THE YOUNG FARMER'S MANUAL. 409 



tooth is made to cut deeper than it is capable of cutting without 

 staggering or springing aside ; and when the cut of a saw is all 

 notched and jagged, it is very evident that each tooth is made to 

 cut too deep. If the plate of a saw is very thin, the teeth must 

 be fine, else it will spring, and work badly. If the plate is a 

 thick one, the teeth may be farther apart without danger of 

 springing, but the cut will not be as smooth as if there were 

 more teeth. A saw having fine teeth will require more filing and 

 setting, but it will do the work enough better to compensate for 

 any extra expense in putting it in order. 



607. The teeth in circular saws from twenty to thirty inches 

 in diameter, for cutting firewood, ought not to be more than an 

 inch or an inch and a fourth apart to work the best, taking hard 

 wood and soft, large and small, together. Each tooth can cut 

 only a certain distance to good advantage, and this distance is 

 in proportion to the hardness or softness of the timber. In saw 

 ing soft wood, if there are a great many teeth the saw-dust is cut 

 very fine ; and each tooth does not cut as deep as it should, espe 

 cially if the power is limited. Consequently there is a loss of power. 



608. A buzz slaw, for slitting boards and plank, for both hard 

 and soft timber, should have rather fine teeth, where smooth work 

 is any object, unless the velocity with which such a saw revolves 

 is unusually great. (See VELOCITY OF SAWS, 680.) A tenon 

 saw for ordinary purposes should have about eight teeth in an 

 inch. Such a saw will cut about right for sawing the limbs of 

 trees preparatory to grafting. 



609. Circular slitting saws, as a general thing, have too few 

 teeth to do smooth work, unless the materials to be slit are pretty 

 thick. In a saw forty-eight inches in diameter, for sawing soft 

 wood good sawyers say there should be about twenty-four to 

 thirty teeth, and for hard wood about forty teeth. A small circular 

 saw ten or twelve inches in diameter, for slitting hard wood plank 

 and boards, should have the points of the teeth about half an 

 inch apart. The thinner the blade the finer the teeth must be. 



610. I am now using a circular saw about one foot in diame 

 ter, the teeth of which were about three inches apart at the cut- 



