Cut your wood, get your exercise and chat to the cat (B&Q HP Bowsaw Red)

Member Name: SusanLesley

Product:	B&Q HP Bowsaw Red
Date:	05/12/08 (392 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap, effective, easy to use

Disadvantages: None for us

Now this is an unusual category for me to be writing in so I'll start by giving you some background as to why I would be found using a bow saw!

When we moved into our cottage we had a multi fuel burner installed and we actually use it just as a wood burner. We have a friend who is a gardener and he lets us have the wood from any trees that he either prunes or cuts down.

Dave has made a saw horse - for the uninitiated amongst you that's a sort of frame on which the wood is put for sawing and it keeps the wood still so that there is less likelihood of accidents.

Now the large pieces of wood are cut by Dave with the chain saw and there is NO WAY that I will be having a go with that one! I like having 8 fingers and 2 thumbs thank you! The chunks of wood get chopped with an axe - now I did try this but managed to hit myself with it quite quickly so I gave up on that! Incidentally I did only give myself a small cut and still have all my digits!

This leaves the smaller branches which need to be sawn into pieces and initially we were using the small tenon saw that we had in the workshop, but this wasn't very efficient to say the least so we decided to buy a bow saw.

We buy quite a bit of DIY stuff from B & Q so this was the obvious place for us to go and seek out this 'high tech' piece of equipment!

We found that they had one or two to choose from ranging from about £5 upwards. We decided to go for the cheapest one for a few reasons:

Obviously the price - which was £4.98
It looked sturdy enough
We weren't certain at that point whether it would be exactly what we needed as we're still learning what to use to cut what if you see what I mean.

The saw is described as a 'general purpose bow saw for cutting wood' so that was a good start!

The metal support for the blade is bright red with a black handle attached along the metal at one end. The saw blade is steel and is 610mm long, or for those of you like me who still think in old money 24 inches!

We decided that this was worth trying as, if it worked we had a bargain, and if it didn't we had only wasted £4.98.

As it happened it worked like a charm! Dave tried it first and he cut a lot of our wood ready for burning. The next time he went out into the garden he was working with the chain saw so I decided to try the bow saw, not really thinking I would be much use with it. How wrong could I be?

I could use it quite easily. Obviously the thicker the wood the more difficult it is for me to saw through so I stuck to the thinner pieces at least at first! It is also easier to cut the drier wood rather than the greener wood.

We have also been given a lot of old skirting board, 2" by 4", pieces from fence panels, floorboards, old wooden ladders and a set of shelves and I have been able to cut up all of these with the new bow saw.

As I said earlier it is easy enough to use - you just have to draw the blade backwards and forwards across the wood until it is in two pieces - the wood not the saw!

The other advantage is that it is good exercise and it certainly warms me up and makes me glow (us ladies don't sweat do we?).

At the moment Dave is working on a contract in Scotland so I am trying to get as much done as I can whilst he is away so he isn't left with everything to do at the weekends when he gets home and of course whilst I am working in the garden Mew comes out and keeps me company! I keep asking him to go and put the kettle on for me but he just says 'me? how?' (meow get it?)

So, if any of you out there have an open fire or a wood burner I would certainly recommend this piece of kit!

Summary: A great way to cut wood and get exercise