Mionsonraí an Táirge

Over 14 Years in the Making

The new Silky Zubat Ultimate 33cm Handsaw is on the way to Australia.

We first heard of a new tooth design for the Silky Zubat Handsaw over 14 years ago. It was during a trip to Japan and a visit to the Silky Saws Factory,

In correspondence to the Factory over the years, I have often asked about the progress of the new tooth for the Zubat. Invariably the answer received was that progress was being made. However, they thought they could further improve the efficiency of the new tooth.

It was definitely the way that companies in Japan thought. From Toyota to the smallest business the motto is always keep improving.

It made me smile every time I enquired. But really, I was starting to think that maybe it was getting too hard to make the new tooth. It was a big ask to enhance the performance of the current Silky Zubat 33cm Arborist Handsaw.

Silky Zubat Ultimate 33cm Handsaw

What Took So Long?

In the image to this section, you will see what is called a Scraper tooth. If you study it carefully, you will see that every 14 teeth there is a tooth that scrapes the base of the cut and alternately ejects sawdust to the left and right when cutting.

Attaining the correct angles and tooth dimensions, plus ensuring that it also improved the efficiency of the existing Zubat were the problems that needed to be addressed.

At the same time, the Factory wanted to ensure that the Zubat Ultimate 33cm Handsaw would cut equally fast on the cross cut, rip cut and slant cut. They are happy they have achieved this goal.

Starter Teeth

You will also notice on the image, next to the 330, there is a box with 7.5 -> 6.5. That represents the change of tooth size from the Starter Teeth at 7.5 teeth per 30mm to cutting teeth at 6.5 teeth per 30mm.

If you have ever used a Silky Saw, you will know that they are extremely sharp. This was both a blessing and a curse for new users. Over the years we have had feedback from new users that it was difficult to start the cut.

Usually the problem was that they had banged their Silky Zubat down onto the branch and it had bitten into the branch. The user then required excess force to start the cut. This was’t appreciated. It often took a bit of explanation to convince the user that downward pressure was not needed when starting the cut. They had to just drag the blade across the branch and let the saw do the work.