Make This Circular Saw Track Saw Guide....With a Circular Saw!

Welcome to Out of the Woodwork. I'm Tommy. Thanks for dropping by to watch me build a circular saw guide Breaking down plywood is so much easier with a circular saw Breaking down plywood with a circular saw is a lot easier with some kind of straight edge or a guide now This straight edge can work really well. I mean It's even got a clamp that keeps it secure to the plywood But the problem with a straight edge like this is that you not only have to measure from the edge of the plywood To where you want to make your cut but you also have to account For the distance between your blade and the edge of the base since the edge of the base is going to be riding up Against your straight edge. So not only does that take more time but you also introduce another measurement another mark and it's really Easy to make a cut that's not square one of the most popular that fixed this problem is the track saw so this is the track from a Retrofit kit that I actually use with my circular saw quite a bit and it works well And the idea is that your circular Saw has a base that fits over the rails on the track saw so when it's gliding across it doesn't deviate side to side It just makes a clean straight cut and you actually cut into the plastic the first time you use it So that will tell you exactly where the circular saw will cut so you make a mark on each end of your plywood The section that you want to cut out and then you just have to lay your track Line it up with the marks on each end And as long as the track stays in place as you're cutting it makes a nice Accurate square cut now this kit that I have is actually pretty affordable. It doesn't fit perfect It's got some slop in it. So over time this cut line It's let it dig into it and it's wavy and it's not really Exactly flush with where my blade is so I have to move it around and line the blade up So it's not as quick and as efficient as it used to be Today i'm going to show you probably the simplest jig that I will ever show you and it gets rid of All of this stuff and over time if you sort of eat into it and it gets torn up It's such an easy jig to make that you won't mind doing it There's a couple of things to think about before you start to build this So the first thing is that the thickness of your guide is going to take away from the depth that you're able to cut with a circular saw now, I don't really care about this because the only thing that i'm going to use this for is to break down three-quarter inch plywood and smaller and Even using this extra three-quarter inch plywood that I have I can still do that if that is a concern for you and you want to maintain as much of the depth of cut As you can get from the circular saw then use half inch or even quarter inch and smaller stock Just know that it's not going to be quite as stable. It's going to be more flimsy The second consideration is specifically if you have a sidewinder saw like this one to where the motor is directly to the side Of the blade when your fence is in place you want to make sure it's not too thick and as the saw rides across The track that the motor doesn't hit the top of the saw you want to make sure that there's clearance there Now i'm able to use three quarter inch thick stock with my saw So generally you probably will be able to do the same but just check that before you glue this down The last consideration is to make sure that this side of the track is wider than the circular saw's base And that's because the very last step in building This is to push the saw along the track up against the fence and get a really nice and straight zero clearance cut line all the way down that shows us exactly where the saw blade will cut i'm gonna make this track with Only the circular saw assuming this is the only tool you've got and there's a couple of methods you can use to get A really straight fence. The first is probably the most convenient go to the hardware store Buy a piece of 4x8 plywood and ask them to cut it down to the pieces you need with their panel Saw you just might have to go to a couple different places to make sure that they have a panel saw and that it's working At the time the second option if you're working with a scrap piece, like I am or you can't find a store with a panel Saw is to utilize the factory edges on the plywood most sheets of plywood are pretty square and straight They're cut in the factory on big machines that are accurate and they do get off from time to time But usually you'll be able to find one of the edges. That's really straight I'm gonna make my fence three inches wide so i'm gonna measure from the factory edge on each end make a mark at three inches then i'm going to take a straight edge and Connect all those lines and then i'm just going to freehand the cut with the circular saw Because I don't care how straight this side is. I'm only interested in this straight factory edge So I used these two strips of plywood that I cut a long time ago. I stick them under the plywood And that raises it off of the table? Then I can set the depth of the circular saw to just below the thickness of what i'm cutting And it'll lightly cut through the two strips that i've put underneath there and nothing else You can use any material you want to as long as you don't mind cutting into it The point is to get this raised up off of your table or your floor So the next thing i'm going to do is put the saw in place To where the track is just wider than the base like we talked about before And then i'm going to mark on this side And this side? To know where the fence needs to be So this measures about six inches, so i'll make a mark at six inches down on the other end Just so I can put the fence in about the same place again It doesn't matter where we put this fence in reference to the edge As long as there's enough room on each end to make the cut that we need to make So I talked about the motor and the clearance on the fence Now, let me show you how to make sure that the depth of cut you can get Is going to work for what you're going to use it for What i'm going to do is put this fence in place under the motor Move the guard out of the way, and then i'm going to lower it until it hits the fence It hits right there and then bring it up just a little bit to make sure it's got good clearance Now that i've got the depth set as low as it'll go with this fence. I want to make sure that I can still cut through three quarter inch plywood Which is the thickest material i'm ever gonna use with this track saw so i've put a piece of three quarter inch plywood Underneath the track saw and you can see that i've got plenty of clearance here to cut through it So i'm good with this thickness Like I said before if you need to cut something thicker than this then go with a thinner fence We've got the fence cut And it's got a nice straight edge and we've got it placed about where we want it now We need to decide how much room to leave on this side And we need to take into account that as the circular saw motor passes over the fence We know we're not going to be able to get a clamp here around the fence or anywhere over this way So we need to have enough space here to get clamps there Especially if we can't get any around the back so i'm going to leave six inches and i'm just gonna roughly measure this From the back of the fence as it's in place And make a mark and then that is Roughly 15 and a quarter from the edge of the plywood So i'll connect these lines with a t-square like I did last time and then just freehand cut with the circular saw So now i've got to attach the fence i'm going to glue it up and then i'm going to use screws to act as clamps If you've got a nail gun, that would probably even go a little bit quicker and then the final step We'll run the saw down the track to make that final zero clearance cut And then we'll cut a test piece to see how we did This is an eight foot track, but you'll also want to build one that's around four feet for those cross cuts and shorter rips Where this just won't be practical to use now That's it for this easy to build track saw guide if you've got suggestions to take this even further and make it better Let me know down in the comments. 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Channel: Out of the Woodwork

Views: 664,268

Keywords: circular saw guide, track saw guide, diy track saw guide, diy circular saw guide, circular saw track, circular saw track guide, diy track saw, circular saw guide diy, circular saw guide track system, circular saw guide rail, how to make a circular saw guide, circular saw jig, outofthewoodwork, out of the woodwork, circular saw

Id: HLsNYd5FmoY

Length: 8min 51sec (531 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 08 2020