31VIDEO Ripping Versus Crosscutting

In this video, I want to explain to you the difference between rip cutting and cross cutting

It matters quite a lot actually. And the difference between the two comes down to the fact that wood behaves very differently along its grain as compared with across its grain

So, when I say along its grain, I mean the direction that the tree grew in

So, this is a board and the tree grew like this. Well, it could have been like this too. I'm not sure which way around it was in the tree

But, this is the way it grows. And actually, if you look here on the end, you can see some growth rings

So, if the tree was cut off here, we would see these rings

And, you know, one ring for each ear. So, this is a section of the log. We really don't know how big the log was

I can tell from looking at these growth rings that this is a fairly fast growing tree

Which I guess is nice because it gives you lumber more quickly

But, it's not so nice in that the wider the growth rings, the softer the wood is

So, this is a piece of white pine. White pine can grow very quickly or quite slowly

If it grows slowly, we could have, oh, in this space here, say, between these two growth rings

If this was a slow growing tree, we might have five, four, five, six years in this space instead of one year

And, if we did, it would be harder wood and higher quality, all else being equal

But, the main topic for this video is ripping and cross-cutting. So, that's the direction of the grain

That's along the grain, it's called. And, this would be across the grain

So, cross-cutting is cutting across the grain. And, all else being equal, that's the easiest kind of cut to do

So, it's just because the saw, whatever saw you're using, whether it's a hand saw or some sort of a power saw

it's slicing through the fibers when you make a cross-cut. And, when you're slicing through the individual fibers, it actually cuts pretty well

It's a lot easier to cross-cut a piece of wood than it is to rip-cut a piece of wood

And, that's because when you're ripping, you're kind of working parallel to the wood fibers

So, you're not severing them. And, it's just a whole lot harder to make a cut

Not only that, but when you're rip-cutting, you really should have a different kind of blade, too

The teeth, instead of being like little knives, like this one here, it's more like they're little chisels

So, when you're rip-cutting, you're actually taking out curls of wood, kind of ribbons of wood from along the length, in a very narrow width, of course

the width of the saw blade. As a beginner, working with standard widths of wood, you won't be ripping very often

You will be cross-cutting all the time. And so, I'm just going to make this little cross-cut here

You've seen me do this sort of thing before, but I've marked it. I'm going to start the cut with my thumb here

I'm going to be cutting on the waste side of the line

I'm going to be, as you recall from a previous video, I'm using the reflection of the wood in the saw blade

I want that reflection to be continuous along this edge here. I don't want it to be like that, or like that

I want it to look continuous, to look like the reflection is the continuous edge of the board

I'm going to get my hand away. I'm going to keep my eye on that line, and I'm going to work on the waste side of the line

blowing off the sawdust with my mouth, periodically, just so I can see the line

See how far I advance with each stroke of the blade? It's quite remarkable, really

There. A nice cross-cut. Now, by comparison, let me show you what ripping would be like

I'm just using my combination square to make just any old kind of parallel line

Just to show you. So, I'm going to do the same thing, but watch how much more slowly the same saw

in the same piece of wood, with the same strokes, I'm applying the same amount of force

just look how much more slowly it progresses through. That's making decent progress, but I would estimate it's probably one-third as fast as cross-cutting

And that's just because ripping is more challenging. In fact, in practice, most woodworkers, they're not going to be able to do this

They're not going to be able to do this. And that's just because ripping is more challenging

In fact, in practice, most woodworkers, they're not ripping by hand. That's a very unusual thing

It is something that I used to do when I started out. For many years, I didn't have a saw, a power saw, that could rip wood

so I had a saw like this for cross-cutting, and then I had another kind of saw that was especially for ripping

And I used those two. And a dedicated ripping saw in a cut like this would probably cut about twice as fast as what you saw

So, this saw is usable, especially for small little cuts. If you want to cut something to width that's fairly small, this will work for you

There are dedicated hand saws, but my recommendation would be, if you're getting to the point where you need to rip cut wood fairly often

then you should be looking at some kind of a table saw. Not necessarily a big one, but some kind of table saw would make your life a whole lot easier