In woodworking

Woodworking

Woodworking is the process of building, making or carving something using wood.-History:Along with stone, mud, and animal parts, wood was one of the first materials worked by early humans. Microwear analysis of the Mousterian stone tools used by the Neanderthals show that many were used to work wood...

, a rip cut is a cut made parallel to the wood grain

Wood grain

In speaking of wood the term grain refers to the alternating regions of relatively darker and lighter wood resulting from the differing growth parameters occurring in different seasons . The term is used in several ways. Perhaps most important is that in woodworking techniques...

. Rip cuts are commonly made with a table saw

Table saw

A table saw or sawbench is a woodworking tool consisting of a circular saw blade, mounted on an arbor, that is driven by an electric motor...

, but other types of saws can also be used, including hand

Hand saw

In woodworking and carpentry, hand saws, also known as "panel saws", "fish saws", are used to cut pieces of wood into different shapes. This is usually done in order to join the pieces together and create a wooden object. They usually operate by having a series of sharp points of some substance...

 rip saw

Rip saw

In woodworking, a cut made parallel to the direction of the grain of the workpiece is known as a rip cut. If one were to cut a tree trunk in half from top to bottom, this would be a rip cut — but the term also applies to cutting free lumber....

s, radial arm saw

Radial arm saw

A radial arm saw is a cutting machine consisting of a circular saw mounted on a sliding horizontal arm. Invented by Raymond De Walt in 1922, the radial arm saw was the primary tool used for cutting long pieces of stock to length until the introduction of the miter saw in the 1970s.In addition to...

s and band saw

Band saw

A bandsaw is a power tool which uses a blade consisting of a continuous band of metal with teeth along one edge to cut various workpieces. The band usually rides on two wheels rotating in the same plane, although some small bandsaws have three wheels. Bandsawing produces uniform cutting action as a...

s. Unlike cross-cutting, which shears the wood fibers, a rip saw works more like a chisel

Chisel

A chisel is a tool with a characteristically shaped cutting edge of blade on its end, for carving or cutting a hard material such as wood, stone, or metal. The handle and blade of some types of chisel are made of metal or wood with a sharp edge in it.In use, the chisel is forced into the material...

, 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

Circular saw

The circular saw is a machine using a toothed metal cutting disc or blade. The term is also loosely used for the blade itself. The blade is a tool for cutting wood or other materials and may be hand-held or table-mounted. It can also be used to make narrow slots...

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 rabbits. 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.