There are many tools you can use to prune a tree. A reciprocating saw makes quick work of medium-sized branches, say 5/8″ – 3″ in diameter.
If you only cut a couple of branches a year, then you can probably use whatever wood-cutting saw blades you have at your disposal. But if you’re tasked with cutting many or thicker branches, you’re going to want to consider picking up an appropriate saw blade.
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I came across these Milwaukee Sawzall pruning blades on Amazon, and they seem to be recommended by most users. A faster, easier, more efficient way to cut green branches with a recip saw? Sign me up!
These 5 TPI pruning blades are available in 9″ and 12″ lengths. The link below leads to a 5-blade pack, but I’ll be on a mission to find single-blades locally.
Buy Now(via Amazon)
fred
Similar to a Skil blade:
Link
fred
The Skil Blade is available in a 1 pack – but no great cost saving:
Link
There is also a Bosch pruning blade
Stuart
Thanks for the heads-up! I’ll add the Skil to my shopping list. Will probably pick up the first I find in-stores. Unless of course the single-blade prices are too high. At $7 per blade, it’s better to buy a 5-pack for $15.
Clayton
I think I’ve seen the Skil blades in Lowes, as a 1-pack, but sadly I’m pretty sure it is priced near what the 5-pack of Milwaukee’s here is.
rob
I have used the Skil blade with pretty good success. It beats taking out the chainsaw when you need to trim a few branches.
Jon
The HD near me sells single 9″ Milwaukee blades for ~$5. I’ve used mine for a couple years in spring and fall without any noticeable change in the blade performance.
Chip
Link
I can attest to this blade aswell.
Flat out rocks… especially for the price. Used it in my porter cable recip with a 18v large lithium pack and it was my go to choice for cutting anything upto 5″-6″ in diameter limbs. Was the perfect setup for tidying-up/making quick work of lower hanging limbs on trees. Not only efficient and long lasting, but fun too.
…Whichever pruning blade you go with, it makes a nice addition to the recip saw’s capabilities.
Harold
The Lowe’s near me carries a 3-pack of 9-inch blades by porter cable for just under $11. In fact, I just picked some up recently to prune some branches on a guava tree that’s too close to the house.
I found the link, too.
Stuart
Thanks for all the links to different brand and quantity options! (Some of the links were so long they were breaking out of the comment space, so I truncated the links or shorted their titles.)
Fred
I have used a few similar blades like this also. Some of the ‘demolition’ style or ‘nail embedded’ wood blades work well for pruning bushes, haven’t tried them on tree limbs or trunks. I also use a ‘rough/fast’ wood jigsaw blade for some more ‘exact’ pruning like corners or in certain spots in the garden.
Harold
One thing you will notice on the “pruning” blades versus the demo blades is the depth of the gullets on the blade. Because the tree you’re pruning is presumably alive and green, that gullet depth is definitely going to help out tremendously in material removal and overall speed of cut. This is probably especially true for some of those 1″ to 2″ limbs and branches.
Patrick Lucado
Very timely tool! I recently found these myself and they work great. Given the length of the saw and the blade you can usually trim pretty high up even without a ladder. I’d actually have no qualms taking down a small tree totally with this blade and a couple batteries. They do work much better than a rough cut carpentry blade.
Dan Richards
Irwin has one too, I think it’s $6 per 2-pack. Sears carried it in the fall, but I didn’t get it there. No real cost difference, but it’s what I have in my Makita recip saw right now.
Dan Woodard
On small green branches the pruning blade’s long, straight teeth can dig in and the gets hooked and just vibrates back and forth with the blade. The “demo” style blades sometimes are easier in this situation because they have hooked one-way teeth which cut only on the draw stroke and pull the branch against the stop.
Drew
Diablo makes one that is excellent, use it for the Christmas tree and shrubs every year.