Save time cutting plywood

[Ed Pawlowski]

A little trick that will save lots of time when you have more than one sheet to cut

[Puckdropper]

Ed Pawlowski [e-mail] wrote in news:knlpI.388260$ [e-mail]:

There were adapters at one time to use a circular saw as a table saw. That bloke is just going the opposite way!

Puckdropper

[DerbyDad03]

Saw Table! I had one of those 30ish years ago. I still have the table out in the shed, but without a saw attached. I use it as a portable worksurface every now and then.

[DerbyDad03]

My favorite part of Imgur is the comments. Click the "Expand All" link because the follow-up comments are often better than the original comment.

e.g.

Comment: That's what a sled is for... Follow-up: OK, but then you have to spend money keeping your reindeer fed

Comment: Australian table saw? Follow-up: ??un? q?np u??n? s??? ???? u? sn d?nl ?,uop

Not sure if that will work in all newsreaders. It's an upside down sentence. "Don't lump us in with this f-ing c..."

[Leon]

Something tells me that would not be faster adter having to lift the TS up there upside down.

[knuttle]

That is like using your push mower to trim your hedges.

However it appears to be working for him.

[krw]

What a good idea! I'll have to try that with my Unisaw.

[krw]

If he gets a kickback, it's going to be a Bugs Bunny show.

[Brian Welch]

another future Darwin Award candidate...

[russellseaton1]

Guessing that is a 10" table saw he is using. So it has about a 4" depth of cut. 5 sheets of 3/4" plywood. A 7.25" circular saw has about a 2.5" depth of cut. 3 sheets of 3/4" plywood. So he is able to cut 2 more sheets with the upside down table saw than if he used a common circular saw. It is an improvement in productivity. But enough to warrant the extra effort? Looks like the stack of plywood he is cutting is about 3 feet tall. About 50 sheets. So it will be 10 passes with his upside down table saw compared to 17 passes with a circular saw. Worth it? Its easier to push a circular saw than an upside down table saw. So I bet the effort and time used for 10 upside down table saw passes will be more than the 17 circular saw passes. So in the end its a negative from a labor, production, perspective.

This chap needs to use his obvious and vastly superior mind to invent a new and better way to cut plywood.

[DerbyDad03]

But where is his circular saw? Maybe he left it home, maybe it's locked in somebody's truck, maybe it's on the roof and all the ladders went home. Maybe he let the smoke out or cut the cord.

Your math may be correct, but are you sure that you've accounted for all of the variables?

Oh yeah, one other question: Aren't you making a pretty bold assumption about the number of cuts he plans on making? Maybe he's had his fun and he's done.

[Leon]

Well that is nor right, for the vast majority of 10" table saws. 3" and a bit over is the max I have ever seen. MY ICS SawStop cuts 3.125" deep.

So recalculate everything below. :!) 4 sheets max.

5 sheets of 3/4" plywood. A 7.25" circular saw has about a 2.5" depth of cut. 3 sheets of 3/4" plywood. So he is able to cut 2 more sheets with the upside down table saw than if he used a common circular saw. It is an improvement in productivity. But enough to warrant the extra effort? Looks like the stack of plywood he is cutting is about 3 feet tall. About 50 sheets. So it will be 10 passes with his upside down table saw compared to 17 passes with a circular saw. Worth it? Its easier to push a circular saw than an upside down table saw. So I bet the effort and time used for 10 upside down table saw passes will be more than the 17 circular saw passes. So in the end its a negative from a labor, production, perspective.

[John Grossbohlin]

Another variable for the mix:

It is likely that the table saw has more torque than the circular saw and can actually make the deep cut relatively quickly. The circular saw may require a much slower feed rate to accomplish the cut.

Guessing that is a 10" table saw he is using. So it has about a 4" depth of cut. 5 sheets of 3/4" plywood. A 7.25" circular saw has about a 2.5" depth of cut. 3 sheets of 3/4" plywood. So he is able to cut 2 more sheets with the upside down table saw than if he used a common circular saw. It is an improvement in productivity. But enough to warrant the extra effort? Looks like the stack of plywood he is cutting is about 3 feet tall. About 50 sheets. So it will be 10 passes with his upside down table saw compared to

17 passes with a circular saw. Worth it? Its easier to push a circular saw than an upside down table saw. So I bet the effort and time used for 10 upside down table saw passes will be more than the 17 circular saw passes. So in the end its a negative from a labor, production, perspective.

This chap needs to use his obvious and vastly superior mind to invent a new and better way to cut plywood.

[J. Clarke]

Does that saw have enough gumption to kick itself?

[J. Clarke]

One thing that he has though is a vastly better fence than comes on any circular saw, and no need to rig and align a track for each cut.

[krw]

But he did get more clicks than a circular saw and he wouldn't have been up for the Darwin Award.

[Scott Lurndal]

You mean like a panel saw?

[russellseaton1]

Went to the basement and measured my Delta Contractor saw. It has about a 3" depth of cut. I rarely if ever try to cut maximum depth so never even measured it until your comment. I guessed wrong on the depth of cut. 4 sheets max per cut. But I probably over estimated on the 7.25" circular saw too. It likely only cuts 2 sheets of plywood instead of 3. So some of my calculations may have been right after all. Ha! Better to be lucky than good or smart. Kind of like the guy in the video.

[russellseaton1]

True. But your argument might be comparable to some other examples I thought of. Fixing the soffit on your house. But you have no ladder to get up there. The smarter, simpler, more logical person might figure out where to get a ladder. Buy it, rent it, borrow it. But the more creative might fix a hook to the end of a rope and throw it up to grab on the gutter. And climb up there to fix the soffit. Or he might recruit a friend who does not have a ladder to loan. Both climb up on the roof from the top of a pickup they park on the other side of the house and one guy hangs over the edge of the roof upside down and repairs the soffit. While the other guy holds onto his ankles. Or if he knows a painter maybe he could get hold of 50 paint cans and assemble a staircase of paint cans high enough to get him up to the soffit. All possibilities for the creative genius who can't get a ladder. Kind of like turning the table saw upside down instead of finding a circular saw.

True again. But doing this upside down table saw once is maybe comparable to playing Russian roulette. Some people, maybe, get a thrill out of playing it once. Just once since even the dimmest know the odds are stacked against them if they play it too often. But I'm confident almost everyone will say even playing Russian roulette once is not smart. Like doing the upside down table saw cutting once is not smart.

[krw]

I guess there are suicidal people everywhere.

The Darwin Award isn't something to aspire to winning.