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Hand tools for cutting wood

Know your coping saws from your wood chisels!
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Whether you’ve got an upcoming DIY project or not, at some stage you’ll probably want to familiarise yourself with the essentials and must-haves of a tool belt.

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Even if you can’t see yourself adopting the tradie life any time soon, it’s still worth wrapping your head around the difference between a tenon saw and a dovetail saw, and a coping saw and a wood chisel.

Here’s a look at some common hand tools for working with timber.

hand-saw

Handsaw

A general-purpose handsaw is one of the first tools in most toolboxes. The saw can handle cutting across the grain (cross-cutting) and along the grain (rip cutting). They’re around 500mm long but you can buy smaller saws that do the same job but fit into a toolbox for easy storage. The handles on most saws are moulded at 90 and 45 degree angles to the blade so you can use them as a square for quick marking of angled crosscuts.

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tenon-saw

Tenon saw

A tenon saw is a short fine-toothed saw use for fine cutting and making joins in timber. The square end and stiffened rib along the blade keep it rigid for accurate cutting.

coping-saw

Coping saw

The D-shaped frame and flexible narrow blade, allow you to cut tight curves through timber. It is used for fine detail work and cutting one side of a scribed join where skirting boards meet at an internal corner.

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(Credit: Getty) (Credit: Getty)

Dovetail handsaws

A dovetail saw is used for creating fine joints – like the dovetail after which it is named! It has a thinner blade than a tenon saw and more teeth for a finer cut.

plane

Planes

Hand planes are used to smooth timber prior to the finer finish of sanding. The fine-tuning and sharp blade allows you to take thin shavings off timber with much more accuracy than a power plane. A bench plane is used for initial smoothing of rough timber and should be followed with a smoothing plane.

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wood-chisel

Wood chisels

Chisels are used for scoring and removing timber for rebates and smoothing in tight areas where a plane is impractical. They are struck with a mallet when removing timber and by hand for smoothing. Common uses for the DIYer are smoothing notches in posts and creating rebates in doors for hinges and handles.

japanese-hand-saw

Japanese handsaw

Japanese handsaws are fine-toothed saws that cut on the pull stroke not the push like conventional saws. It also has a thinner blade so is perfect for situations when you don’t want a wide cut through the timber.

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