The Best Folding Saws
A folding saw does the job a camp axe cannot: cutting green branches and limbs cleanly, which is inefficient work for a chopping blade. A high-quality folding saw with impulse-hardened teeth cuts on the pull stroke, produces clean crosscuts through six-inch green wood in under a minute, and folds down to a pocket-sized package. These are the folding saws worth carrying.
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How to Choose
Blade length determines the diameter of wood you can cut: a 7-inch blade handles wood up to about 4 inches; a 10-inch blade handles up to 6 inches. Impulse-hardened teeth cannot be resharpened but last ten times longer than standard hardened teeth before replacement is needed. Silky and Bahco are the two manufacturers whose blades are meaningfully better than the alternatives -- both use Japanese-style tooth geometry that cuts dramatically faster than American or European tooth patterns.
Silky Pocketboy 170 Folding Saw
The Silky Pocketboy is the folding saw that changed what was possible in a compact package. A 6.7-inch blade with impulse-hardened teeth that cut on the pull stroke. It will cut through a 4-inch green branch in 15 seconds. The blade locks in the open position; the handle is non-slip rubber-over-aluminum. Silky is a Japanese company that has been making saws since 1919.
The Japanese pull-stroke tooth geometry cuts two to three times faster than a western push-stroke blade of the same length. This is not marketing -- it is geometry.
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Bahco 396-LAP Laplander Folding Saw
The Bahco Laplander has been the standard folding saw in Scandinavian bushcraft and military use for decades. A 7.5-inch blade with XT-hardened teeth, a blade-locking mechanism that will not collapse under lateral pressure, and a handle shaped to give four fingers a secure grip on the pull stroke. It comes with a blade cover. It fits in a cargo pocket.
The Laplander's blade-lock is the critical differentiator. A saw that can collapse under pressure during a cut is a blade next to your knuckles.
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