A Question about Folding Saws

[Sweetfancymoses]

Years ago I was gifted a Coghlan folding saw and have never really needed to use anything else. I keep meaning to replace the blade but it keeps on ripping thru anything I throw at it. The one downside to the design is the triangular frame. It'll only handle up to a certain circumference of log before bottoming out still in the cut.

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I have one of these also. I bought it at an outlet store for something like $5. It was labeled as "What-A-Saw" and came with three blades (green wood, dry wood, and metal.) I replaced the green wood blade once. There are better designs but it gets the job done.

 

[Tsuga8]

I will also mention that I've tripped many times without a saw. It's easy enough to find dead and down and break it over a rock or use a star-fire (no, not the canoe model) to avoid needing to section wood at all. But I've never NEEDED a fire in the rain.

 

[Boreal Birch]

Tsuga8…….
If you never NEEDED a fire in the rain then probably you don’t know how truly lucky you must be. I never NEEDED a fire in the rain except for a handful of times. I won’t go into those times, but if you are tall and thin you may run into Mother Nature’s dark disposition called HYPOTHERMIA where a quick big fire or two might just save you or someone on your canoe trip’s Bacon. Shorter and fatter people have a better outcome in hypothermia situations, they get to help news reporters reconstruct the story of how they survived a cold wet day, when others they were with perished. I personally have never had hypothermia but have been with those that did. Quick hot fires, hot drinks & warm dry clothes are what kept them from becoming statistic’s.
I’m not really tall, not thin either, the people that I helped were. Exacerbated by poor quality rain gear.

 

[deerfly]

I have a few silky saws, pocketboy, gomboy curve 240 and a katana 650. Pocket boy was my first silky, going on about 6 years I guess. Gets used a lot camping and hunting because I always have it on my belt or in my pack. Pocketboy and a sturdy enough knife to baton with or small hatchet will do all the cutting chores you need for solo or modest tandem campfire or lean to shelter sort of stuff. If I were to get another one I'd get the curved blade. After using the gomboy with the curved blade I think they cut a little faster. I like the longer gomboy for around camp too. Its almost twice as long as the pocketboy folded but its still very compact, but plenty capable as general purpose camp saw. The katana 650 is a beast and will cut anything you'd normally attack with a chainsaw, but you'll burn some calories in the process. I mostly keep it behind the jump seat in my truck just to have on hand to clear blow downs I may encounter on forest roads or to cut bigger camp fire logs without having to haul a chainsaw and gas around all the time. Anyway, silky makes fine saws, very impressed with mine.

 

[pblanc]

Silky saw. Choose the size that fits your needs the best.

 

[sweeper]

I took my Gomboy with us on an Allagash run this year. My son broke a 1/3 of it off. I've never broken a Friskar Saw

 

[deerfly]

usually when people break silky saw blades its from pushing the blade into the wood instead of only applying pressure while pulling through the cut. Use them the way they were designed and you shouldn't have any problems. I have literally thousands of cuts between my pocketboy and gomboy, still on original blades too, no issues.

 

[Tsuga8]

Tsuga8…….
If you never NEEDED a fire in the rain then probably you don’t know how truly lucky you must be. I never NEEDED a fire in the rain except for a handful of times. I won’t go into those times, but if you are tall and thin you may run into Mother Nature’s dark disposition called HYPOTHERMIA where a quick big fire or two might just save you or someone on your canoe trip’s Bacon. Shorter and fatter people have a better outcome in hypothermia situations, they get to help news reporters reconstruct the story of how they survived a cold wet day, when others they were with perished. I personally have never had hypothermia but have been with those that did. Quick hot fires, hot drinks & warm dry clothes are what kept them from becoming statistic’s.
I’m not really tall, not thin either, the people that I helped were. Exacerbated by poor quality rain gear.

I'm with you on taking hypothermia very seriously. But there are other ways to deal with it, potentially with lighter gear or choosing tripping conditions where risk is reduced or eliminated. A bundle of birchbark, a water/windproof lighter, a thermal bivy sack, a pocket stove....might each end up as less weight than a saw. If Blackfly is really looking to shed pounds, leaving the saw at home is an option that doesn't necessitate hypothermia. Would I do a month in northern Canada without a saw, maybe not. A warm weekend in the Daks, absolutely. Just saying, a person doesn't NEED to trip with a saw, if shedding pounds is top priority (after safety).

 

[alsg]

If you primarily want something for clearing sweepers I think something like the Silky that ErktheRed shows above is a good choice since it gives you greater reach. But since you need two hands to operate it, I'm not sure how good it would be at processing firewood in camp unless you have a second set of hands to steady.

I like a collapsible buck saw or bow saw for bucking/processing firewood for a couple of reasons. First, it is what they are designed for and they are very efficient at it because that thin kerf blade means less work because you aren't taking a thick bite with every stroke. Just make sure you have a dry wood blade mounted rather than a green wood blade (many hardware store bow saw comes with a green wood blade because they are sold for pruning). A dry wood blade makes a huge difference in cutting efficiency when cutting dry wood and you should be processing dry wood for firewood! The other advantage of a properly sized buck saw/bow saw is that you can operate it one-handed while steadying the firewood with the other. Place your steadying hand through the saw's frame to hold the firewood and you cannot cut yourself if the saw jumps out of the cut because the dull side of the blade will just bonk into the bottom of your steadying hand's wrist or forearm. Seems awkward at first but doesn't take long to get used to. I get the shivers when I see someone operating a buck saw or bow saw with the steadying hand the usual way. Lots of stories of people badly cutting the top of their steadying hand doing it that way.

 

[scoutergriz]

As Alsg says " I get the shivers when I see someone operating a buck saw or bow saw with the steadying hand the usual way. Lots of stories of people badly cutting the top of their steadying hand doing it that way", I too get shivers- that's why I always taught the "hand through the bow" message as well as kneeling when using a hatchet, and using a stop log when using an axe...
people that don't are why I carry steri-strips, a surgical stapler, and quick- clot

 

[Tsuga8]

Ok I'll bite. I'm not familiar with the hand-thru-the-bow-saw safety method. I am careful starting a cut, and try to keep my steadying hand at least a good 6-8in from the cut area. I can imagine the damage easily done by running a bow saw over a hand, but how does it happen, since it seems like you folks have some war stories? Starting the cut is obviously a risky time. Seems like once the blade is well into the cut, the risk is greatly reduced. Am I missing something?

 

[lowangle al]

A little side note on gathering firewood in general. I've gotten hurt more times when not using a saw or axe. Snapping sticks by hand or over your knee or stomping on them, has resulted in plenty of injuries over the years. I don't remember ever getting hurt using a saw or axe.

 

[Tsuga8]

A very fair point, though I've learned how to reduce risk in processing firewood those ways as well.

 

[lowangle al]

More than once I've stepped on a stick and had the broken part come back and hit me in the head/face.

 

[alsg]

Ok I'll bite. I'm not familiar with the hand-thru-the-bow-saw safety method. I am careful starting a cut, and try to keep my steadying hand at least a good 6-8in from the cut area. I can imagine the damage easily done by running a bow saw over a hand, but how does it happen, since it seems like you folks have some war stories? Starting the cut is obviously a risky time. Seems like once the blade is well into the cut, the risk is greatly reduced. Am I missing something?

Here's a video teed up to the point where he properly puts his hand through the bow. Sorry for the gruesome click-bait cover photo.

 

[scoutergriz]

Ok I'll bite. I'm not familiar with the hand-thru-the-bow-saw safety method. I am careful starting a cut, and try to keep my steadying hand at least a good 6-8in from the cut area. I can imagine the damage easily done by running a bow saw over a hand, but how does it happen, since it seems like you folks have some war stories? Starting the cut is obviously a risky time. Seems like once the blade is well into the cut, the risk is greatly reduced. Am I missing something?

it's simple really, any time there's a change in the composition there's a chance for the blade to bind, a change in your angle of attack can have the same effect, and that binding can cause the saw to bounce out of the cut, the most common times are going from bark to sapwood and from sapwood to heart wood- so usually within the first inch, the "through the saw grip" is usually only for that time as to hold it that way for longer would be almost impossible because your wrist would prevent the saw from going deeper

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

I don't care for bow saws. The unfoldable kind of aren't suitable for canoe trips.

The downsides of folding bow saws are:

- They take too long to put together when you just want to quickly clear a log, branch or some brush from the canoe on the river or on a portage. A folding pruning saw can be retrieved, opened, closed and put back almost as fast as a pocket knife.

- You are limited in the diameter of wood you can cut within a small, especially a triangular, buck saw frame. Not so with a frameless pruning saw.

- You can't easily reach between the closely packed branches of conifers and some other trees to cut dead branches with a bucksaw frame. A pruning saw can be surgically inserted into small spaces.

The other advantage of a properly sized buck saw/bow saw is that you can operate it one-handed while steadying the firewood with the other.

You can operate pruning saws more easily one-handed than a more top heavy buck saw, other than gigantic pruning saws such as the Silky KatanaBoy.

"through the saw grip"

I suppose with a pruning saw one could use an "over the saw grip", but I must confess that I never thought of it. I'll try it. I suspect that blade jumping out of the kerf is less likely to happen on a pull cut (as Silky saws only allow) than on a push cut, but I'm open to correction on this issue.

 

[Boatman53]

I love the pull cut saws. I have been using the Japanese carpentry saws for more than 30 years. I have never been bit by one but my Sven saw has nicked me a couple of time and mis judging the stroke I’ve rapped my knuckles more than once. The Silky saws take up almost no room and are very handy. I have one that packs into the tray of my fire box and it is all I need to get a fire going.
Last year my friend brought a Silky saw (I think it was a Big Boy Katana) and he cleared a portage in no time. In my opinion it was too big to bring and that was the only time it was used, but it did the trick.
Jim

 

[DougK]

I never NEEDED a fire in the rain except for a handful of times. I won’t go into those times, but if you are tall and thin you may run into Mother Nature’s dark disposition called HYPOTHERMIA where a quick big fire or two might just save you or someone on your canoe trip’s Bacon.

as a 6'2" marathon runner I can confirm..
from my trip report,



"The rain began, driven hard by an upstream wind into our faces, like being pelted with small cold pellets. The temperature was medium 40s. As this all soaked slowly into us, on a river which was snow yesterday, it became distinctly cold. Reaching camp at 4pm, we immediately dragged up a heap of driftwood, soaked it in Coleman fuel, and torched it. No energy to accomplish anything except steam gently in front of the fire. I had a backpacking tarp secreted at the bottom of the drybag. We put it up with some paddles for tentpoles, then performed the hypothermia pavane, twirling slowly between shelter and the fire."

Last week in BWCA I carried both a folding saw and a small hatchet. I find the hatchet useful for splitting kindling, after several days of rain the only dry wood is inside the logs..
The saw was new, a basic pruning folder, which worked surprisingly well. I'd had my eye on one of the folding bow saws but the pruner is much lighter and seems just as efficient, think I'll stick with it. Maybe upgrade to a Silky should I live so long.

 

[SouthernKevlar]

For me it is my Silky Gomboy 170, then my old Sven Saw, and then my 30-some year old Estwing campers ax (the 26" handle makes this a handy tool). They all seem to have their place in camp.
If I'm reducing weight, I leave the Sven Saw at home. If I'm only going with a small pack I take the just the Silky, but sometimes miss the Estwing; it comes in mighty useful at times.