Essential Survival Tools: The BOW SAW

(Video: FISKARS BOW SAW vs. 4×8″ seasoned OAK beam!! You can see that with a little patience, a bow saw with a good blade will power through even the toughest timbers.)

A BOW SAW is one of the essential hand tools that every ranch owner, outdoors-person, survivalist or anyone who burns firewood should own. It’s an off-grid essential! You can cut surprisingly large logs and the saw is very lightweight – easy to carry, meaning you can easily carry it to the opposite side of the forest if needed. As saws go, it’s also one of the safer types – and of course it needs no power other than your arm.

I have great memories of my Dad in the 1970’s cutting up huge piles of fallen branches with nothing more than an axe, an ancient, rusty 3 foot bow saw and a saw horse, which was essentially two wooden X’s held together with cross beams. He still has that old bow saw.

First the log is laid across the saw horse and sawn, then moved along to make the next cut. This cuts the log into “rounds” – typically of a length that will fit into your fireplace or wood burning stove. Then the rounds are split with an axe to make logs of the required thickness. Kindling is made by splitting logs down further with the axe or hatchet into thin pieces.

A good sign of an item that has perfect ‘form follows function’ is that the design doesn’t change. The design of new bow saws has barely changed and work just the same as that 50+ year old saw.

I got the FISKARS saw in the video above and it’s good enough for me! A good bow saw should last a lifetime and I feel confident that this saw will outlive me – if there’s one question you should ask when buying a tool, it’s just that” “will this tool last a lifetime?” A tool is an investment and a good one will save you money in the long run – because if you buy something cheap, it will break and then you will not only have to spend money all over again but will waste time. Buy good, buy once.

And that of course is assuming that you are anywhere near the general store! A real survivalist knows that their tools need to be of top quality and also repairable if necessary – because if you’re 100 miles from civilization then you can no longer be part of the throwaway society.

The detachable hand protector is plastic and it could be useful to protect your hand against knocks against the wood – but if you are a more skilled woodsman and wear gloves it’s not even necessary. The rest of the tool is all-metal – as it should be!

With this saw and a pack of blades you are all set for years! These days people just buy new blades but in the good old days a blade was precious and you could take them to a hardware store or blacksmith to be “sharpened and set”. They would sharpen each tooth with a hand file – and Set means that each tooth is angled left-right and it makes for an easier, smoother cut. A pack of replacement blades shouldn’t be more than a few bucks but I’m still on my first blade.

Lay your log or piece of wood somewhere that the piece being cut is overhanging – and ideally clamp it in place or hold it firmly. If you have 2 people one can be sawing while the other is holding and moving logs.

Let the saw do the work! And if you are cutting a big branch or a whole pile of logs, pace yourself – otherwise you’ll burn out. Angle down slightly and just make patient, smooth cuts. With the wood “overhanging” like this, it’s unlikely that your blade will jam, but if it does, you can make another cut and chop out a wedge, then keep going as needed.

This is a great arm workout and you’ll get some cardio too! As the old saying goes, if cut the firewood yourself it warms you twice…