Saw Care: Folding Saw Maintenance and Replacing a Bow Saw Blade

Which saw needs which care?

All bushcraft saws share one weak point: a thin steel blade with many small teeth that hate resin, rust, soil and twisting. Beyond that, each type has its own extra job. The sizes below are the same as in our blade length guide.

• Folding saws (blades of about 18–33 cm) live in a pocket or pouch. The pivot and the lock carry every stroke, and wet sawdust collects in the handle slot where the blade folds in.
• Bow saws (blades of about 53–76 cm, that is 21–30 in) hold a thin blade under tension in a steel or wooden frame. The tension lever, the two pins at the blade ends and the blade guard are their maintenance points.
• Pocket chain saws are a length of cutting chain with handles or loops. They need cleaning, a drop of oil and careful coiling, and they suffer from kinks and stretched links rather than from a loose pivot.

How to clean saw blade resin

A saw that suddenly binds in every cut is often not dull but dirty. Pine, spruce and other softwoods leave sap on the sides of the blade and in the gullets between the teeth. It hardens into a sticky brake that increases friction and makes the blade run hot and wander. The cure is the same routine as in saw blade care: brush, dissolve, dry, oil.

Do it the same evening if you can. Fresh resin comes off in a minute; resin that has dried for weeks needs soaking and patience. Resin from fatwood stumps is the stickiest of all, so clean the saw right after harvesting it.

What a clean blade looks like

Run a dry fingertip along the flat of the blade, well away from the teeth. It should feel smooth, not tacky. The gullets between the teeth should be open, with no dark brown filling. On a coated blade the coating stays as it is; never sand it off, because bare steel rusts faster.

Rust prevention for saw blades

Most saw blades are carbon steel, sometimes with a thin protective coating. Carbon steel rusts when it stays wet, and a folding saw gives water a perfect hiding place: the slot in the handle. A saw folded away wet after a rainy day can show orange teeth after a single night.

• Dry before folding. Wipe the blade on a cloth or your trouser leg, spine first, before you close it. In camp, hang the saw open from a branch stub under the tarp rather than leaving it on the ground.
• Oil in the evening. The same oil cloth you use for your knife covers the saw. Any light tool oil is fine, because saws do not touch food.
• Air out the slot. After a wet trip, leave the folding saw open for a few hours at home so the handle can dry.
• Light rust comes off with a drop of oil and fine steel wool, rubbed along the blade with the teeth pointing away from your hand. Deeper rust is treated as described in removing rust; rust that has eaten into the teeth means a new blade.

In winter, cold steel brought into a warm tent or house gathers condensation. Let the saw warm up first, then dry and oil it – the same rule as for every tool on a winter camping trip.

Folding saw maintenance: lock, pivot and blade change

On a folding saw, every stroke pulls on one screw and one small lock. If the lock does not fully engage, the blade can fold onto your fingers mid-cut. That makes the lock check the most important part of folding saw maintenance, and it takes ten seconds.

The ten-second lock check

1. Open the saw fully and listen or feel for the lock clicking home.
2. Hold the handle and try to rock the blade gently from side to side and up and down, away from the teeth. A little flex in the steel is normal; a clicking movement at the pivot is not.
3. Press the lock release: it should move freely and spring back by itself.
4. If your saw also locks in the closed position, check that too, so it cannot flop open in a pocket.

How to change a folding saw blade

Many folding saws have a replaceable blade held by the pivot screw or a knob; some need a screwdriver or hex key, a few have riveted blades that cannot be swapped. Read what the maker says for your model and buy blades made for exactly that model, because hole position and lock notch have to match.

How to replace a bow saw blade safely

A bow saw only cuts straight when its blade is taut. Most steel frames use a tension lever at the handle end; older and wooden frames use a wing nut, a screw or a twisted cord. The lever stores a lot of force: opening it suddenly can snap it against your fingers, and a slack blade with sharp teeth flops around. Gloves and a calm, flat work surface make the job safe.

How tight is right?

Close the lever until the blade "pings" when plucked and does not twist when you push it sideways – the same rule as in the saw guide. A slack blade wanders and binds in the kerf; an over-tightened or kinked blade can snap. If a lever will not close at all, check that both holes really sit on the pins and that the blade length matches the frame.

Wooden take-down frames with a tensioning cord are tightened by twisting a toggle stick in the cord. Twist until the blade rings, lock the toggle against the middle bar, and slacken the cord again after use so the frame does not warp.

Can you sharpen a folding saw?

Usually not. Most modern folding saws and many bow saw blades have impulse-hardened teeth: only the tips are hardened, far harder than the rest of the blade and harder than a saw file. You recognise them by their dark, blue-black tips. Japanese-style folding saw teeth are also ground with several small bevels that a file cannot reproduce. Trying to sharpen them ruins the geometry, so the honest answer to can you sharpen a folding saw is: replace the blade when it is dull.

The good news is that hardened teeth stay sharp through a lot of clean deadwood. What usually dulls them is not wood but soil, stones, sand in bark, or a nail in old timber.

Traditional saws: filing and setting

Saws with non-hardened teeth, such as some traditional bow saw and frame saw blades, can be sharpened. Two jobs are involved:

• Filing restores the cutting points with a small triangular saw file (raker blades also need the rakers kept slightly lower than the cutters).
• Setting bends the teeth alternately left and right. This "set" makes the kerf a little wider than the blade body, so the blade does not rub and bind. Too little set and the saw sticks in wet wood; too much and it cuts roughly and wanders.

Both need a vice, the right file, a saw set tool and practice. Filing and setting are a craft of their own; leave them to experienced users or a sharpening service, and spend your own sharpening time on your knife and axe, where the sharpening angle calculator helps.

Choosing a replacement blade: dry wood or green wood?

A blade change is the moment to match the teeth to the wood you actually cut. The same rules apply as in our TPI guide: coarse teeth clear wet, stringy sawdust in green wood; finer teeth cut dry, hard wood smoothly but clog in sap.

Getting the fit right

• Bow saws: the blade length must match the frame exactly – 53, 61 or 76 cm (21, 24 or 30 in) are the common sizes. A blade that is a few centimetres off will not tension or will not fit at all.
• Folding saws: use blades sold for your model. Other blades may look similar but have the pivot hole or lock notch in a slightly different place, which means a lock that does not hold.
• Spare blade: for a bow saw on a longer trip, a spare blade weighs little, rolls into a loop or packs flat in its guard. Note which blade you carry, so you can plan your kit around it.

Pocket chain saws and wire saws: care in brief

A pocket chain saw is a short loop of cutting chain with a handle or strap at each end. It cuts with both hands pulling alternately and is popular as a back-up in an emergency kit. Its care is simple but different from a blade:

• Clean resin and sawdust off with a brush and a little oil, working the chain through the cloth link by link with gloves on.
• Dry and oil it lightly, then flex the chain so every link moves freely. Stiff links are where a chain jams in the cut.
• Coil loosely into its pouch. Do not knot or kink it; a twisted chain binds and can break.
• Check for cracked links, loose rivets and damaged teeth. Some chains can be touched up with a round file like a chainsaw chain, others cannot; follow the maker's information and replace a damaged chain.

A wire saw needs even less: keep it dry, never kink it, and replace it after heavy use, because twisted cables tend to snap at a worn spot. Both are emergency tools, not replacements for a proper folding saw, as explained in choosing a folding saw.

Storing and carrying a saw

A covered blade protects you, your gear and the teeth. One stone in the bottom of a pack can chip a row of teeth faster than a season of cutting.

• Folding saws travel closed and, where the design allows, locked closed, in a pocket, belt pouch or pack.
• Bow saws always wear their blade guard when not cutting. If the guard is lost, a strip of thick cardboard or a split length of garden hose taped over the teeth is a stopgap until you replace it. Strapped to a pack, the covered blade faces inwards and down; see bushcraft backpacks for attachment options.
• Long-term storage: clean, dry and oiled, in a dry room rather than a damp shed. Wooden frame saws with a cord are slackened.
• Out of reach of children at home, and in camp put the saw away instead of leaving it lying open. Bushcraft with kids has sensible rules for tools around children.

The saw is one entry on your bushcraft kit list; a few drops of oil and a cloth belong next to it, and a spare pivot screw or blade can live in your repair kit.

Safety and sawing technique that save your blade

Most saw injuries during maintenance happen when a cloth or finger slides along the teeth or a bow saw lever snaps shut. During use, they happen when the blade jumps on the first stroke and lands on the guard hand or knee. The rules are short:

• Wear gloves for cleaning, blade changes and tensioning.
• Wipe from spine to teeth, never along the tooth line.
• Keep fingers out of the path of a tension lever and the folding blade.
• Wrap old blades before disposal.

Technique is the best blade care

Good sawing technique keeps a blade sharp far longer than any cleaning routine:

• Keep the teeth off the ground. Saw on a sawbuck or across a second log, never on soil or stones – see sawing firewood safely.
• Don't twist or yank. If the kerf closes, stop and change the support; forcing the blade kinks it. Saw technique explains how to read the load.
• Light, full strokes. Pressing hard bends the blade and heats the teeth. Let the teeth do the work.
• Check deadwood for stones and nails in bark crevices and old fence posts before cutting.

Cut rounds to length, then split them with an axe or by batoning. The firewood calculator tells you how much you need, so you do not wear out a blade on wood you will never burn. In wet weather, a saw is your best tool for reaching dry wood inside standing dead branches, as described in fire in wet weather. New to all of this? Start with bushcraft for beginners.