes with one of his dovetail saws (which are 14 tpi) so I couldn't see the need for a higher tooth count on a joinery saw but now I'm going to go home and take some cuts in thin stock with the Japanese saw and my western saw and compare the two. Thanks for pointing out the basics that I had overlooked!

1 - 20 of 22 Posts

This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.