Rake is the lean of the tooth’s cutting face, measured as degrees past vertical. A tooth with 0° rake attacks the wood aggressively — cutting fast, but grabby and hard to start. A negative rake is like a wolf's tooth and seldom used in practice. Relaxing the face back 8° for rip cut saws or 15° for cross cut saws still cuts quickly but with less action on each tooth, letting your stroke cut sweetly with precision and comfort.
Fleam is the bevel filed across that face. A saw filed for rip cuts carries none: each square-filed tooth chops the fibers straight across as it's pushed into them, like felling a stand of tiny trees. Cutting across the grain is a different story: saws filed for cross cuts carry 20° of fleam, turning each face into a knife that slices through fibers. On a crosscut saw, a 15° rake presents more of each sharpened bevel to the wood fibers to slice easily through the grain.
Set is the slight outward bend in the top third of each tooth, alternating direction one tooth after the next. Set widens the kerf just past the plate’s thickness so the saw runs free instead of binding. A little is all you need — 0.05–0.08 mm per side, in dry hardwood. Too much set and the plate runs loose in an oversized kerf and your cut wanders away from your line. It is better to learn to set your cut up straight and let the saw plate guide you down the kerf than to rely on a wide kerf that lets you change direction mid-cut.