In woodworking, a rip cut is a cut made parallel to the wood grain. Rip cuts are commonly made with a table saw, but other types of saws can also be used, including hand rip saws, radial arm saws and band saws. Unlike cross-cutting, which shears the wood fibers, a rip saw works more like a chisel, lifting off small splinters of wood.
As a general rule, tools which work well for rip cutting do not work well for crosscutting. Most woodworkers thus have a table saw, which is used for rip cutting, and a chop or miter saw, which is used for crosscutting, which should never be used for ripping a board because it is very dangerous. Circular saw blades designed for rip cutting have a smaller number of larger teeth than similar blades designed for cross cutting. There are combination blades for table saws that can be used for ripping and cross cutting but should not be used for non through cuts such as dados and rabbets. If you use a radial arm saw to rip you need a blade with a negative hook angle for the teeth to keep the saw from lifting the board off the saw and kicking back.
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Famous quotes containing the words rip and/or cut:
“We are double-edged blades, and every time we whet our virtue the return stroke straps our vice. Where is the skillful swordsman who can give clean wounds, and not rip up his work with the other edge?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“He will not idly dance at his work who has wood to cut and cord before nightfall in the short days of winter; but every stroke will be husbanded, and ring soberly through the wood; and so will the strokes of that scholar’s pen, which at evening record the story of the day, ring soberly, yet cheerily, on the ear of the reader, long after the echoes of his axe have died away.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)