Mondo Knows Facts
Saw teeth are bent sideways to clear the blade
Alternate teeth lean left and right so the cut is wider than the steel This alternating lean is called the set, and it makes the kerf, the slot the saw cuts, slightly wider than the blade plate. Without it friction and sawdust would jam the blade solid. Rip saws for cutting along the grain carry a coarser set than crosscut saws, and fine saws for joinery use very little. It sits in Mondo's everyday life collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.
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Tags: tools, woodwork, cutting
Saw teeth are bent sideways to clear the blade: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- Alternate teeth lean left and right so the cut is wider than the steel. The figure is taken from Encyclopaedia Britannica, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
- Is this really a everyday life fact?
- Yes. It sits on the Everyday Life shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
- What else can I read about it?
- The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.