Azebiki

I do my woodworking inside my garage which borders to my neighbours kitchen and doubles as general storage area for all kinds of stuff. I try to reduce dust and noise as much as possible and therefore use only hand tools with the exception of my vacuum cleaner and my a battery powered drill. The drill is quiet enough. The vacuum cleaner is a noisy Bosch GAS 20. But the damn thing doesn’t break down. So no excuse to buy another one…

At times though I miss using my circular say to quickly make some straight grooves or something. Especially on long boards. But then I say a Japanese woodworking using an Azebiki (see here).

I bought one. These things are amazing! They are simple to use. Just run them along something straight and it saws a nice clean groove.

Here is the result:

Just like a Ryoba, an Azebiki has two sides: One for cross-cutting and one for ripping. Especially when you have wood with knots, having a two sided saw is practical. When I’m sawing along the grain I use the ripping side. But as soon as I hit a knot I flip to the other side, saw through the knot, flip back and continue. My other hand keeps the wooden guide at its place (when I don’t take the time to clamp it). The only “down-side” is that you have to saw even more gents then usual. So it needs some time to get a nice cut.