A saw is a piece of toughened steel with teeth cut into one edge and a wooden or plastic handle. In some form or other, saws have been one of the principal woodcutting tools for thousands of years. The different types of saw for different jobs can roughly be divided into three main groups:
- saws for cutting along the grain of wood – rip saws
- saws for cutting across the grain of wood – cross-cut saws
- saws for cutting curves or special shapes, such as bow saws and fret saws. There are also special-purpose saws for cutting wood while it is still on the tree – pruning saws, for example.