>The more I play with this thing the more I kinda like it. At the moment I've just got a " Shark Saw ", the one with the " handy-dandy " push button blade release thingie. I'm wondering about the pretty Japanese saws in LV, GW, etc. Keeping in mind that you get what you pay for . . . does the performance match the price up-grade ? As I keep discovering new things THIS one will do, I can't help but think the better ones might do even more more things I haven't thought of yet.
>If you're interested in Japanese saws, a good way to try one out is to get one of the Gyokucho saws. They have disposable blades, and run from $25-45, depending on which one you get.
You might try a ryoba, which is a double sided saw where one side is made with rip teeth and the other with crosscut teeth. A dozuki, which is a backed saw, much like a tenon or dovetail saw tend to be more towards the $45 end of the range. They usually have crosscut profiles, which some people see as an issue, but I haven't really found it to be one in terms of cutting tenons or dovetails.
You can find them at Hida Tool, or the Japan Woodworker.
>I'm not sure the better saws do more stuff, but they do the same old thing better. I have hardly ever spent more money for a Japanese tool without observing an increase in performance. The exception are decorative elements where sometimes the performance goes down with price. That isn't to say that if you splshed out 12K for a ryoba it would be 1000x times better than a 12 d0llar one, but I bet it's better than a 300 dollar one, though come to think of it, I don't actully know. :)
Generally the more pricy saws saw straighter and with a lot less resistance, and they are less likely to kink on the return stroke, though you can do a lot more dollar damage if you aren't careful. You would norice a big difference if you were ripping boards, but if you use a bandsaw, etc... for that, and you use the handsaws mostly for stuff like dovetails and tenons, I'm not sure the results will show in your work, though it is still more fun to use the better saws anyway.
I once trimed a door with a new ryoba, only to find some stapples I hadn't noticed. there are good reasons to have some disposable blade saws...
>I agree with both Wilbur and Thom. Get a couple of Gyokucho's and learn with them. Also, make your mistakes with them. Here's what I mean by that....
If you crosscut a green 2x with a Gyokucho 210mm ryoba and kink or snap off the blade when it hangs on the return stroke, you're out $20 or whatever for a new blade. If you do the same thing with a top-end Mitsukawa, your $300 saw has just turned into some really nice scraper stock.
I once hit a piece of staple in a borg maple board, and took about 8 teeth off a $180 Mitsukawa dozuki. More scraper stock. Oh well, at least it wasn't a Miyano.
Nother war story....doing 2x4 carpentry on a make shift bench outside. Left a nice $165 Chueymon 240mm ryoba on top of the bench with a length of 2x6. Turn around, bump the bench, everything heads to the ground at 32ft/sec/sec, 2x6 lands on Chueymon...dead. More scraper stock. I have some really nice scrapers.
It's not that the real-deal Japanese saws are bad designs. It's that they're not idiot-proofed. The basic assumption of the maker is that you, the buyer, know how to use and take care of the saw.
One other observation is that the higher-end Japanese saws which are readily available to us tend to be 210mm and 240mm. These are the right size saws for 3/4 and 4/4 cabinetry (usually), but they are undersized for cutting stock to length, or for most joinery. This is because the tooth count is too high, and the saw plate too thin. For the latter applications, a saw in the 270mm or 300mm range is usually indicated. It's not the length per se that matters; the 270mm or especially 300mm saw will have a heavier plate and fewer teeth than its 240mm counterpart. I know I spent 5 years consistently sawing with a saws that tended to be one or two sizes too small for the application. I would encourage anyone buying Gyokucho's for general application, to start with the 300mm and work downward based on experience.