How to Use a Coping Saw (2024)

FAQs

How to Use a Coping Saw? ›

For safety, keep appendages, hands and other objects away from the sharp teeth. Never apply more force onto the saw than you could using your bare hands. As with any other bladed tools, the user should wear long sleeves, padded work gloves and safety glasses to prevent bodily contact with the blade or cutting debris.

For safety, keep appendages, hands and other objects away from the sharp teeth. Never apply more force onto the saw than you could using your bare hands. As with any other bladed tools, the user should wear long sleeves, padded work gloves and safety glasses to prevent bodily contact with the blade or cutting debris.

A coping saw is a type of bow saw used to cut intricate external shapes and interior cut-outs in woodworking or carpentry. It is widely used to cut moldings to create coped rather than mitre joints.

There is no “correct” position. The teeth can face in or out, and the blade can cut on either the push or the pull stroke. Typically the teeth face out and cut is on the push stroke, but do as you please - and no “law” says you have to be consistent.

The main disadvantage that I have found with the vast majority of coping saws is that the frame is not rigid – bends easily – and therefore does not follow a cut line.

You can install the blade to cut either on the push or pull stroke, although for most work I find that a pull cut is easier to control. Of course, the saw gets its name from the coping cut used to fit molding together in place of a miter joint.

Trim carpenters and other professionals often prefer coped joints because they tend to open up less than miters when the wood shrinks during dry weather. Coped joints also accommodate out-of-square wall corners better than miters, which require a 90-degree corner for a perfect fit.

The saw can simply and quickly cut coped joints for molding or curved parts for furniture and other work. Its blade can be threaded through stock to cut interior shapes or worked into tight places to trim waste from joinery. All this from a tool that's inexpensive and simple to maintain.

Hand coping saws were designed for a pull stroke. Period. Sure you can flip it around - but ask any seasoned wood shop veteran which direction gives you the most power and control and I'm sure they'll all agree - teeth towards the handle - pull stroke wins every time.

Cutting on the pull stroke is more difficult to control and flipping long lengths of skirting board and supporting it for pull cuts is much more problematic too. A coping saw with the teeth facing away from the handle and toward the work means you can see the whole of the work from above.

What is a risk when using a coping saw? ›

Some people assume there's little-to-no risk of injury when using a coping saw, simply because it doesn't use any type of electrical power mechanism. While it's true that coping saws are completely manual, they can still cause serious injuries in the form of lacerations or even finger amputations.

The coping saw is just a narrow blade held taut in a C-shaped frame with a simple handle. Yet it can literally run circles around any other handheld saw, even a jigsaw. With a coping saw, you can cut out a heart in the back of a child's chair or make gingerbread trim for your roof eaves.