American Carpenter Tries a Japanese Pull Saw: "I've Been Fighting My Saw My Whole Life"

A framer with thirty years on him picked up a Japanese pull saw, pushed it the only way he had ever pushed a saw... and watched it skate off the line like a toy. Wade Coyle has cut miles of lumber across North Carolina. He can split a pencil line freehand. So when the thin little blade flexed and wandered, he was sure he had it pegged. Something that flimsy has to be junk. Then somebody told him to pull instead of push. The blade went dead straight and dropped through the board clean. And the thin little blade he had written off as a toy left a thirty-year framer questioning every cut he has ever made. This one is about the pull stroke, the thin kerf, the hard laminated steel, and why a strong man spent thirty years fighting a tool that never needed the fight. If the little Japanese truck that shamed a Michigan mechanic stuck with you, here is that same idea at a workbench. I respect a man proud of the tools in his own truck, and I mean that. This was never about the flag stamped on the handle. Wade's stiff saw does rough, fast work this one cannot touch. It is about what one maker got all the way right. A fresh one lands most weeks. Bring your coffee and sit in. Now, I know "buy American" is close to a religion for some of you, and I respect it. I mean that. But respecting the flag doesn't mean pretending a tool works when it doesn't. I've watched too many good men fight a bad tool because the box had the right words on it. Look at the steel. The steel doesn't care where it was born. Judge the work, not the label. #japanesetools #pullsaw #woodworking