I’ve been hanging out with serious craftsmen/carpenters and virtuoso builders in Canada over the last year and seen that many of them use Japanese saws. Bruno Atkey, who builds split-cedar cabins in the remote woods, told me he uses the Ryoba exclusively; he’s abandoned his American push-saws. I bought a Ryoba and was amazed at how much better it is than my big ccollection of American handsaws. It does everything better. It has two different types of teeth.
Traditional Japanese Ryoba Handsaw with two types of teeth
$42.50 from Lee Valley Tools
About Lloyd Kahn
Lloyd Kahn started building his own home in the early '60s and went on to publish books showing homeowners how they could build their own homes with their own hands. He got his start in publishing by working as the shelter editor of the
Whole Earth Catalog with Stewart Brand in the late '60s. He has since authored six highly-graphic books on homemade building, all of which are interrelated. The books, "The Shelter Library Of Building Books," include
Shelter,
Shelter II (1978),
Home Work (2004),
Builders of the Pacific Coast (2008),
Tiny Homes (2012), and
Tiny Homes on the Move (2014). Lloyd operates from Northern California studio built of recycled lumber, set in the midst of a vegetable garden, and hooked into the world via five Mac computers. You can check out videos (one with over 450,000 views) on Lloyd by doing a search on YouTube:
Would you recommend this Ryoba to a novice woodworker? I have read some good things about Japanese hand saws, and I am wondering if it is worth the investment.
Brian, Yes, I definitely would. -Lloyd
One more novice-y question… Have you ever used the Ryoba to cut pole wood, or just dimensional lumber? Any comments on that?