How a Japanese Pull Saw Changed My Weekend Projects

The first tenon I cut with a pull saw came out crooked, and it was not the saw's fault. It was mine. I had spent thirty years pushing handsaws through pine and oak, and a Japanese saw does not work that way. It cuts on the pull stroke, and the blade is thin enough that pushing it just walks it off the line.

That was about three years ago, in the one bay of the garage I use for a shop. My old backsaw had a brass spine and enough set to wander in a tenon cheek, and my bench vise never held it the way I wanted. I wanted a saw I could pick up, cut a shoulder with, and hang back on the pegboard without a production number.

The SUIZAN 9.5 inch Ryoba is what I bought. It hangs next to my combination square now and it is the oldest tool on that wall. Rip teeth on one edge, finer crosscut teeth on the other, so it is two saws sharing one handle. In an 11 by 20 foot shop, that matters more than it sounds.

The first thing you notice is the kerf. The blade is 0.02 in thick, about half a millimeter, and it leaves a 0.03 in kerf, roughly 0.8 mm. That is narrower than the pencil line I mark with, so my dovetail pins did not need paring back to fit. The saw was removing less wood than I was used to, and my joints got tighter without me getting any better.

Pull stroke, straight blade, clean exit on the far side. I cut the shoulders on a bookshelf for my granddaughter last spring and never touched them with a chisel afterward. That had not happened to me before.

Hand tools suit me now. The table saw still does the heavy ripping, but the neighbors are close and the saw is loud, so most evenings I work with what hangs on the pegboard. A pull saw makes almost no noise, which my wife Carol appreciates more than she lets on.

A 0.03 in kerf is narrower than the pencil line. The saw was taking out less wood than I was used to, and my joints got tighter without me getting any better.

The rip side is the one I reach for on tenons. Nine teeth per inch moves through a cheek fast enough that I cut to the line instead of sneaking up on it, which is how I ended up with that crooked first cut in the first place. The crosscut edge at 15 TPI handles shoulders, picture frame miters, and the trim cuts on a cutting board glue-up.

The other job it took over was flush trimming dowels. One hand on the saw, one hand holding the plug steady, and a dozen pull strokes take it down level with the surface. The blade is thin with almost no set to it, so it does not tear the face around the dowel the way my old saw did.

Blade changes are a single screw. When the teeth on mine finally dulled, I loosened that screw, slid the new blade in, and was cutting again the same afternoon. SUIZAN sells the 9.5 inch replacement blade separately, so it is a running cost and not a one-time buy. The saw ships with a blade guard and I use it every time, because a blade that thin will find a thumb faster than you would think.

What it will not do is everything. The blade is thin, and if you twist it in a deep cut it will kink, and a kinked blade is a finished blade. It does not belong anywhere near reclaimed lumber with nails or staples in it. And you have to learn to pull. The 9 degree cutting angle and the sharp teeth do the work, but only if you let them. My first month with it I was slower than I had been with a backsaw, and I want you to know that going in.

It measures 23.2 in end to end and weighs 0.2 kg, so it hangs flat against the pegboard and does not swing when the garage door goes up. Small thing. In a shop this size, small things add up.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

I would tell you to buy the saw, and then I would tell you to leave your backsaw hanging where it is. The SUIZAN is what I pick up for joinery, trim cuts, and anything where the line matters, and it has earned that spot over three years of step stools, picture frames, a blanket chest, cutting boards, and one slow bookshelf. It is not a framing saw, and it will not replace the beater you use on lumber with grit in it. Buy a scrap of pine, mark a line, and practice pulling until the saw follows the line on its own. That takes an afternoon, not a season. My advice is to buy it for the joints you keep fighting, not because a video made it look easy. And if you drop it, check the blade before the next cut.