Whether you’re starting a hobby in woodworking or you’re thinking of beginning a freelance business, you’re going to need some tools and equipment to begin with. The majority of these tools are going to be woodworking saws. Woodworking saws are essential to the craft of woodworking, they allow you to chop up wood and shape your creations.
There are a few varieties of woodworking saws that you should know about. In this guide that Calderbrook Woodworking Machinery helped to create, we will be discussing the different types of woodworking saws and their uses.
Hand saws
Firstly, let’s start off easy with hand saws. Hand saws are large blades that are used to chop wood. These mobile saws come in a range of sizes and are very useful to have around in your woodworking workshop. These are usually the first saws that aspiring woodworkers use as they are easy to handle and simple to use.
There are multiple types of handsaws such as: coping saws, crosscut saws, and hacksaws. Crosscut saws are commonly used in woodworking as they can cut through large sections of wood.
Hacksaws are mostly used to cut through metal, although they could be used on wood as well but this may damage the blade, so it’s best to use another hand saw for wood specifically. Coping saws on the other hand, are used to create curved cuts on wood. This is perfect for intricate shaping and sculpting.
Coping saws and crosscut saws should definitely be on your list of woodworking tools if they’re not already. You’re going to need a crosscut saw to cut through tough pieces of wood, and a coping saw to curve out your desired shape.
Band saws
Band saws are a type of power saw that is excellent at cutting through deep pieces of wood. This kind of hand saw has a long, sharp, often narrow blade that is situated between two wheels. Band saws are stationary pieces of woodworking machinery, and are perfect for woodwork workshops.
There is a safety element to these hand saws which is a great benefit. As there is no danger of kick back, band saws are considered a safer choice of woodworking machinery.
The most common use for a bandsaw is cutting irregular shapes in your wood. If you’re working on a woodworking project and need to cut some irregular shapes, this saw is often what you’ll use to achieve this.
Beam saws
Beam saws are a useful type of saw that consist of large blades that cut panels into pieces. They are well known for their precision and accuracy. Beam saws can also save you a lot of time, as they can cut multiple panels of wood at a time. This is fantastic for saving you time and energy when completing your woodworking projects.
There are two styles of beam saws that you should know about: front loading beam saws and rear loading beam saws. Front loading beam saws is when the material is fed into the machine from the front, whereas rear loading is when the material is automatically loaded into the machine from the back.
We hope you found this guide to the different kinds of woodworking saws useful. Thank you for reading.
David Prior
David Prior is the editor of Today News, responsible for the overall editorial strategy. He is an NCTJ-qualified journalist with over 20 years’ experience, and is also editor of the award-winning hyperlocal news title Altrincham Today. His LinkedIn profile is here.
