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Corona Folding Saw
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Product: Corona folding saw. Configuration: 10-inch blade. Product Put in Service: December 2008. Reviewed by: Rich Ries. Cost: $20 from Lowe's. Other home improvement stores, garden shops, and online vendors carry similar products. Weight/Mass: 9.6 oz./272 g. Recommended? Yes.
Executive Summary: An excellent tool if you have the skill to use it safely.
Ratings
(1 is lowest, 5 is highest)
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Comments
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Cutting Efficiency
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5
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Performs well on all sorts of cutting jobs.
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Ease of Carrying
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4
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Blade locks closed; a little bulky, a little heavy.
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Cost/Value
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5
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Worth twice the price when you need it.
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Let's start with safety. And let's start with this rule: if you haven't been trained in cutting trees - don't! The risk of serious injury or death is high. A tree that looks harmless lying across the trail can have tremendous potential energy, which is easily converted into tibia-shattering kinetic energy when you start sawing. At the very least you can expect to leave your saw behind when it gets wedged so tightly into a cut that you can't pull it out. This isn't a primer on safe sawing. Neither is this a recommendation to go out and cut every hunk of wood you encounter while mountain biking. There's a time to cut and a time to not cut. Read one of IMBA's books on trail building or consult with your local trail building expert. What we're offering here is simply a review of a folding saw we like.
And what do we like about this Corona folding saw? The teeth are the right size for efficient cutting in hardwood, soft wood, wet wood, dry wood, almost any wood, really. The set provides a kerf wide enough that it doesn't swell shut and bind the blade when cutting wet, soft wood, such as pine. The Corona cuts on the pull stroke. A saw with a frame, such as a bow saw, can cut on both the push- and the pull strokes. But a folder, with no means of supporting the far end of the blade, should cut only on the pull stroke to keep from bending the blade on the forward stroke. The handle is comfortable and allows for a two-handed grip when necessary. The thumb lever locks the blade in both the open and the closed positions. The curve of the blade keeps the saw from jumping out of the cut when you really get rockin' and improves cutting efficiency. The 10-inch blade is much more useful in the field than the 7-inch saw this unit replaces, although the Corona has a 111-gram penalty over the smaller Coghlan.
Downsides? The Corona is a little porky in both size and weight. Still, it stows easily and goes unnoticed in a hydration pack pocket. Other than that, we have no complaints.
Over the years we've used a variety of saws to perform impromptu trail maintenance. A good folder is the most versatile type of saw for this purpose, and the Corona is a good folder. It's up to you to learn how and when to use it.
Here's the Corona in its retail packaging.
Comparison photos of the old and new saws (above and below) show relative sizes. Note the curved blade on the Corona and the straight blade on the Coghlan. A curved blade provides better control and faster, more efficient cutting.
Despite its 43 percent longer blade (10 vs. 7 inches), the Corona still fits easily into a hydration pack pocket.
The teeth are similar in size and shape between the two saws, but the Corona's teeth (top) are slightly more aggressive than the Coghlan's (bottom).
The Coghlan's bail effectively held the blade open (photo above), but the Corona's thumb lever locks the blade in both the open and closed positions (photo below).
The best indicator of the sharpness of a saw is the sawdust it throws. Note the smaller dust from the Coghlan's cut on the left compared to the Corona's cut on the right. The difference isn't huge, but it's sufficient to significantly reduce the strokes needed to cut a log. Less time cutting equals more time riding, so fewer strokes is a desirable goal. Still, the Coghlan has some life left and will go into the Ries's travel trailer for occasional campsite use. Not bad for an eight dollar saw bought at Wal-Mart a decade ago.
A bow saw holds both ends of the blade so cutting can occur on both the push and the pull strokes. A folder will bend when the free end of its blade hits resistance on the push stroke, so a folder should cut only on the pull stroke. Small, collapsible bow saws are available, but when assembled for use their triangular design severely restricts the sizes of logs that can be cut. A good folder is a much better choice. And forget rope saws; the teeth are too small to cut much of anything. They're small and light and they're cute, but they don't cut. Rich Ries has a skip-tooth chainsaw chain with ropes on both ends. It's great for limbing from the ground, but it's expensive and tricky to use and impractical for anything but overhead cutting.
One of the first opportunities to use this saw in the field was during a hike of the mountain bike trail at Versailles State Park. This treetop had blown down and was blocking the trail. It took less than 15 minutes to clear away the limbs. That pile behind the bike in the lower photo was what removed. (The bike is in the photo because we rode the trail a couple of days after we hiked it. We had a camera on the bike ride but not during the hike.)
