"The band saw created a special era in American architecture... the gingerbread house was born."
200 Years of Woodworking (1976)
Greek legend suggests that the first saw was made by Perdix, the nephew of the inventor Daedalus. He was inspired to create a cutting tool on observing the ridges on a fish's backbone. However, saws were probably, in use well before this; ancient Egyptians used serrated copper saw blades.
The handsaw is limited by the need for people to power it. The circular saw, patented in the eighteenth century, helped alleviate that problem but also had its limitations, namely that it could cut no deeper than the radius of its disc. The band saw—a fast-moving cutting "strip" mounted in a machine—potentially solved both problems and has many advantages over the handsaw and the circular saw.
William Newberry of London, England, was granted a patent for the first band saw in 1808. It was a strip of flexible steel welded together to form a circle or band. When rotated rapidly, this had a vigorous cutting action and, in principle, could make light work of slicing a trunk into planks. The drawback of Newberry's invention was that, although technically sound, the metals from which saws were made at the time were not robust enough for the task. There were also problems with the join in the piece of metal, and it was not until some years later that the band saw actually began to look like a viable option.
In 1846 a Frenchwoman, Mademoiselle Crepin, patented a technique that allowed the two ends of the saw to be fixed together with a much stronger join, allowing practical band saws to be made. Further developments in the quality of steel also helped, and band saws became an essential tool. The practical results of the band saw range from an elaborate new style in architecture (American Carpenter Renaissance) to the creation of the first 3D jigsaw puzzles.
