IN this day and age of enlightenment it 

 is impossible to believe that there is any- 

 body who doesn't know everything 

 about saws — plain, ordinary carpenter saws. 

 A saw is the simplest thing in the world. It 

 is made of flexible steel with little nicks 

 along the edge that tear a narrow slot in 

 a piece of wood. Of course ! But do you 

 know the real difference between a rip- 



Discovering the Well Known Saw 



Do you know that a rip-saw is really a 

 series of chisels ? Look at its teeth 

 under a microscope and see for yourself 



saw and across-cut saw? If you do you know 

 more about saws than do most mechanics. 

 The fact is that a rip-saw is nothing more 

 or less than a close-knit succession of tilted 

 chisels. If a chisel is driven lightly into a 

 board and pushed lengthwise with the 

 grain it picks up a shaving. This is the 

 principle on which the rip-saw cuts. To 

 avoid side friction and binding, the teeth of 

 a rip-saw are swaged or projected outwards 

 from the saw-blade so that nothing but the 

 extreme points experience any side friction. 

 These extreme points are brought to needle- 

 point sharpness. In other words, the tooth 

 of each rip-saw cuts with its point and about 

 one half of the edge. 







In the oval above, the teeth of the rip-saw are shown magnified. They are sharpened on the end so 

 that they chip off the ends of the fibers that run lengthwise of the channel, just as a chisel does, as 

 is shown in die lower right comer of the picture. At left of the picture are the shavings as they 

 appear when greatly magnified under the microscope, if the rip-saw has been correctly used 



