When working with a manual circular saw, the question of the straightness of the cut is acute. There are two concepts for ensuring a straight line:
Fastening on the sawing machine (workbench) of the actual circular.
In this design, the hand tool is permanently attached to the table, and the workpiece moves along the guide. The cutting quality is at its best, but there are serious limitations on the size of the material being processed.
The workpiece is fixed permanently, and a guide ruler is installed for a hand-held circular saw.
In this design, the size of the workpiece to be cut can be any, the main thing is to ensure that the attachment for the circular saw is firmly attached. Manufacturers of hand tools have taken care of users and offer various ready-made devices for sale.
Industrially manufactured guides are comfortable and safe. As a rule, they are equipped with an accurate marking ruler, some allow you to set the angle of the cutting disc. The material is selected in such a way as to exclude wedging and play during the movement of the tool.
The pair, consisting of a groove and a runner, is protected from the ingress of cutting products and does not need lubrication.
However, all these kits are expensive, and many home craftsmen make their own hands for a circular saw rail.
Consider options that were independently invented and created by homegrown "Kulibins".
IMPORTANT! A hand-held circular saw is a source of increased injury, therefore, in the manufacture of home-made devices based on it, safety precautions should be followed.
The easiest option is a cutting stop
The device is actively used when cutting with a jigsaw.
It works quite efficiently, but it is limited for hand-held circular saws. The tire is pressed against the workpiece with a clamp. The bracket protrudes above the work surface both from below and from above.
As a result, we get restrictions on the length of the cut. The circular engine rests against the clamp, and you have to cut in two steps. In this case, the quality of the edge deteriorates, a step may form.
Any master will tell you that a high-quality cut is obtained when the saw moves continuously from the beginning to the end of the workpiece.
In industrial designs, fasteners are placed outside the ruler, and do not interfere with the free passage of the tool.
A homemade guide is made from a finished tool of a different profile, which has a low cost. We buy a long aluminum rule (emphasis on and) for plaster or screed.
Its cost is 3-4 hundred rubles. The tool is a profile of a complex shape with a smooth groove on the reverse side for adjusting the position of the handles. Clamping fastening, on hexagonal nuts. Not suitable for our purposes.
As a donor for hidden clamps, you can use screwless quick-release clamps, which also have a reasonable cost. Their main advantage for our design is the removable upper paw.
We delete it. At the same time, you can return the completeness to the tool at any time, and use it for its intended purpose. Instead of paws, we make and fix runners from a piece of fluoroplastic or polypropylene. The main criterion for choosing a material is strength and a low coefficient of friction.
You can process the workpiece with a milling cutter or a hacksaw for metal with a finely toothed blade. In the second case, it will be necessary, as they say, to “finish with a file”.
We adjust the runners to the groove. Sliding should be without sticking, at the same time, a strong backlash is also not needed. There is no need to try especially hard, during operation this node will be fixed.
We fasten the sliders to the top of the clamp tire. The connection must be strong, since during the cut there should not be spontaneous release, this can lead to injury or damage to the workpiece.
We check the performance of the design. The homemade guide ruler is held securely, there are no backlashes.
With this design, you can process flat workpieces of any size, as far as the length of the ruler is enough. In our case, it is 2 meters. Taking into account the margin at the edges for fixing the clamps, the working length is 1.5 meters. More than enough for most household chores.
If your requests are longer, you can use a 2.5 or 3 meter rule. The most reasonable set is a three-meter ruler. From it you can saw off a piece 50 cm long, and you will have two rulers - for blanks of a large area and narrow boards.
We are doing tests. The cutting line is perfectly even, nothing interferes with the free passage of the circular saw.
And most importantly - the purchased tool is not damaged during the manufacture of the device. Both clamps and the rule at any time return to their original state and are used for their intended purpose. Labor costs are minimal - in fact, only sliders are made.
Remote guide rail for a circular saw with your own hands
With many advantages, the previous design has a significant drawback. It is necessary to constantly control the lateral pressure of the circular body to the ruler. If the width of the workpiece cut off during cutting is too large, the length of the arms may simply not be enough.
The way out is the use of a carriage on ball bearings. The design is not so budget (at least bearings need to be bought), but its capabilities cover all costs. The principle of operation is visible in the illustration:
A carriage is made of metal plates and a corner. To adjust the width, you can use the wing clamps installed in the movable grooves. A profile of a complex shape is purchased at an aluminum structural materials store. There are many options, the main thing is to provide emphasis with bearings from above and from the side. For example - one of these options.
The profile must provide fastening of the C - shaped clamp inside the tire. You can purchase a ready-made design from a selected pair of carriage and guide.
It all depends on the budget of the event. The sole of the manual circular is firmly attached to the carriage.
IMPORTANT! It is necessary to ensure strict parallelism of the movement of the circular saw along the profile, otherwise the cut will be with a loose cut.
Such a tire, made by hand, allows you to cut large-area workpieces. At the same time, the movement of the saw is light and even, the feed can be carried out both by hand and by a guide bar.
Rail miter box for manual circular
The listed designs are well suited for the leisurely cutting of single surfaces. In the case when it is necessary to quickly and accurately cut a large number of boards, the work will be done slowly. Then the rail miter box is used.
For manufacturing you will need:
- Two metal corners of the same profile and length;
- Flat base (plywood or chipboard at least 15 mm thick);
- Bolts and nuts of the same size, 4 sets.
At a distance slightly greater than the thickness of the workpiece, guide corners are attached. The board must move freely under the rails, and at the same time the saw blade cannot be too high.
We use bolts as studs. It is important to observe the parallelism and placement of the corners on the same plane. The photo clearly illustrates the operation of the device:
For free sliding of the sole of the tool along the guides, you can glue fluoroplastic strips that reduce friction.
But it would be more correct to install wheels - for example, ball bearings. The manufacture is relatively labor intensive, but the system is very efficient and safe. If it is necessary to make cuts at an angle, it is enough to screw two screws into the base, into which the board will rest.
Do you have any questions? Watch the video: do-it-yourself guide rail for a circular saw.
A do-it-yourself guide for a circular saw is quite simple, but at the same time, it greatly facilitates the process of sawing wood.
Specialists sawing wood note that very often the cut must be perfectly accurate, and it is extremely difficult to achieve this without a special guide.
Of course, the guide rail is sold ready-made in various hardware stores, but its cost is quite high.
This is the main reason why craftsmen working with a circular saw prefer to use homemade options.
They are much cheaper, and their creation does not require significant time costs.
Why is a guide needed?
Craftsmen who often work with a circular saw know that in some cases the evenness of the cut does not matter.
However, there are situations when the cut must be very even. Even not very experienced specialists know that with all the effort it is almost impossible to draw a circular saw exactly along the markup.
As a result, you can spoil the material and redo all the work, which is not only unnerving and time-consuming, but also entails financial losses.
The output can be a flat wooden plank attached to the product being sawn with the help of clamps, however, when using a hand-held circular saw, this method is not very effective.
This is due to the fact that sooner or later the saw will reach the clamps that protrude above the product from above and below, and it will be necessary to twist the fasteners so as not to spoil the tool.
Even if you manage to set the bar for the second time perfectly even, with a new cut, in most cases a step appears.
Even a small one, it will still spoil the quality of the cut edge, and you will either have to grind it off with a special tool, or redo all the work. Therefore, craftsmen prefer not to even try to cut the product in two approaches.
A high-quality, even cut is obtained only when the saw moves without interruption along the marking from the beginning to the end of the wooden product.
In addition, when clamping a wooden plank with clamps, there is always a risk that the fasteners will not be good enough, and the guide will move to the side under the pressure of the circular saw. In this case, the workpiece will definitely be damaged, and it will be necessary to start all over again.
Circular saws, released in the form of a machine, are often free from this problem, since they already come with a guide rail and everything necessary for its even fastening.
Manual circular saws (with the exception of expensive industrial ones) do not have any guides, and therefore the problem of an even cut sooner or later confronts every owner of such a tool.
To achieve a perfectly even cut, a special guide rail is used. However, a finished tire for a circular saw in a store is quite expensive, so craftsmen prefer to make it on their own using scrap materials.
Tire manufacturing often does not take much time and requires an order of magnitude less financial investment.
In addition, to make a guide for a circular saw with your own hands, you do not need to have any special skills, and almost everyone can do this job.
DIY guide rails
One of the most common, cheap and simple options is an aluminum rule guide rail, which is used to level surfaces after applying putty or screed.
It is necessary to purchase a rule that has a groove for handles on its reverse side. In addition, you will need two clamps with a removable top.
The handles from the rule will need to be removed, as well as the top of the clamps. Then, from polypropylene or fluoroplastic, using a hacksaw and a file or a milling machine, runners are made that resemble the shape of the letter T.
Experts explain their choice of this particular material by the fact that such runners will not slide in the groove and at the same time are quite durable.
Products must be inserted into the clamps instead of the removed upper part and brought into the groove of the rule. After that, you can safely use the resulting product as a guide rail.
Due to the location of the clamps far from the cut, there is no danger of the circular saw coming into contact with the metal.
Such a guide rail is several times cheaper than a ready-made one. Another advantage is that in the future the entire product can be disassembled, and the rule and clamps can be used for their intended purpose.
A more expensive option would be a guide rail made using metal corners.
To make it, you need to attach a small U-shaped profile to the base of the saw with screws.
Then you need to build the guide itself using a larger U-shaped metal profile and chipboard sheets with plywood.
A large profile is attached to the plywood base (its dimensions are selected so that the small one fits tightly into it on the basis of the circular saw) and is hugged on both sides by chipboard strips.
Then, on the other side of the sole, a bar or a metal profile of the same height as the entire guide is installed (this is necessary so that the base of the tool is strictly parallel to the wooden product when cutting).
The guide rail is fixed at a sufficient distance from the saw with clamps, a small profile is inserted into it on the basis of the circular, and work can begin.
This guide bar ensures a smooth cut and smooth running of the circular saw without wobble.
There is also a more expensive option for making a DIY guide bar, suitable for craftsmen who use a circular saw to work regularly and often.
On the basis of chipboard, a metal U-shaped profile is attached with the base up. A corner with a carriage on bearings is attached to the sole of the circular saw.
The rollers run along a guide fixed with clamps, thereby ensuring the evenness of the cut and the smooth movement of the tool.
A guide bar for a circular saw is an often necessary thing for all those who often use these tools.
Making it yourself is quite simple, it does not require special skills or expensive materials.
However, it must be remembered that a circular saw, along with homemade devices, can cause serious injury, so you need to work carefully, observing safety rules, and in no case drink alcoholic beverages while working with such a dangerous tool.
Before you start making a circular saw with your own hands using a hand-held circular saw, you need to know the basic rules for working safely on it.
Scheme of the drawing of sharpening and wiring of the saw - 1) Saw blade. 2) Sharpened tooth. 4) Device for sharpening. 5) desktop for saw sharpening. 6-7-8) Directions of the file, relation to the working table and saw teeth to be sharpened. 9) - The line of bending of the teeth during divorce.
The work associated with sawing timber with this tool requires maximum attention. When fixing a powerful hand-held circular saw permanently on the table, you must remember this and install all the required protective equipment on the frames. The saw blade must necessarily have a protective cover, on the table - a parallel stop.
Applications of circulating hand saws
The manual circular electric saw belongs to the category of hand tools.
The initial characteristic of a circular saw is the cutting depth, which for different models can vary from 30 to 130 mm.
The required power and diameters of the saw blades depend on this parameter. According to the depth of cut, the tool is usually divided into categories:
- Up to 45 mm - power from 0.8-1.2 kW, disc diameter 130-160 mm;
- Up to 60 mm - power about 1.8 kW, disk diameter up to 200 mm;
- More than 60 mm - power more than 2 kW, disc diameter up to 350 mm.
When purchasing a saw, it is advisable to ask about its capabilities. For example, is it possible to move the disk in a vertical plane, which allows you to start cutting the material without necessarily from the edge. It is good if there is an adjustment of the rotation speed and a quick braking of the disk after the tool is turned off. Important for the home electrical network is the smooth start-up, which significantly reduces the inrush current in the network.
Figure 1. Electric saw - this type of saw is well suited for woodworking.
A powerful hand-held circular saw can be attached to the bottom of the table and used as a stationary sawmill with a limited cutting depth. Stationary sawmills necessarily have a guide with which you can cut, for example, boards, so that its longitudinal edges are parallel and the angles in cross section are straight.
It is inconvenient to cut large sheets even on a stationary sawmill alone. Such a problem arises in the independent manufacture of furniture, when it is necessary to cut plywood or other material in the form of large sheets. When using a manual circular saw in the usual version, it is impossible to cut the sheet evenly along the entire length and with perpendicular edges.
Therefore, when buying a manual circular saw, the master also acquires a special device for it, which is a guide rail (guide ruler), which allows you to cut the sheet evenly along the entire length. Image 1 shows one of the ruler options.
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The influence of the design features of the saw
The guide bar for the saw is produced by the same manufacturer, so it is not universal, that is, it is suitable only for a specific tool, while having a high cost. It will be much cheaper to make the same device on your own. However, with the apparent simplicity of the guide rail, it is not easy to make such a part for a saw with your own hands.
The design of such a device depends on the profile of the base of the power tool. Image 1 shows a guide bar for a circular saw, which is made of a non-standard profile, so it is only suitable for a specific brand of product.
Figure 2. Circular saw - this saw has the name circular saw.
Completing the saw with a guide suitable only for it, the manufacturer provides a special place in the profile for clamps, with which it can be fixed on the sheet material being cut so that it does not interfere with sawing at the beginning and at the end.
It is the fastening unit that causes certain difficulties in the independent manufacture of the guide. Therefore, it is very important to determine in advance the type of clamp suitable for securing the workpiece.
Image 2 shows a circular saw that has a small distance from the bottom of the platform to the engine when the saw blade is at zero position. This significantly limits the size of a self-made guide ruler in height. With such a height of the ruler, there will be problems with ensuring rigidity when it is fixed. With an increase in the rigidity of the guide line, the depth of cut of the workpiece decreases, since you will have to work with a non-zero position of the saw blade.
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Ruler guide for a circular saw, manufacturing
The simplest version of the guide for cutting large sheets is shown in image 3.
A sheet of plywood with factory edges that are even in length, which is prepared for self-manufacturing of a cabinet cabinet, can be used to make a guide rail. To do this, it is necessary to cut off a strip from it with a width equal to the maximum width of the circular saw in the plan, plus 20 cm. The length, L, of this sheet should be slightly larger than the maximum length of the material from which the furniture is planned to be made.
Figure 3. Guide rail for a circular saw - it can be made from improvised means by filing a flat sheet of chipboard or OSB.
Stepping back from the factory edge (we believe that it fits perfectly flat) on a cut piece of plywood 5-7 cm, cut off a strip. This will be the ruler along which the bed of the hand-held circular saw should move. The rest of the cut piece of plywood will serve as the base on which the ruler will be fixed. Along the ruler, leaning on it, move the saw during cutting.
It is very important that the height of the ruler be at least equal to the thickness of the saw bed, but not more than the distance to the engine.
Now you need to fix the ruler on the base. Fix at a distance of 10 cm from the edge or less, but sufficient for the use of clamps.
A very important point of fixing: the factory edge should be directed to the side where the cutting will be carried out. The guide is glued to the base and additionally fixed with screws.
The final stage of manufacturing is the removal of the excess part of the base. This is done using the same saw for which this entire structure was built. The removal process is shown in image 4. The resulting edge on the base will be the same even along the entire length as the factory edge of the plywood on the ruler.
Masters of the construction and repair business know how difficult it is to get an even cut when working with a circular saw. No matter how hard you try to hold the tool straight, it strives to jump off the given trajectory.
To facilitate the work of users, a guide rail was invented. The design of the device is extremely simple, but manufacturers set such a cost on it that trying to do without a device seems justified.
The price of a guide rail for a circular saw varies from 2 to 10 thousand rubles. They are divided into universal (more expensive) and narrow focus (cheaper). The desire to save money on a simple thing forced users to look for replacement options, and solutions were found. The most popular of them are presented in this review.
Advantages of a homemade guide bar
The main task of the auxiliary tool is to help in obtaining a straight cut. No matter how many times it needs to be done, the cost of guides in stores is more intimidating than it seems attractive. A long time ago, a solution was found - to fix a wooden panel or rail with clamps and make a cut through it. The method is not always convenient, especially when working with hand saws (the clamps are touched by the user's hand or the device's engine). Therefore, the need to make a guide with your own hands has become even more significant.
There are several arguments in favor of the device:
One thing is obvious - when working with a circular saw, a guide rail is necessary if the accuracy of the work and the geometry of the product are important to the user. The following briefly discusses the methods of how to make an auxiliary device with your own hands.
Guide bar yourself: known methods
A do-it-yourself guide rail for a circular saw can be designed in several ways at once. We will talk about them later. By the way, the easiest way to get it is to buy it at a hardware store. Advantages - quality assurance, perfect evenness of the cutting edge. The disadvantage is the high cost with the possibility of overpayment.
A smart craftsman will never invest in something that he can easily do himself at a lower price. Below are the methods for making a guide for a circular saw with your own hands and a brief overview of the methods.
Guide from the rule, clamps and a piece of polypropylene
A tool is bought that is used to level the walls (it costs an average of 500 rubles). Two factory handles (which can be moved) are removed, clamps costing 100-150 rubles each are put in their place. From a piece of polypropylene (no more than 50 rubles), adapters are machined with any available tool, placed in the grooves of the rule. Next, holes are drilled in them for fasteners with a clamp.
The finished design securely fixes the workpiece, evenly and without distortion, and also does not interfere with the movement of the circular saw.
Laminate guide
Two pieces of equal length are cut out of the material for the floor (for example, half a meter), milled along the edge. Then they are attached to the base, also made of laminate. The groove width is selected using a paper sheet (0.1 mm thick), then paper is inserted into the device, and it is screwed.
The guide bar is attached to the saw sole through the side drill attachment. It is permissible to make a hole in the case, if you do not feel sorry for the equipment. When working, the nose of the sole goes slightly beyond the guide, and it itself extends as much as possible in front of the saw. The device will slightly "eat" the depth of cut (no more than 2 cm), but it does not hold the ease of use and ease of manufacture.
rail miter box
You will need:
- identical metal corners;
- a sheet of plywood or chipboard from 1.5 cm thick under the base;
- 4 pairs of "nut + bolt".
The corners are fixed in the same plane at a distance slightly greater than the thickness of the workpiece. The workpiece should move freely under the rails, and the circle should not be too high from the template. Bolts serve as studs. To reduce friction, it is permissible to equip the device with wheels or glue strips of plastic material.
The method is suitable for speeding up the sawing process with a circular saw, as well as, if necessary, cutting a large number of identical workpieces.
Another way to make a guide for a circular saw is discussed in more detail.
Aluminum profile guide rail
Also known as simply "rail". An aluminum profile (U-shaped) is used as it, with two segments of different sizes. The smaller one is placed inside the larger one so that it moves freely, but has no gap. You will also need sheets of plywood of different thicknesses.
The sequence of actions is as follows:
- In the middle of a thin plywood, a profile of a larger section is attached by means of a screw connection. The screw heads must not protrude so as to interfere with the free movement of the smaller profile.
- On both sides of the profile, thick sheets of plywood are attached (chipboard is allowed), already on self-tapping screws.
- Excess pieces of sheets are cut off in width; rail is ready to use.
However, now it is necessary to prepare the circular saw for work.
- A profile of a smaller section is placed in the rail.
- The height of his legs is estimated so that he fits flush.
- The profile is attached to the saw sole parallel to the saw blade with M4 wing screws.
- The circular saw is placed on the guide, the excess part is sawn off in width.
- For an even cut, the edge of the tire is superimposed on the markings, fixed with clamps.
The advantages of using such a device are the smooth movement of the circular saw, the accuracy of sawing, and the ease of feeding. The tool, made according to this scheme, is a little more complicated than the previously mentioned ones, but its efficiency is higher.
Useful video
Obviously, there are several ways to make a guide bar for a circular saw with your own hands, all of which require less investment in materials, and are as efficient as their counterparts from stores. It is permissible to use it not only with a circular saw, but also with an electric jigsaw, manual milling cutter. The restrictions that arise during operation are related only to the length of the rule used, which the user has the right to choose at his own discretion. It does not have to be too long or short - everything is dictated by the workpieces that are processed by the tool. The homemade guide bar recommendations above will help users save money when sawing wood and get the best result.
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