DIY Circular Saw Crosscut and Router Jig

[Music] what's up guys and welcome back glad to have you today I'm working on the third version of the circular saw crosscut jig now the main reason I'm doing this is because I got a new saw so when you get a new saw you got to make new tools and things in jigs works and I do think there's some huge improvement in this jig for example you get a deeper cut you also can use your router on this by just adjusting one of the rails that's gonna open up a whole world of opportunity now even though version two is really nice and I love the way that came out I actually loved this one better because it's a smaller footprint and width wise and I love that you can just hang it up and store it somewhere so let's not waste any time I'm gonna show you how it's made now as we get started you're gonna need a sheet of plywood cut down for the base you'll also need a 2-inch C channel and might attract and also hold down clamp and a couple risers down in the video description you can find a set of plans and links to some of the products I use in this video now I want to make sure the piece of plywood I'm using is as straight as possible so the first thing I'm going to do is draw a line across the entire width of it and double-check to make sure that I'm working off of a straight reference the first line I drew was not as accurate as I would like it to be so I went to the opposite end and that was a lot better I then went on to set in the location for the T track prior to routing the track I attached a piece of scrap wood to my router guide and this helped a ton with control of the router I took off her eighth inch over time until I was able to get down to 3/8 of an inch [Music] now this was about all I needed to do at the base so at this point I can go ahead and sand it down and get that out of the way but the base sanded down I can go ahead and install the T track you can use shorter screws but I only had three quarter inch screws for this application and I ended up cutting off the tips so that they didn't exit out the back to create the saw track I'm gonna rip down a two inch C channel now I wouldn't get too concerned this doesn't have to be a straight rip down the middle the goal is to separated giving you two tracks that is sucking right on now this is some really hard metal to cut through but the reciprocating saw and the Diablo blade I'm using just slice right through this I'll link the tools and stuff I'm using down in the video description [Music] now after ripping the motor down the edge may be a bit sharp so you want to take a file and are also a sander to just smooth that out a bit rather than sitting on top I'm going to recess the tracks down inside of the risers and I want to make sure that these are parallel to each other and everything lines up so I'm going to do all the work at the same time after cutting the outside line by hand I then took a router and route it out the section my intention was to route out a section and also leave some areas on touch so that I can use that to support the router base unfortunately I made some of the routed areas too wide and it couldn't support the router so I had to didn't switch over to the chisel to finish this job the piece of plywood on the back was to prevent the router from creating blow outs but since I went away from that I ended up removing that so I can have clearance to cut out this section this t-track screw will remain in the track on the jig and I won't be able to remove it I couldn't make an opening wide enough so that the screw can slide off but I just don't want to weaken the support on the risers my solution to this is to channel out an area where the screw can sit now this part is pretty important especially if you want to take full advantage of the cut capacity within the opening and with this method it allows you to slide the screw out of the way before you're permanently attached and the risers make sure that you put the screw on the T track before moving on to secure to rise those to the base you want to make sure you check for square and add wood glue and also drilling a few screws I'll repeat the same process on the opposite and while making sure it's squared after the glue has set up a lot of place to tracks in the opening then I'm gonna sit the saw on top of the track and make sure I get the proper spacing after drilling a hole in each track I didn't install some wood screws to hold that in down while I move on to the next I'm going to countersink the screw holes so that the saw doesn't interfere with the head of the screw each screw will be installed in a threaded insert and since this is a multi-purpose jig are gonna den line up the new area for the router base and once these areas are drilled out I can then install a couple more threaded insert a salvage these insert from some old furniture so I wasn't quite sure how big of an OL I should drill I ended up breaking a couple of them so if they're too hard to go in just back them out drill a slightly bigger hole and try it again I'm gonna use black paint to finish off the metal track and also the risers this should give it a finished look I only put on one thin layer of spray paint and make sure you don't get any paint inside the tracks with the tracks installed I'm gonna now drill out a hanging hole I don't know why but I was a bit nervous to make the first cut but it was a success I did run into a slight problem though is when you need to pull back I have to hold on to the blade guard cuz he kept getting in the way as a quick fix I took a bracket and formed it to act as a stop I didn't want to drill a new hole so I'm gonna utilize the existing one there so I'll be using a wrench to install this bolt from now on now if my tracks were wider at the bottom I wouldn't need it because the track would catch that so the next thing I need to do is create some attachments so I can make minor cuts for this demonstration I'm going to show you how to make two different angles one is cut two 22.5 and the other one is cut 245 keep in mind you can make as many as you like but I'm going to show you the process the smaller pieces will be attached to the longer piece you see here which were a reference off the straightedge set in a piece of wood to an angle so when the saw cut it's automatically gonna cut at an angle I'm letting utilize the bolt that's used for the hold on clamp as a pivot point I clamp the two long lumber and drill the holes in the same section these boards can be internet it just needs to extend past the cut area of the saw blade now to make this as accurate as possible I'm a lot of reference off my speed square assuming that this miter piece is very accurate it's going to force this board to sit at a 45 degree angle to glue this and finalize it I'm going to use a speed square to help reference off of that and check as many things I can I'm gonna also take the knob and hold this down so that it doesn't budge then I can take a clamp and lock this into place notice how there's no gap in between the speed square and also the piece of lumber and this is consistent the whole distance after wrapping up the first matter attachment and then took on the second matter attachment and wrap that up as the end are uneven and they're not lined up I'm going to cut off the excess and make sure that it's all the same to install these you're gonna line them up on the screw and swing it onto the track then tighten it down I'll recommend you double check this with a speed square every time you set up one of these attachment with this design you can set the miter attachment just about anywhere now you can go ahead and cut down to mitre attachment and I did this for both now it's a whole your subject down you can use a clamp or you can use a holdout clamp as I'm doing here if you have enough room now I was expecting this to be accurate because of all the pre setup but I was really surprised on how accurate this was so let's look at few of the possibilities that you can get from this jig well we now know that you can get 4 to 5 degree cuts not only from 4 to 5 degrees but 22.5 and just about any angles you want to create so one of the bigger improvement I've made versus the older jigs that was created was the cut capacity as you can see both measuring system this should give you an idea on how much you can cut now although the circular saw is a battery-powered one it is a beast it has sliced through ever material I've put in front of it another cool feature to exercise is to safely make dedos and half lap joints there's a lot of cool features to this jig although it doesn't replace a table saw or a miter saw you can accomplish some of the same task now routers tend to scare a lot of people so here's a really cool way to use your router and use it safely make the necessary adjustment to your rails based on what was done previously clamp your piece down and then you can simply make a dado cut maybe you need to flatten the board you just put your board under here and then you just run your router back and forth so let's say you have a 3/4 inch piece of plywood or something thinner what you could do is you could put another piece of material under it to bring that up closer to the router bit and this way you can work safely alright guys so that is it for this one I am Glen and thanks for watching if you're new to the channel go ahead and subscribe it love to have you if you're planning to build this jig I'd love to hear what you'll be doing with this one if you need additional directions then I have a set of plans which is a great way to support what I do if you want to see what I'm working on next best way to do so join me on instagram at more DIY creators and that's it for this one catch you on the next one [Music]

Channel: DIY Creators

Views: 3,687,069

Rating: 4.923315 out of 5

Keywords: DIY, Woodworking, Wood, Easy DIY, circular saw, crosscut jig, circular saw jig, jig, circular saw guide, circular saw crosscut jig, crosscut, saw, track saw, crosscut sled, circular, how to make a circular saw guide, diy circular saw crosscut jig, circular saw crosscut jig plans, how to make a circular cross cut jig, how to make straight cuts with a circular saw, how to make a circular saw crosscut jig

Id: N1-Pxik-u4U

Length: 12min 1sec (721 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 20 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/squid_fart]

You made a mini radial arm saw

[u/[deleted]]

[removed]

[u/[deleted]]

Hey Glen, just want to say that your videos got me into DIY and I can't thank you enough for it. Pretty much learning from the basics but I'm getting there!

[u/nocluewhatimdoingple]

Hey, I remember watching your V2 jig video a while back. I built one for myself and really liked it.

How much does that angle track deflect when you push down on it? Over that long of a span, I would think you'd have some problems with deflection.

[u/daftdave66]

Great design.

[u/Leonardj4]

Love your videos. How much do you actually use it? Between my sled and home made track saw I can't see a use.

[u/daddyd3475]

Awesome and creative! Especially like the set up at a routing jig- for planing!