A pruning saw that binds is usually the set
I started a cut on an old apple limb on a grey February morning. Halfway through, the blade stopped. I thought I had hit a knot. I wrenched it. The plate pinched, the kerf closed, and I had to open the cut with a wedge of kindling to get the saw out. The teeth were still sharp. They were not set. The plate was also gummed with last year's sap. I had been forcing a blade that had no room to run.
A pruning saw cuts on a pull more often than a push. The teeth need a set, a slight flare left and right, so the slot they cut is wider than the plate. That gap is what lets the blade run in green wood. If the set is flat, the plate rubs. Friction heats. The wood closes. You bind. People blame the tree. The tree was wet and living. The saw had no kerf.
I would not buy another until I have looked at the old one. Hold it at eye level and look along the teeth from the handle. You should see a small zigzag, not a single line. If the teeth sit flat, the set is gone. A dirty plate does the same job as a flat set. Wipe the sap off. A rag and a bit of white spirit on the stubborn film, then dry. I would not dunk the blade and leave it. Water in the teeth is rust by March. That is the same winter habit I wrote about in Winter tools need a wipe and a film of oil.
I would not try to reset impulse-hardened teeth with a punch. They snap. Cheap folding saws are often hardened that way and sold as never needing a file. They also arrive with almost no set. Once they bind, that saw is a stick. A plate that has already kinked from a wrench is finished too. You will never get a straight cut out of a bent plate.
The saw is for wood you cannot close in one honest pull. Loppers that crush are usually the bolt is the note for the tool below that. If the loppers still meet and the stem is still too thick, that is when the saw comes off the hook. I would not start a saw cut on wood the loppers can still take. A shallow kerf in a live stem is a wound you did not need.
Skip the folding junk in a plastic wallet. Thin plate, no set, a lock that folds on your knuckle when the blade sticks. I have had that lock open in a cut. I do not want it again. Skip a carpenter's saw on green garden wood. The plate is too wide and the teeth are wrong. Skip a bow saw on a small plot unless you actually have a limb that size. Extra length is extra snag in a border. Skip anything sold only as "never needs sharpening" with no word about set. Sharp and flat still binds.
A spring prune kit is smaller than the catalogues say. The saw is not in the small kit. It stays hung until there is a branch that needs it. February and March are when that branch shows, the late-winter wood you waited to take out. After September cut-back is a tool choice, the other week it shows. You have taken the tops down and found a stub or a crossing limb the blades cannot finish. Late winter and that autumn tidy. Those are the two times a bind matters on a small UK plot. A jammed February cut tears bark. A jammed September cut sits open all winter.
I hang it. A shed hook that actually holds a fork will hold a saw if the hook is meant for a shaft or a handle, not a cup. Teeth in a bucket nick whatever sits next to them. I have pulled secateurs out of that bucket with a new scratch across the blade. Hang the saw. Wipe the plate first.
If I later add a buy link here, it will be a paid promo.