Gyokucho Razorsaw Blue Hard 270 mm Ryoba Saw

The Blue Hard 270 brings the narrow-blade design to framing and larger stock. Its 270 mm blade is 0.6 mm thick with a 2.5 mm pitch crosscut edge and a progressive 5.6 to 3.8 mm rip edge, cutting a kerf of less than 1 mm while weighing noticeably less than the standard-width saw of the same size. A ryoba carries crosscut teeth on one edge and rip teeth on the other, so a single saw cuts across and along the grain; the rip teeth are progressive, finer near the handle for an easy start and coarser toward the tip for speed.

Blue Hard is Gyokucho's narrow-blade ryoba series: the blade is slimmer than the Seiun Saku of the same length, which makes the saw lighter and quicker to manoeuvre, and it rides on a traditional rattan-wrapped handle. The teeth are impulse hardened, an electrical heat treatment that makes the cutting edges much harder than the body of the blade, so they stay sharp far longer than conventional teeth. When the teeth finally dull, the blade is replaced rather than sharpened; a fresh blade restores the saw to new condition at a fraction of the cost of a new saw; the blade is held in the handle by a single screw that can be loosened with a coin, so changing it takes a minute.