Comment by akerl_
7 months ago
I think we've almost certainly bottomed this out, but I feel obligated to point out that table saws can do a bunch of things that are borderline impossible with a hand saw. Table saws are not a replacement for hand saws. The fact that hand saws and table saws both have blades with teeth is about where the similarities end.
You're forgetting that table saws were invented thousands of years after hand saws. Master Craftsman used hand saws to do all of the things that are done with table saws. Many things are much easier on a table saw and much faster to do than with a hand saw. They are absolutely a replacement for hand saws that fulfill a niche. I suspect you haven't done a lot of actual woodworking for you to make this statement like this.
Just because we use table saws to rip lumber or massive table saws to cut up trees into lumber doesn't mean that no one could have created lumber prior to the invention of the table saw. We just factually know that's not true. Faster, easier, better, absolutely but all of it could be done and was done with hand saws. Maybe you're thinking the hand saw is limited to this simple hand saw that we have now or a simple Japanese hand saw and not the actual large hand saws that took two people to operate but are still hand saws that come with all of the dangers of the hand saw.