Japanese Pull Saw

A Japanese pull saw (nokogiri) cuts on the pull stroke rather than the push, the opposite convention from a traditional Western handsaw. That single difference changes more than it sounds like it should: because the blade is under tension during the cut rather than being pushed and prone to buckling, it can be made significantly thinner, which means a narrower kerf, less material removed, and less effort to push the saw through the cut in the first place.

Why the kerf matters

A thinner blade means a thinner kerf, which means less waste and, for fine joinery, a cut that's easier to make land exactly on a layout line rather than removing a visible sliver on either side of it. This is a big part of why pull saws show up so often in dovetail and other precision hand-tool joinery — the cut itself simply removes less material to argue with.

The common types

• Dozuki — a fine-toothed backed saw (a stiffening spine along the top edge) for precise joinery cuts like dovetails and tenon shoulders. The backed spine keeps the thin blade from wandering.
• Ryoba — a double-edged saw with rip teeth on one edge and crosscut teeth on the other, a versatile all-purpose option when you don't want to switch saws mid-project.
• Kataba — single-edged, typically for crosscutting, without the backed spine of a dozuki, giving unlimited depth of cut.

Replaceable-blade vs. traditional sharpenable blades

Many modern pull saws (especially inexpensive, widely available ones) use hardened, impulse-tempered teeth that stay sharp longer but can't be resharpened — the blade gets replaced when it dulls. Traditional Japanese saws use softer steel that can be resharpened by someone with the skill, but that's a specialized skill most Western woodworkers don't have easy access to. For most people starting out, a quality replaceable-blade saw is the practical choice.

Technique

The pull stroke does the cutting; the push stroke is essentially a light reset, not a cutting stroke. Let the saw's own thin, sharp geometry do the work rather than forcing it — pushing hard on the pull stroke doesn't make it cut faster, it just makes it wander off the line.