Mains powered circular saw for a left-hander

Hi All I am thinking of getting a circular saw (185mm) for a few jobs around the place. I am plenty 'handy' enough but for woodworking have tended to stick to hand tools for most of the things I need to do.

Apart from the fact that they are scary things, one other consideration for me is that I am left handed, and have a small and somewhat 'malformed' right hand (Poland's Syndrome, if anyone is interested).

This normally causes me no problems, but I am aware that tools like this are increasingly ergonomically designed for the majority right-handed folk. My right hand has less strength than my left and sometimes it is awkward for me to 'hold a handle and press a button' with it at the same time - stuff like that.

Are there any left-handers here who can offer opinions about designs that are better suited (or less ill-suited) to the sinister amongst us?

FWIW I was thinking of the Evolution Rage saw, which I have seen get good press here.

Thanks J^n

Reply to
jkn
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Ah, like Jeremy Beadle had.

I'd not thought of a circular saw or other power tools as being "handed", but I can see the problem. I wonder whether holding a circular saw and guiding it along a marked line is something that *normally* can be done with the "wrong" hand. The fact that your "wrong" hand is weakened tips the balance even more strongly in favour of you having to use your left hand.

I wonder whethe Poland Syndrome and handedness go [sorry for this unintentional pun] hand-in-hand: is the fact that your left side is your dominant side a consequence of your right hand not developing?

It's a shame that the saw is isn't designed so the handle and guide can be fitted on the opposite side. Given that left-handed people are a sizeable minority, I wonder if any tool manufacturers sell replacement handles and guides that are the opposite way round.

Handedness is an interesting thing. I had lunch with a woman who ate with her fork in her right hand and her knife in the left. I was puzzled because I'd earlier seen her writing with her right hand. I asked her and she looked bewildered: she was evidently so used to eating with her fork in her right hand for any food that didn't require a knife that she hadn't learned to eat with fork in left and knife in right, and instinctively used her knife (on the rarer occasions) in the opposite hand to the one she habitually used her fork in.

My mum is left handed but was taught to use her fork in the left hand as a right-hander would do because it would not stand out as much: at 82, she's old enough to have had left-handedness stigmatised at school, though not to the extent that she holds a pen in her left hand but still sloping to the right as a right-hander would do; I've seen a lot of people contorting their left hand so as to get the pen to slope to the right, usually involving putting the hand *above* the line of writing rather than to the left of it. Instead, Mum holds her pen in an exact mirror image of the way I would.

Reply to
NY

NY formulated the question :

Interesting, very!

I was born a sinister, forced at school to use my right hand to write with by tying my left behind my back. At 71 it now feels very odd to try to even try write with my left, but most other things I can happily do with either hand. I am left permanently confused by left and right, because I don't have a natural main hand. I have to think for a while before laying out knives and forks at the table. I use most tools with which ever hand suits the easiest access, or in repetitive jobs often just change hands to rest one or the other. Picking up a handed item like a circular saw, I would need to test it with both hands, to see which hand worked best. I get confused when shaking hands with someone as to which hand to offer and my hand writing has always been terrible. I can though, beat most people with hunt and peck on the keyboard.

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield

Our lad is left-handed. No stigma nowadays, of course, but it has taken a long time to get him to stop getting ink all over his hand as it moves across what he's just written :-)

Reply to
Dan S. MacAbre

Have you considered a sliding mitre bench saw? Obviously can't be used for cutting large sheets of stuff, etc, but since I've had mine hardly ever get out my hand held one.

And they ain't really handed - although I'd not say my hand held one is either.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

It was shameful that schools etc used to try to force people to write with their wrong hand in order to make them conform. If left-handedness was exceptionally rare, it would be more understandable (though still unforgiveable), but left-handers are about 10% of the population according to

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According to that article, I'm cross-dominant: I am very strongly right-handed for writing [1]; ambidextrous for most tasks if they are unskilled [2]; and slightly left-handed for things like pouring from a kettle or jug, probably because it allows me to use my right hand at the same time for the more precise action of stirring what I'm pouring.

I've only met one truly ambidextrous person: Bertie, my maths teacher at middle school, who revealed, in a moment of daftness on the all-the-sevens day (7/7/1977), that he could write on the blackboard equally well, forwards or mirror-image, with either hand. He simultaneously wrote the left half of each line of a poem on the left blackboard and the right half (the rest of each line) on the right. He could also write boustrophedon ("as the ox ploughs" - a word he taught us), in other words, with the letters facing forwards but written from right to left, like a dot-matrix, daisy-wheel or inkjet printer prints on alternate head-passes. I thought of Bertie the first time I saw a printer printing like that a few years later :-)

It's interesting that the article says "Men are somewhat more likely to express a strongly dominant left hand than women". I wonder if that's because a greater proportion of men than women are actually born left-handed, or because they are more likely to resist attempts to change them to be right-handed, because of their (stereotypically) "stronger" personality?

Surprisingly, given that it is a precision action, I can use a computer mouse almost as well with my left hand as my right hand, with one proviso: the buttons *must* be the same way round and not mirror-imaged. I cannot use a mouse in either hand if the left button is set to perform a right-click action and vice-versa, as many left-handers seem to prefer. I'm different, I instinctively use my middle finger on the left button and forefinger on the right button if I hold the mouse in my left hand, so the "left means left-click" association is stronger than the "forefinger means left-click" mirror-image association ;-)

[1] I've tried writing with my left hand and can barely hold the pen, never mind manage to form babyish letters. [2] When changing hands to give one hand a rest while performing a repetitive unskilled action.
Reply to
NY

Or a tracksaw? see Peter Millard's youtube channel for his talk through of the festool one(s)

Reply to
Andy Burns

I have one, and it's fantastic.

There's a very cheap track saw over at Aldididl right now.

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Quite tempted!

Reply to
GB

Me too, but not for large sheets (which is what I use a circular saw for a lot, together with a sawboard of course.

FWIW I think the handedness will still be a problem, especially if you have a weaker right hand (rather than just a less dextrous one). The point is, the blade is well offset to the right side of the baseplate, and the motors always hang off to the left so as not to obstruct your view of the cut.

I'm firmly right handed (my father was somewhat ambidextrous). But I took up eating "left handed" when I was very small, this just seemed the sensible way to me. It is also how Americans eat (but I did not know that at the time).

Reply to
newshound

That was more of a problem when people wrote with slow-drying fountain-pen ink. Nowadays with quick-drying Biro ink, it's *less* of a problem, most of the time. I can understand why in fountain pen days, left-handers used to put their hand above the line of writing so the left side of the hand and the little finger, which take the weight of the hand as you write, didn't smear the ink.

I went to school with one girl who was left-handed and gripped the pen between the first and last joints of her forefinger and middle finger

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without using her thumb, rather than between thumb and middle finger with forefinger on top
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as most people do. That looked a *lot* more weird than the fact she was writing with her left hand. Mind you, she took all the weight of her hand on the end of her little finger, which allowed her to keep the base of her hand clear of the paper to avoid it smearing the ink.

I've also seen someone holding their pen with only the thumb and forefinger touching it and the middle finger tucked back

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which looks equally uncomfortable.

But each to their own - whatever people find easiest.

Reply to
NY

Quite. I've got a strong sense of self preservation and power tools in a stand of some sort don't scare me as much as hand held ones. Especially angle grinders. ;-)

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

It's quite surprising when you look at the subtleties.

Not power tools, but steak knives and playing cards (not Waddingtons) are two odd examples of handedness.

Reply to
Jethro_uk

Yes, the way that we Brits eat, with a spoon in the right hand (for soup or a dessert) but a fork in the left hand (for main course) is slightly odd, when you think about it, given than both "tools" do a very similar job.

I gather that some Americans cut each mouthful with the knife in their right hand, then put down their knife and use the fork in their right hand to transfer that mouthful to their mouth, before picking up the knife for the next mouthful. Sounds incredibly slow and laborious but was actually designed to force people not to eat too quickly :-) Not sure I believe that story: most Americans rarely seem to use a knife and cut their food with the blunt edge of their fork in their right hand.

Reply to
NY

However, as the OP is finding, the world is designed for the 90%.

So there's some sense in trying to ensure lefties can at least manage if not excel with their right hand.

You're f***ed if you are a left handed soldier, btw. ISTR Clarkson messing around with a British SLR and pointing out that the fixed cartridge ejection would make it impossible to fire left-handed.

Reply to
Jethro_uk

Agreed. Righties are still in the considerable majority. I get the impression that more left-handers can't use their right hands for even non-precision tasks, than right-handers can use their left hand - at a pinch, as a "cope" rather than "excel" fall-back strategy. But then I'm probably *slightly* more ambidextrous than many people, so I'm biassed.

Is he left-handed? I've never noticed.

Reply to
NY

I'll have a look next time I have steak in a restaurant (if I'm given a proper steak knife) and see if it's handed. Most knives, forks and spoons look symmetrical to me: maybe some steak knives are an exception and the handle is thicker on one side of the blade than the other or the blade is slightly curved.

Reply to
NY

I don't know. But there was a gun on the bonnet of a car (it may have been the first series of Grand Tour, where they have to "rescue" someone). Either way, he picked up a rifle, fired it, and noted that it sprayed red-hot cartridge casings to the RIGHT. Meaning if fired with the left hand it's into the body of the soldier. He then noted bad luck if you're a leftie in the British army.

Reply to
Jethro_uk

There's a slight - but designed - scallop from the serrations on one side (goes to kitchen) - the LHS. I think it's meant to allow the meat to fall away.

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I was bought up right handed, but have since discovered some ambiguities. I've always eaten left handed anyway - for no reason I know of. But it was only when I noticed how awkward I found "regular" playing cards that I discovered I fan and hold them left handed - and always have. What masked the fact was we grew up using Waddingtons as standard, and they are pleasingly ambidextrous.

Scissors ...

Reply to
Jethro_uk

We must be a very odd family...we are all right handed but...

SWMBO always uses fork in right hand, knife in left. So does one of our sons.

SWMBO and I are both rodentially ambidextrous. We both have the mouse buttons mirror imaged.

I hold a pen between thumb and forefinger, with all finger joints bent. I get lots of comments but that's how I've always done it.

Reply to
Bob Eager

Unusually (I suspect), our lad's school only allows fountain pens. The old-fashioned part of me quite likes the idea, but it makes it much harder for him to write without making a mess.

Reply to
Dan S. MacAbre

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