Thread: Dovetails with my Japanese saw

Any Photos Poppa?

Originally Posted by Poppa

I've had an English tenon saw for ages, and there really is no comparison,,,
I also use artificial Japanese stones for honing, and love them as well.

Hi Poppa, would you like to be my spokesman for consumer?
I am getting a carton of those saw (the higher end models) and will reach here within a month. Anyone interested contact me.

Um dazzler, as these are my first dovetails, I'm not that proud of them. Not sure I'm keen on posting pics. And also, I'm not finished them yet - I only get to do woodwork on Mondays nights at my part time course (very little opportunity otherwise), and sometimes there is a line for machinery, so I don't always get to start and finish tasks in the same week.

Last night I finished cutting some tenons on the bandsaw (that's how we're being taught to cut them, and it works OK but I'll trim them with a chisel as well - don't have a shoulder plane yet!), sized and thicknessed some bluegum for a new box, cut some practice blind dovetails, then cut the blind dovetails for real and started chiselling them. I'm going to chisel one from scratch and drill and clean out the other one, just so I appreciate the difference. I like to learn everything slowly and surely rather than just finding the quickest way. I also cut the tongues for the dovetails with the saw. Great fun!

soatoz, I don't really think you want me as a spokesperson! I tend to speak my mind graphically.... And no, I can't justify spending a lot of money on high end tools at the moment, mainly because I haven't got the readies, but also because my skill level doesn't really justify the outlay yet. But I'll get there....

I was hoping to buy a Japanese saw soon.
As far as I can tell there are two basic types.
The one which is braced along the back and the one which is just "blade" and can flex a lot more.
I was tempted to go with the "flexing" one because it hasn't got a back "spine" to stop it and limit the cut. I had read they were harder to use because of the lack of stiffness.
Some of them have teeth on both sides.
Any advice?
Are they MUCH harder to use than the one with the back support?
Thanks for any help.
(and I guess to know the correct names would not hurt either)

Originally Posted by willie

I was hoping to buy a Japanese saw soon.
As far as I can tell there are two basic types.
The one which is braced along the back and the one which is just "blade" and can flex a lot more.
I was tempted to go with the "flexing" one because it hasn't got a back "spine" to stop it and limit the cut. I had read they were harder to use because of the lack of stiffness.
Some of them have teeth on both sides.
Any advice?
Are they MUCH harder to use than the one with the back support?
Thanks for any help.
(and I guess to know the correct names would not hurt either)

Hi Willie,

Thanks for the question. I suppse this might help many who were having the same question.

They are designed for different purposes, thus you can't say which is harder or easier to use.

The one without the back is more multipurpose, and has variety of size in length and thickness. These are called Ryouba-Noko. Ryouba means double sided blade, Noko is short for Nokogiri meaning saw. These saws are used for roughly cutting into size, or could be used to make tenons if the size of the tenon is larger, like construction size. On one side it has cross cut blade and on the other side rip cut blade.

The one with the back, is called Douzuki-Noko. Douzuki's meaning isn't sure and there are a couple of suggested meaning, and the most famous is that Dou means Torso, body or the abdominal, and zuki means "with". So it means a saw with body. These are used for more specific occasions, where more accuracy is required, such as dovetails and small tenons for furnitures and smaller pieces. The back is provided not for the stability actually, but the thickness of the blade is so thin, sometimes about 0.2mm without the back it cannot be straight. The very best ones can be rolled up onto a pencil and still won't break. They are very hard but at the same time very tenacious. Meaning long lasting sharp edge. The best handmade ones are extremely expensive, so the ones I am getting are replaceable blade saws. These are 0.3mm thick, the thinnest replaceable blade saw in Japan, from famous saw maker Nakaya.

If you have a machine to roughly dress your timbre into your desired size, then there might not be any need for Ryouba-Noko, but only Douzuki-Noko. Even if you don't most of the people would probably ask the timbre shop to cut them into sizes, so I am mainly intending to sell the Douzuki-Noko. (Although I have lots of Ryouba-Noko, both replaceable blade and traditional style.)

In my case, I buy the timbre as large as possible and use a hand saw to chop them into my desired size, so Ryouba-Noko is essential. I even use a handsaw to split a thick board into two, which I am sick of doing,,, But the thickness of the cut is much thinner, so I'd be wasting less timbre.

This is only the basic of Japanese saw. I would be writing an article on Japanese saw soon, because I personally think that the difference between western tools and Japanese tools, the greatest wolud be between their saws. Please stay tuned.