Circular saw handedness

[michael adams]

Alternatively you could have fixed 2 runners to the base plate of your saw using 6mm ply, (you'd probably need 6mm to accommodate the countersunk heads of the 6mm/ 1/4in. screws you'll use to attach the runners, having drilled holes in the baseplate to size) routed out some parallel channels in another long piece of ply for your guides, and saved yourself around £450.

As its for sheet and panel work the loss of saw depth by using ply rather than aluminium for the rails and guide will hardly be critical IMO.

michael adams

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[newshound]

Is no-one going to mention the saw-board? Once you have used one, you'll never want to touch a rip fence again.

[The Medway Handyman]

Fuckwit

[The Medway Handyman]

[michael adams]

A sawboard only has a guide at one side, the left. So with nothing to stop the saw drifting to the right except physical effort on the users part it can prove tiring in use after a couple of hours. With grooves you can push the saw through with just a finger pressure and be certain of staying straight.

SMFG

michael adams

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[Matty F]

An excellent idea. It occurs to me that the ideal saw has not yet been invented, for home handymen anyway. I'd like something like a drop saw with about 2.5 metres of travel!

Not all cuts have to be straight. I use my Skilsaw in ways that were not intended. I made a stage set out of particle board flooring with a couple of hundreds of metres of curves. When I didn't have access to a lathe I made a round finial using a Skilsaw and a rasp.

[The Medway Handyman]

Physical effort? Come on, its hardly an effort is it? Eat a few more pies.

[michael adams]

In all seriousness I'm very grateful to the OP for pointing me towards the £450 (or whatever) Festool saw with the guide rail. As soon as I saw it I realised I could knock up something pretty similar for peanuts. Up until now for ripping shorter lengths I'd always used my own double sided track with a straight factory edge of ply at either side, with tie bars bolted across either end, and used the one edge from the long side of an 8x4 sheet for longer ripping. This new idea will come in handy as I've got quite a few full panels of MDF to cut up anytime soon, and the usual single straightedge can get a bit tiring. I'll settle for just the one groove in various lengths of MDF with a 9mm deep ply runner bolted to the soleplate of the saw, all of which I have. When I've made the first cut with the saw I can then profile that edge of the MDF guide with a chamfer bit in the router to make alignment that bit easier. The same trick would also work with the router for which I already have a track although with shallower components to compensate for the loss of depth in the cut unless I stick to the cheapo deep worktop cutters.

I once had a very bad experience with a kickback on a saw where I'd wired up the guard for a particular job. My saws are all over 30 years old now so I don't know if they still have switches which can be set to stay on. This one did anyway, and was. On. While the work was firmly clamped. A couple of inches the other way and giving someone a bad headache or a sore throat would probably have been the least of my worries. That's one thing about jigsaws. You'd have to try very hard to give yourself or anyone else a serious injury with one of those. Apart from blades snapping and piercing your eyeball anyway.

michael adams

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[Jon Fairbairn]

It's what I do too (one of the alternatives mentioned in the OP), but the question was, why do I have to do it?

the problem is not so much motor skill in my case but simple left-arm strength.

First thing I intend to do with it is make a sawboard, which involves cutting a piece of a large sheet. Materials arriving tomorrow, I hope.

By the way has a link to "Details for making one", but the link target is dead.

[Bolted]

Can you afford it?

[soup]

A couple of hours? Remember this is a DIY forum, who would use a circular saw for a few hours ? You could cut a LOT of board in a couple of hours.

[The Medway Handyman]

Thats the point. It shouldn't require any strength to use a circular saw. If it does there is something wrong, blunt blade etc.

Wonderful things sawboards.

Calling Mr Rumm, calling Mr Rumm...

[The Medway Handyman]

Even so, there simply shouldn't be any physical effort involved in controlling a circular saw with a decent sharp blade.

If you force a saw you are asking for kickback.

[michael adams]

If you've got an awkward size kitchen and don't want odd gaps you have little choice but to make your own cabinets. To make two such cabinets including a corner cabinet including bases, shelves kickboards door fronts drawer fronts etc will take about 25 pieces of MDF which can just about be got out of 3 8x4 equivalent sheets.

While its essential to plan which pieces will come out of each sheet beforehand unless your saw kerf comes to an exact no. of mm it will still be necessary to again mark up the sheet as you go along. Interior corners when cutting into the board will need to be finished off with a jigsaw. So its guide down clamp on clamp on, cut. Clamp off, clamp, off. Guide down clamp on clamp. Cut in the other direction. Clamp off clamp off. Unplug CS plug in the jigsaw. Cut cut. Mark up for the next piece.

Possibly you could do all that in just two hours and retain as much accuracy and enthusiasm on the 26th piece out of the 3rd sheet as on the first. I'm happy to admit that I'm not that confident and so try to make things as easy as possible.

michael adams

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[Matty F]

George Bernard Shaw: "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."

[Jon Fairbairn]

I think you underestimate how much strength it takes to lift the thing up, hold it against the guide for the duration of the cut and put it down again. Admittedly, if you don't have chronic fatigue, you probably have that much strength (actually, it's more a stamina issue) without trying, but...

Doubtless I will find out soon.

Mr Rumm, Mr Rumm...

that could make a good bass line for an a capella group.

[The Medway Handyman]

Just a thought - is this anything to do with motors turning clockwise? Most motors do.

I guess people like Makita & Bosch make their own & could make them to go either way though.

[Jon Fairbairn]

I think I understand most of that, but I'm not sure it really explains the handedness. If the saw was dropping down and to the right, that would just require cutting from right to left with the widest part of the workpiece away from one.

[michael adams]

Having thought a bit more. When sawing up to a marked out line you always saw to the right of the line. (Except when cutting narrow strips when it may not be possible) Otherwise you'd have to take account of the width of the kerf when marking out, and this isn't always in round figures.

So that basically when cutting out any shape which has been marked out on sheet of say plywood you proceed in a clockwise direction around the marked out shape with the weight of the saw motor and the baseplate resting on the shape being cut out, which is in the middle - to the left, rather than on the waste on the outside.

I still can't quite get my head around the relationship between always having to saw to the right of the line, the direction of the saw motor, the direction you proceed in cutting around the shape, clockwise or anti-clockwise and whether it makes any difference If you're left or right handed,

michael adams

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[michael adams]

Its not just the physical effort. There's is far more concentration required to make sure you keep the saw tight against the fence for about 75 cutting operations - when one slip-up means having to go out and buy another whole sheet and throw 75% of it away, than there is in simply running the saw up and down a groove where such slip ups are impossible.

This latest groove idea is the dogs bollocks IMHO. Once I've got that first perfect groove routed out, I can fit a runner to a baseplate on the router, run that up and down that groove and make loads of grooves in other lengths of wood as well.

michael adams

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