Feeling the saw bind, and what that teaches you
Okay. So you've got your saw set up, you've got your line marked, and now we're actually cutting.
I want to talk about something that's going to happen to you at some point today, probably more than once. The saw is going to bind up in the cut. It'll feel like the board is grabbing the blade, or like you're suddenly pushing through something a lot thicker than pine. Some of you are going to think you did something wrong. You didn't, necessarily. This is just part of learning what a saw actually does inside a board, and I want you to pay attention to it instead of fighting through it.
What binding actually feels like
You'll be cutting along fine, nice even strokes, and then partway through the board it just... grabs. The saw gets hard to push and hard to pull back. Sometimes it squeaks. Sometimes it stops moving almost completely.
That's the kerf, the little channel your blade cuts, closing up on the blade instead of staying open. Wood does this. It's not being difficult on purpose, but it can definitely feel that way when you're twenty strokes in and your arm's getting tired.
A few things cause it:
You've drifted off your line. If the saw wanders left or right of where you marked, the cut isn't straight anymore, and a crooked kerf pinches the blade way more than a straight one does.
The wood itself is doing something. Pine has grain, and grain has opinions. Sometimes a board wants to close up behind the blade because of internal stress in the wood, especially if it's a board that moved around a lot while it sat in your garage. Which, remember, they all do a little. That's the dry air for you.
You're pushing too hard. This one's common. When beginners feel resistance, the instinct is to push harder. That's usually the wrong move. It just wedges things tighter.
What to do about it
First, stop. Don't force it. If you keep muscling a bound-up saw you can bend the blade or make the cut worse, and on some saws you can snap a blade if you really lean into it. Not a huge safety issue with a hand saw the way it would be with a power tool, but it's still not good for the tool or for your line.
Back the saw out a little, just an inch or so of the stroke, and start again with lighter pressure. Let the saw do the cutting instead of you doing the cutting through the saw. If it's binding a lot, sometimes I'll slide a thin wedge, even a scrap of wood or a golf tee, into the kerf behind the blade to hold the cut open while I keep going. That sounds like a trick but it's a real thing people do, it's not cheating.
If it keeps happening in the same spot every time, check your line. You've probably drifted.
Why I want you to feel this now
Here's my actual opinion on this, and I know it's a little contrarian. Everybody wants to get to the power tools. I get it, they're faster, they're less tiring, they look like what a real workshop is supposed to look like. But I think you should cut with a hand saw first and feel this binding happen, because a table saw or a circular saw is doing the exact same thing to the wood, the exact same pinching and grabbing, except it's happening so fast you can't feel it with your hands. You just hear it, or the blade slows down, or in a bad case it kicks the board back at you.
If you've felt a hand saw bind up on a bad cut, you understand what's happening inside that wood. That's not something I can explain to you as well as your own arm can teach you.
A story about two guys and a birdhouse
My neighbor Rodney came over once to borrow a drill. Just a drill, in and out, five minutes. He ended up staying three hours and we built a birdhouse that neither one of us needed. At some point in there his saw bound up on him pretty bad, cutting the roof piece, and he got frustrated and started pushing harder, which is exactly the wrong thing, and I had to stop him before he bent the blade. We backed it out, took a breath, went slower. It worked fine after that.
Neither of us needed a birdhouse. We built it anyway. Those turned out to be one of the better afternoons I've had in that garage, and I think about it more than I think about most of the actual furniture I've built.
A couple practical notes
If your saw is binding constantly and you've checked your line and you're going slow, it might just be a dull blade. That happens with cheap saws faster than you'd think. It's not something to fix today, just something to notice for later.
Also, don't force the saw when it's bound up, even if you're in a hurry. A bent blade doesn't go back to straight.
Before next time: try to finish your cut today and notice, out loud if you want, exactly where in the board it binds. That's useful information for your next line.