To find the length of the piece of wood after the carpenter sawed off 0.9 centimeters, you can subtract the length that was sawed off from the original length.
Original length: 8.6 centimeters
Length sawed off: 0.9 centimeters
Now, perform the subtraction:
8.6 cm - 0.9 cm = 7.7 cm
Therefore, the length of the piece of wood now is 7.7 centimeters.