Which Hand Saw?

George Hincapie · 10 May 2015 at 23:54

I am making a play area in the garden for the boys to permanently contain the trampoline. I am going to hire a man and digger to come and remove soil, then lay a membrane and fill with bar/rubber chippings. I'll separate the area from the rest of the garden with sleepers, but need a saw to cut them. Any suggestions?

I could hire a chainsaw, but I doubt that'd end well

Terminal_Boy · 11 May 2015 at 00:05

Bench mounted circular saw if you're going to be cutting thick wooden planks or sleepers.

Get one with an automatic blade guard.

Nedved11 · 11 May 2015 at 00:18

How thick are the sleepers? Most DIY circular saws are not big enough to cut 6"+ sleepers. Bit of elbow grease with a good handsaw will be fine. I use an Irwin Jack Evo Universal Hand Saw 21" saw. A very good hand saw.

NickK · 11 May 2015 at 08:14

Have a 7 tpi axminster hand saw that I use for heavy jobs. Get a mitre box to keep the edges straight and you're laughing.

Circular saw, but as Nedved11 says you may need to cut, rotate, cut, rotate, ... whereas my hand saw is almost as fast as it takes less time to setup..

gort · 12 May 2015 at 13:09

Nedved11 said:
How thick are the sleepers? Most DIY circular saws are not big enough to cut 6"+ sleepers. Bit of elbow grease with a good handsaw will be fine. I use an Irwin Jack Evo Universal Hand Saw 21" saw. A very good hand saw.

I cut 150mm sleepers with a cheapo circular saw with cutting depth of 80mm. I ended up flipping the wood over and cut through from the other side. Obviously lining up is the key.
I think out of around 15 or so cuts, maybe around 3 were a bit off but as it was for raised beds I could butt up the rougher ends to the other bits of wood. I expected (and could afford) to have a few slight mishaps and it worked out well in the end.

If I HAD to have all the ends neat, I wouldn't have don't it like this.

jl10000 · 12 May 2015 at 17:26

Spear and Jackson make the best hard point saws, but they are designed for dry stuff. A good quality bow saw will work well for this application. You can get normal hand saws that are designed for working green wood, which will be more accurate than a bow saw, however I have never tried one.

Mark A · 12 May 2015 at 17:47

Just spray the blade with wd40 or wax and it'll cut through damp sleepers.

http://www.screwfix.com/p/stanley-fatmax-heavy-duty-saw-22/23343 I'd probably go for something like this.

Modern 'sleepers' are basically just treated whitewood and shouldn't pose much of a problem. Nice bit of free cardio

.

NickK · 12 May 2015 at 18:28

Yup - pretty much what I have 7tpi, does well enough if you can start it off straight. Didn't think of suggesting a bow saw.. would stop flexing.

If you use a circular saw on green wood then it'll rust the blade and all the crap sticks to the inside of the saw.. Nice.

George Hincapie · 12 May 2015 at 23:23

Thanks guys - I am grateful for those suggestions.