Take It Easy on Your Hand Saws and Rasps

I bought my first 22″ hand saw from Harbor Freight. The teeth are impulse hardened and sharp, but I struggle every time I use it. Mostly when I try to start a cut and sometimes during the cut. The saw would stuck when I try to start a cut so I naturally pushed harder hoping this would help move the saw forward. Sometimes it would work but most of the time it wouldn’t. So I put this hand saw away thinking it is a piece of crap.

Later I bought a high quality back saw but I was still experiencing the same issue though much less frequently. How could this be the case? Maybe my technique was wrong? Often you would hear people say “Let the tool do the work”. Turns out in the context of using hand saws or using back saws, it means guiding the saw back and forth with minimum downward pressure. I tried it one day with the back saw and the stutter was gone 95% of the time.

The other day when I was pruning tree branches, I used that 22″ hand saw from Harbor Freight again. The stutter was gone. That saw is not a piece of crap. I was wrong.

Similar technique can be used with Shinto Saw Rasps. “Let the tool do the work”. Take it easy!