So HOOP, do you think it is worth it to carry a now saw along with me? I have found with bow saws that some are awesome saws and some are terrible. I think a lot has to do with the blade steel. What brands do you prefer for bow saws? Also, do you use a tear shaped saw or the regular framed bow saw?
Thanks, Alex
Hi Alex. I have several brands of bow saw (Bacho, Sandvik, Gman, unknown). I use the ones with the "bow" space at both ends so that it can cut poles and small logs with a full stroke, not the triangles. The triangles IMO are useless because most of the blade's stroke is impossible when cutting logs. The blade does the cutting, so to prevent a large part of the blade from cutting is a design flaw. I also have two new Bob Dustrude folding bow saws in 21 and 24 inch, and am itching to use them - good reviews on the web.
Many hardware store bowsaws have terrible blades. Unfortunately Sandvik (now Bacho) might no longer make their excellent blades in Sweden where they had the qc. Many blades now seem to be made in Portugal, although we may have recently seen Bacho move back to Sweden? (I have Bacho blades made in Portugal, but they are good blades). For a while when Sandvik had just sold to Bacho back in the late 90’s, the Sandvik blades and saws disappeared and no-name blades flooded the market, sold without any tooth offset, or incorrect tooth offset, so the saw of course would bind and be useless. Hold the bowsaw blade up lengthwise and sight down it to make sure you can see a good offset so that the teeth will cut a kerf wider than the spine of the blade.
Bacho now stamps their blades with their name and logo, and these are the only ones I know of sold around here which are good blades. I would never touch a no-name blade again. I trust Bacho qc. They are sold in my town at Chaltrek here (Chaltrek will ship, they work by phone), and for internet stores in Canada, Canadian Outdoor Equipment sells them online, and in the States, Bens Backwoods sells them. I have used both of these internet stores and they have excellent service.
There are different tooth patterns. I prefer the green wood patterns with the big gullets and long raker teeth to clear the sawdust out. I find these cut dry dead firewood better than the dry wood blades with the smaller teeth and no gullets. Mind you my forests are all softwood species (pine, spruce, fir, cedar), and even the so-called “hardwoods” are soft (poplar, birch). The softwood sawdust seems to clog easily, so I find the green wood blades just work better even on the driest softwood. And the green wood blades will cut green wood blowdown and sweepers, and rotten wet wood, so for my areas I travel, these green wood blades work best for me.
