About Joinery Saws

Used for cutting traditional joinery and making other precision cuts, joinery saws are essential tools for woodworkers. Western-style joinery saws are backsaws, meaning they have a spine down the length of the blade to reinforce it and reduce flexing, enabling better control and more precise cutting. Typically, they have relatively thick steel blades to help keep them from binding since they cut on the forward stroke. The most common joinery saws are dovetail, carcass and tenon saws. Dovetails are the smallest of the joinery saws. Filed in a rip configuration, they are used for precise cuts when cutting dovetails and small tenon joints. Carcass saws are good general-utility saws for cutting the typical joints used in cabinetry, trimming frame members to length, and cutting small- to medium-size tenons and dadoes. They are available with either a rip or crosscut tooth pattern. The largest of the three, tenon saws are used for making deep, accurate cuts in furniture joinery and cutting the cheeks of tenons. Tenon saws are available with a crosscut, rip or hybrid tooth pattern. Various joinery saw starter sets are also available.