The wood saw is a sine qua non—“without which, not”—of woodworking. It’s a basic tool, so essential that we’ve found copper saws in Egyptian tombs (for DIY pharaohs). Paleo saws were toothed with sharks’ teeth, bone, and flint. Early engineered saws were manufactured in toughened bronze, then iron, and later in good sword steel. Medieval steel saws with thin, beaten blades and credible teeth cut very well.
Shortening a board of size with a heavy blow using a hewing tool isn’t practical. You want a precision cutter, and like any hand tool it will require understanding and practice to use well. This installment of Getting Started in Boats is an invitation to hone your saw skills.
Saws are faster and more efficient than so-called hewing tools—axes and adzes that chop and chip. The earnest gentlemen above are cutting the trunk of a felled tree. To shorten the tree bole with axes, they would chip away a V-shaped excavation at least as broad as the trunk. The saw intrudes only the width of its blade. The pit-saw team on the cover (stolen and perverted from one of Hokusai’s 35 Views of Fuji) can slice a score of flat, useful planks from that elevated trunk. Splitting and hewing a smaller number of planks would be messy, time-consuming, and wasteful.