Riving Knife

[The Medway Handyman]

Thanks, but it's a 190mm machine. I'm looking for a 160mm.

[dom]

Why the smaller blade? I gave my old 140mm skilsaw away recently, as it was never used now I have the 190mm one.

[The Medway Handyman]

Size & weight really. I don't need the extra depth of cut. My B&D is a huge beast, cumbersome and the case takes up a load of space in the van.

BTW anyone know anything about the Wolf Sapphire WCS160S ?

like someone is just using the brand name - seems too cheap to be any good.

[dom]

Fair enough. I did consider hanging on to mine for just that reason, but I found in practice I'd habitually use the larger one. Those little cordless ones look like they'd be cool for details, but I understand they suck the batteries very quickly.

[The Medway Handyman]

Indeed they do - or some do. I have an SIP 18v jobby with 2 x 1.9a/h batteries & it is rather disapointing.

[Stuart Noble]

There are some tools you should pay good money for but the circ saw isn't one of them IMO

[meow2222]

I just assumed all ate batteries, circular sawing is a relatively power hungry app after all. Or do people have ones that dont?

NT

[Andy Hall]

I disagree. It depends on what work you want to do.

I tend to see circular saws in four categories:

- The really cheap junk around £20-30 that isn't worth buying.

- Reasonable quality light use such as Bosch green and B&D

- Trade/industrial quality - Makita, Bosch blue, De Walt, Metabo, Hitachi

- High end quality. Festool, Mafell, possibly a few others.

In the top two categories one can expect a solid cast rather than stamped base - yes it does make a difference - , good quality adjusters that are easy to set and clean, smooth operation.

I've compared the Festool and Mafell with Makita, Metabo and Hitachi and there is certainly a difference in feel between them.

Certainly if one wanted to regularly use a circular saw as part of a panel cutting set up with guide rails, Festool and Mafell both have very good products that inegrate with them well. Had I been doing this, I certainly would have gone for one of these products. As it is I have a table saw with slider and outrigger so I can handle large panels anyway and so I have a Hitachi circular saw to cover applications needing a portable saw.

This is a similar discussion to jig saws. People with experience only of entry level ones assume that all are limited, and that is not really the case.

[Andy Hall]

Yes I do. It's a little Makita one that I've had for years. It has a very thin blade of about 80mm diameter which is quite highly geared to the motor - doesn't spin very fast. However, for small trimming jobs, it's pretty good.

Other than that, one needs to go to some of the Bosch and similar 24v products to get anything useful.

[John Rumm]

Many of the small smaller sizes these days are cordless ones. Perhaps you ought to investigate some of those?

[Stuart Noble]

Totally different to a jigsaw where sustained power at low speed is required. A cheap jigsaw gives an inferior result every time so they aren't worth buying. However, any old circular saw will whizz through sheet materials and, with the right blade, deliver as good a cut as anything else. With the £30 Power Devil I like to leave half the pencil line (grade 2B) on the edge of the cut, but I guess I could achieve greater accuracy by paying a bit more :-)

[Andy Hall]

If you were using a marking knife possibly.....