Several Things You Can Do to Prevent Disappointment When Buying a Saw.

There are several things you can do to prevent disappointment when buying a saw in a shop:

- check the set of the teeth for accuracy and evenness by holding the saw up to your eye and looking along the cutting edge. Any significant irregularities are usually obvious

- look at the type of handle. Make sure that it feels comfortable in your hand and that the saw has a reasonable balance. Check that the grain of wooden handles runs along the thin parts of the handle, not across it (wood generally breaks along the grain). Avoid hollow plastic handles made by gluing two halves together this type of plastic handle often has a tendency to separate (nipping your fingers when you use it) and may break if the saw is dropped.

- examine the sharpening of the teeth carefully. Some saws are not sharpened at all. You can tell if a saw has been sharpened by looking for the tell-tale file or grinding marks. Run your finger lightly along the edge to check whether the saw feels reasonably sharp. Some of the newer saws are sharpened by grinding rather than filing these tend to be much sharper initially. Saws which have been ground usually have rounded roots to their teeth

- check the coating on the saw. Most saws have a lacquer coating on them

The two main types of power saw -circular saws and jig saws

Circular saws can be used for long straight cuts. They are particularly useful for rip sawing - some circular saws will cut wood up to 65mm thick and for cut¬ting up boards, especially chipboard. Mini Hacksaw

Jigsaws can be used for making straight cuts, cutting curves and for rip or cross-cutting (though they are somewhat slow.for cutting with the grain). They are much safer to use than circular saws. Jigsaws are not suitable for making joints but they can be used for many of the jobs where you would normally use a backsaw. coping saw, bow saw or padsaw. bow saw

Also learning how to access the wiring in home and how to cut metal with handsaws could be very useful for you.