I've been using a small garden centre standard folding pruning saw for a long time now, the blade length is probably 150mm or thereabouts. It does a great job of occasional cutting, but when it comes to putting a shift in it's a little uncomfortable, a little bit inefficient and it can really only handle small diameter wood. This was highlighted in a recent trip to Etive, dry wood was hard to come by so it was a case of finding dead standing and splitting it up to make feather sticks.
On my return from Etive I started looking around for a new shiny. I do some occasional tree work, and I get to use a silky zubat with a 390mm blade. It's a great saw but complete with the sheath it's rather heavy, so not ideal for packing. It's also about £50, and spare blades are about £40, for me this was a bit too much of an investment.
I stumbled upon a site called Buxton's, and they had the samurai saw for sale at £15. They must go for a bit more than this because a spare blade was £20!
At 300mm long it was going to be loads better than the folding pruner, but not as heavy as the zubat. When it arrived I was suprised at just how light it was, especially considering the full plastic sheath. It must be half the weight of the zubat.
On Saturday I got the chance to use it proper, we had a cherry to remove and a birch and a rowan to prune/bring in. The samurai munched through it all no problem, even on 4/5 inch pieces. Having said that, green cherry and birch are pretty soft so it wasn't exactly testing. I got to use my renovated billhook too which made light work of small limbs, they are a real joy to use, don't know why they aren't used more often!
What I did notice is that the blade is on the thin side. I noticed that if you went quite far back on the pull cut, on the push you would see the blade flex a bit, and would feel like it was jamming slightly. It never did jam fully, but it was a brand new sharp blade, so this might become a problem over time. I think if the blade was thicker though this would become a heavy saw and wouldn't be as handy for packing, so for what I want I think it's about ideal.
The handle was super comfortable, better than the silky IMO. It also had a nice little belt clip for putting it onto your belt rather quickly, which I found very useful as something that long on your belt can be a hindrance when you don't need it, so being able to clip it on and off without redoing my belt all the time was great.
The sheath wasn't quite as good as the silky though. The silky has these little delrin/teflon guides that stop the sheath getting damaged and make it easier to get the saw in the sheath. Overall I'd highly recommend as a serious camp saw, especially if you need a big saw but don't want the weight.
On my return from Etive I started looking around for a new shiny. I do some occasional tree work, and I get to use a silky zubat with a 390mm blade. It's a great saw but complete with the sheath it's rather heavy, so not ideal for packing. It's also about £50, and spare blades are about £40, for me this was a bit too much of an investment.
I stumbled upon a site called Buxton's, and they had the samurai saw for sale at £15. They must go for a bit more than this because a spare blade was £20!
At 300mm long it was going to be loads better than the folding pruner, but not as heavy as the zubat. When it arrived I was suprised at just how light it was, especially considering the full plastic sheath. It must be half the weight of the zubat.
On Saturday I got the chance to use it proper, we had a cherry to remove and a birch and a rowan to prune/bring in. The samurai munched through it all no problem, even on 4/5 inch pieces. Having said that, green cherry and birch are pretty soft so it wasn't exactly testing. I got to use my renovated billhook too which made light work of small limbs, they are a real joy to use, don't know why they aren't used more often!
What I did notice is that the blade is on the thin side. I noticed that if you went quite far back on the pull cut, on the push you would see the blade flex a bit, and would feel like it was jamming slightly. It never did jam fully, but it was a brand new sharp blade, so this might become a problem over time. I think if the blade was thicker though this would become a heavy saw and wouldn't be as handy for packing, so for what I want I think it's about ideal.
The handle was super comfortable, better than the silky IMO. It also had a nice little belt clip for putting it onto your belt rather quickly, which I found very useful as something that long on your belt can be a hindrance when you don't need it, so being able to clip it on and off without redoing my belt all the time was great.
The sheath wasn't quite as good as the silky though. The silky has these little delrin/teflon guides that stop the sheath getting damaged and make it easier to get the saw in the sheath. Overall I'd highly recommend as a serious camp saw, especially if you need a big saw but don't want the weight.
