I'd like to trim a concrete slab in our back yard. I believe it's 4" thick with no rebar. Is a concrete saw something I can just fire up and use or are there a ton of esoteric safety precautions to observe with such a tool?

Thanks,
Sixto
93 300SD 3.0

dust is nasty a water cooled one is best to cut out the dust
most of the water cooled ones will be a walk behind
and fairly safe as you are away from the action
eye protection and a rain coat as they sling mud

i belive a 14'' cos will do it.the ts760(stihl) has a max of 4 3/4. there are the walk behing self propelled 18'' saws even the had held system can have a wet system installed. the biggest thing besides safety is the diamond blades. you have to be very carful with them. they cost alot and if you overheat them or tear all the diamons off you will be charged for it.

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have no worries.....President Obama swears "If you like your gun, you can keep it

i have one ,a stihl alot like a chainsaw,has a belt drive for the blade,it's real easy to use,but does have a compression release.it does throw alot of dust,so i usually have a hose near by and keep the crete wet,if it's new crete you will need a blade for green crete,if it's old and cured you will need a blade for that,fresh green crete cuts pretty easy but that cured stuff can be stubborn. i'll agree with the eye protection and raincoat,i will also suggest ear plugs as they are somewhat loud.

Very easy to use, I trimmed my driveway up in Chicago with one I rented from Home Depot. Cost $40 IIRC, be sure to get the diamond blade, I think it was $20 extra ($60 total). I basically plugged it in and used it like a circular saw - cut right through the concrete like a hot knife through butter.

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just for the hell of it call your utilities company to make sure nothing shockingly hot is running under the slab.. never know..

I've never rented one, I've instead made do with my beater circular saw with a diamond blade. The good blades are close to $100 but DeWalt has one now for around $40 IIRC. The problem with a skill saw is it will only cut about 2 1/4 tl 2 1/2 depth, at least the standard 7 1/4 inch model. You can then break off the remaining and the jagged line will be beneath the ground level.

The rental outfits I contacted indicated that they would charge me for how much of the blade's diameter had been eaten away. I think that's what they said, but there was definitely some metric for measuring blade wear and tear.

The DIY with a skil type saw method is crude -- with my beater, I'd sometimes push it with one hand and use a sprayer bottle to keep the blade wet and dust down, though with some blades this is not required. You'll want to wear a respirator either way, IMO, as any sort of stone dust is black lung territory.

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Most power tools aren't really DIY when you ask ER docs.

For example, a new report by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention finds that nail gun injuries have more than tripled in the last decade. In fact, there were nearly 40,000 of them last year alone. Duke University's study for the CDC concludes that the number of patients entering the ER with "self inflicted punctures" from nail guns coincides with the years when the former construction jobsite power tool became available on the Home Depot shelves.

My first couple of years in carpentry saw my body get beat up in all sorts of ways. Amazing what can happen to you with those tools in your hands. I rarely cut my hands these days because I've developed (don't get too cocky, cmac) a sense of where my hands are at all times in relation to what could happen did something slip and the force with which I'm pushing a tool suddenly was not resisted like it was, causing me to push the tool out in some unexpected direction.

I drove a sharp carving chisel clear through the fleshy portion near the tip my left middle finger once, in my 20s. Note to self: don't hold the object you're applying the chisel to.

Once on a job, one of the subcontractors pushed his finger into a table saw blade. It was set up on a porch that had a relatively low ceiling. There was an arc of blood parallel to the blade splattered on it. He wasn't badly hurt, didn't lose the finger, but it was a cautionary tale for all of us.

My only nail gun accident happened with a 1/4 inch wide stapler, called a narrow crown stapler. The thing was acting up and I was examining it, holding the shoe at the tip back to look at it (not pointed at my eyes of course). On a regular gun, it's pretty ease to hold the shoe back and fire off a nail across the room to see if it's working right. This was my first time doing that with the stapler and my finger was too close to one side of the staple. Drove it through all right, no nail involved, thank God.

Hurt worse than I would have imagined. I just pulled it out, held by bleeding finger tight within a balled up fist, and walked to the porta potty like nothing was going on so I could bandage it up in private. Things like that, if it's not serious, you don't want anyone knowing that you did it.

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Its DIY. I haven't heard anyone mention ear plugs--the damn things are loud as any tool I have ever used including jackhammers--much louder than a chainsaw. I put down a strip of duct tape along the cut line to prevent chipping. If you use a wetsaw this won't be as much of a problem, but it makes a good line anyway. Just rent one--If you try what cmac does with his "lucky" saw, I bet you will burn it up. Plus, squirting water at a handheld circular saw just don't seem to safe for us lesser mortals

btw, no intense offended cmac--you can probably rip 3/4" plywood while it is standing up horizontally without a chalkline and no helper too, but that doesn't mean it would be wise for the rest of us to try.

What? Doesn't everyone do that?

I've got an old DeWalt, sidewinder skilsaw (whoops! circular saw) that's not so great, the wormdrives are much better, and since the DeWalt doesn't mean that much to me, I use it for beater purposes. When cutting crete with it, it moves really slow, it's pretty easy to control it with one hand and do the water thingy.

And oh yeah, ear plugs are an absolute must. I'm never w/o knee pads or earplugs. I keep a couple of those red ones that look like tiny bells in the watch pocket of levis and a bunch more in my tool box and car. You can buy them bulk -- box of 200 -- for a serious discount at Uline.

This is the best brand (Howard Leight) by far, IMO. I can sleep with them in noisy locations and the others aren't usually comfortable enough to do that.

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Be careful with power tools, or it could lead to the whine that totally disrupted a San Francisco Courtroom once to the point of utter distraction.

.....the Judge's investigation turned up it was Dr. Boyd Stephen's Coroner's bone saw howling downstairs, was making all the racket.

A terse phone call solved that one

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1991 560 SEC AMG, 199k <---- 300 hp 10:1 ECE euro HV ...

1995 E 420, 170k "The Red Plum" (sold)

2015 BMW 535i xdrive awd Stage 1 DINAN, 6k, <----364 hp

1967 Mercury Cougar, 49k

2013 Jaguar XF, 20k <----340 hp Supercharged, All Wheel Drive (sold)

That's a hoot! I can just see him saying to the court, "nothing to worry about, someone was just cutting through some bone . . . . "

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K