Work is busy lately, and stressful due to hard deadlines, so not much posting. Hopefully that will change in a month or two as my amount of making has been pretty minimal and making is one of the few things where I can disappear into another space physically and beyond that. I may post more on here and clean things up, but I could be saying the same thing in three years, just like I always have.
But, on to the topic – a few years ago, i got a dozen Japanese crosscut saws. They’re wonderful – perhaps 300-350mm with resharpenable teeth, partially machine made, it would appear. They are suitable for anything – 8/4 hardwoods, whatever, as long as one doesn’t try to crank on them. They’re not made for that with the tooth hardness where it is, even though the teeth themselves are not the taller thinner type you find on a ryoba. They’re not 60 degrees, but they’re between and crisp and will cut with a long western crosscut saw. 
I allowed them to get some minor rust due to where they were stored – oops. These things were the princely sum of $18 for 12, though figure another $30 or $40 to actually get them here to the states.
Then at some point after that, I bought a group of larger saws that I think were about $100. You can’t tell the scale of the crosscut saws above, but they are well beyond the speed and aggression of something like a Z300, and with less set.
The larger saws that I got, I think I’ve realized that maybe i didn’t need them!
At the time, I was hoping to snag a $10 or $20 saw for green wood to use just for fun, but everything I found was about the same for one saw as a dozen of these. the smallest and the largest of the bunch is shown here below the Z 265. From that, you can scale things. The smaller of the two is made to look like maybe it would be suitable for large wood at the bench, but it’s really not. I don’t know what it’s for – construction?
The larger saw is gigantic and the tang goes well further below where the picture ends and is tilted down, presumably for a handle that’s titled forward, but closer to vertical, or perhaps just a handle stuffed on the end of it. I’ll have to look.
The group had a pair of these. it’ll take more than three or four inch limbwood to use the bigger saw here, but I’m determined to figure it out over time. They are all factory made (probably a small factory), but have some hand work on them, and forge welded lap joints which I’ve seen on other high quality saws.
No part of a japanese saw like this has to fight with the handle hitting the wood being cut, so what you see in size is really equivalent to a western saw half again more or double – double is probably a reasonable approximation as you can’t put the tip of a 42 inch log saw into a log 2 or 3 inches in and just push or the saw will bind. These can go nearly to the near side of the cut and then all the way back.
The top saw has 19 inches of tooth line and the bottom has 24 inches, just at the teeth. The numerical values don’t do it justice, but it’s probably in line with a 42 or 48 inch disston one man log saw.
It’s not going to beat someone with a chainsaw, but I’m waiting for an excuse to use it. I suspect that someone with only a few trees on a suburban lot would be able to buck a moderate sized tree over a few days or a week.
I get it that most people would think something like that is stupid. I limbed one of my trees a few years ago and a neighbor offered a chainsaw. I have one already, a good one. Sometimes it’s nice to feel the work, at least for part of the project. I love running a good chainsaw, but there’s not a whole lot of feel going on there, and for the tool doing the work, it really has a way of making you sore later and tired now.
Of Making by Hand with Wood and Steel 
Too right that slow and deliberate might be preferrable to loud and fast. It’s not as if a few extra minutes will prevent me from finishing The Great American novel. However – I can’t imagine making a living hunched over a Whaleback in high Summer.
Maybe I’ll keep my backyard lumberjack Makita for the bigger stuff.
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Too, I don’t think I’d want to make 10 undercuts on a bound log with the large saw in the picture above. I have a bad habit with a chainsaw. I start to get in a hurry with a fascination for keeping every cut in rhythm and having the saw as much as possible. I don’t know what to equate that to, but it’s the same kind of thing of not wanting to break cruise control on the highway when you’re counting time.
Results in the odd log or limbwood that’s strangely short or strangely long. Plenty wary of binding, ill consequence releases and things of the like, so not so much a safety thing. I love to do stuff in a rhythm – and a chainsaw sometimes can go faster than I can think.
I always refer to my saw is a dolmar, but i’m pretty sure it’s marked makita, too (6100). I’m dying to get it in some bigger wood than I have in my yard.
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My last gas motor was a Dolmar 9600. I tired of carrying fuel and switched to the Battery powered offerings. Adequate, but limited performance is enough, now.
I don’t have storm debris to clear, and burn only to supplement our heat. I like the limitations the battery exacts – when the cells overheat, I haul a little.
When the batteries are discharged, I split and stack.
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