This article is about the tool. There is also a style of music called ripsaw music

Ripsaw music

Ripsaw is a musical genre which originated in the Turks and Caicos Islands, specifically in the Middle and North Caicos. A very closely related variant, rake-and-scrape, is played in the Bahamas...

 and a newspaper called the Ripsaw

Ripsaw

Ripsaw was a Duluth, Minnesota newspaper published from 1917 to 1926 and again from 1999 to 2005. In its original incarnation, the paper was a scandal sheet with a reputation for muckraking, sensationalism and criminal libel...

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In woodworking, a cut made parallel to the direction of the grain of the workpiece is known as a rip cut

Rip cut

In woodworking, a rip cut is a cut made parallel to the wood grain. Rip cuts are commonly made with a table saw, but other types of saws can also be used, including hand rip saws, radial arm saws and band saws...

. If one were to cut a tree trunk in half from top to bottom, this would be a rip cut — but the term also applies to cutting free lumber.

A rip saw is a saw that is specially designed for making rip cuts. The cutting edge of each tooth has a flat front edge and it is not angled forward or backward. This design allows each tooth to act like a chisel

Chisel

A chisel is a tool with a characteristically shaped cutting edge of blade on its end, for carving or cutting a hard material such as wood, stone, or metal. The handle and blade of some types of chisel are made of metal or wood with a sharp edge in it.In use, the chisel is forced into the material...

 (rather than being knife-like, as with a crosscut saw

Crosscut saw

A crosscut saw is a saw that is specially designed for making crosscuts. A crosscut is a cut made horizontally through the trunk of a standing tree, but the term also applies to cutting free lumber...

), preventing the saw from following grain lines, which could curve the path of the saw. By acting like a chisel, the saw can more easily cut across deviating grain lines, which is necessary if a straight cut is to be achieved.

On the vast majority of saws throughout the world, the teeth are designed to cut when the saw is being pushed through the wood (on the push stroke). However, some saws (such as Japanese saw

Japanese saw

The Japanese saw or ' is a type of saw used in woodworking and Japanese carpentry that cuts on the pull stroke, unlike the European saw that cuts on the push stroke. This allows it to have thinner blades that cut more efficiently and leave a narrower cut width...

s and the saws used by Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...

ians) are designed to cut on the pull stroke.

Technical information

Rip saws typically have 4-10 teeth per inch, making them relatively coarse

Coarse

Coarse may refer to:*Bosnian Coarse-Haired Hound, developed by 19th century Bosnian hunters as a scent hound.*Coarse bubble diffusers, produce 1/4 to 1/2 inch bubbles which rise rapidly from the floor of a wastewater treatment plant or sewage treatment plant tank.*Coarse fishing, an angling method,...

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