Cliff Stamp
BANNED
- Joined
- Oct 5, 1998
- Messages
- 17,562
These saws (Dozuki) are used instead of large chopping blades on many types of hard vegetation such as Bamboo. They cut cleanly with little fatigue and unlike chopping, do not require a large amount of clearance to be effective. This means among other things that you can cut much closer to the ground and thus reduce wastage. The teeth are triple ground and angled so as to cut on the pull stroke.
This one is a folding model available from Lee Valley. It cuts *much* faster and with less fatigue than the saw on my SAK, including when you factor in the difference in edge length. It is also in the same ballpark in regards to effort and time as compared to a decent large blade used to chop similar wood (the Battle Mistress for example). The edge retention is much greater than the Gerber Sports saw as I have cut about twice as much wood with the Dozuki and have seen no degredation in performance.
The only real drawback which keeps me from using is as an "outdoors" saw, is that unless you keep the force perpendicular to the blade on the stroke, you will easily put a set in the blade and destroy the cutting ability. The durability is *very* low as compared to the spring tempered Western saws that you really need to exert an extreme force on in order to grossly damage.
This lack of durability however is not a universal problem. There are many models (same as knives) and the better ones are much more durable and are commonly used for outdoors work including felling and fabrication involving freshly cut vegetation. They however do cost significantly more than this particular model.
I would be interested in a pruning type blade, with similar teeth but with a much more narrow blade that is a bit stiffer and with a spring temper. Anyone who knows of such a blade drop me an email (note the teeth either need to have a set or the blade a taper).
Some more detail :
http://www.physics.mun.ca/~sstamp/knives/folding_dozuki.html
-Cliff
This one is a folding model available from Lee Valley. It cuts *much* faster and with less fatigue than the saw on my SAK, including when you factor in the difference in edge length. It is also in the same ballpark in regards to effort and time as compared to a decent large blade used to chop similar wood (the Battle Mistress for example). The edge retention is much greater than the Gerber Sports saw as I have cut about twice as much wood with the Dozuki and have seen no degredation in performance.
The only real drawback which keeps me from using is as an "outdoors" saw, is that unless you keep the force perpendicular to the blade on the stroke, you will easily put a set in the blade and destroy the cutting ability. The durability is *very* low as compared to the spring tempered Western saws that you really need to exert an extreme force on in order to grossly damage.
This lack of durability however is not a universal problem. There are many models (same as knives) and the better ones are much more durable and are commonly used for outdoors work including felling and fabrication involving freshly cut vegetation. They however do cost significantly more than this particular model.
I would be interested in a pruning type blade, with similar teeth but with a much more narrow blade that is a bit stiffer and with a spring temper. Anyone who knows of such a blade drop me an email (note the teeth either need to have a set or the blade a taper).
Some more detail :
http://www.physics.mun.ca/~sstamp/knives/folding_dozuki.html
-Cliff