Anyone here ever made their own (table) circular saw?
 

G'day Folks,

As the title says ^^^^


There doesn't seem to be much on this out there on the interweb - lots about guides and other wood working tips and tricks but nothing about hooking up a stationary engine to a 17 foot spinning disc...

...seriously though, I've found this

Saw Design Formulas

but that's about it. Any wood working gurus out there who have seen some home made circular saws?

When we lived on the farm, my dad made one out of on old circular saw and a clothes dryer door mounted to a large piece of plywood on saw horses. It worked well for a number of years.

Sounds good but I now have visions of a spinning disc breaking loose from the saw horses and wandering off through the fields slicing chickens and cows along the way! I live in a built up area - in the worse case scenario I doubt if I'll get away with just a few deed chickens...

...but I agree the principles are pretty simple - hold the circular saw in place and connect it to a drive source. I was thinking I'd like to adjust the depth of the cut and then perhaps angle it over too though. (You know diesel driver here => beer money but champagne tastes)

Don't go direct drive. Use a pulley and belt set-up. Your problem will be the blade "tilt". Either it needs to be a permanent angle or the set-up becomes ridiculously complicated.

I don't see why you would do this when Craigslist is littered with table saws. Sure I know a lot of them are low end Craftsman units, but there are good ones too. Gotta be one of the most popular Craigslist tool postings.

Edit - just noticed that you are in Holland, never mind.... I don't know how well Craiglist works over there, maybe you have an equivalent.

Rgds,
Chris W.

I would start with something that more or less complete
one
or
Two
or
Three

Saves a lot of time and probably money.

Rob

I once made a table saw out of an old circular saw bolted to a piece of 1/2 plywood. It was pretty dangerous to operate but not dangerous as far as coming apart. I used a piece of angle iron clamped to the plywood as the fence. Just measured carefully to the front and rear of the blade every time I set it up.

It was great when I had no other option and I had 50 pieces to rip down.

I'd use a foot-switch to control the thing. If something goes apecrap, you can just step off the deadman switch to shut it down safely.

Too bad your not in az. I have a royobi I would give to you.

I would just buy a good used table saw. I do not skimp on safety.

Thanks for all of the replies folks.

I think I'm probably suffering from specification-itus

Whilst it would be nice to have the ability to cut through sixteen foot lengths of four foot thick seasoned Oak I'm guessing I'm not strong enough to lift it onto the table!

The real cost seems to be in the blades - the big ones get to be bloody expensive bloody quickly.

May be I should just rig up the 1.5hp single phase motor I've got to my pillar drill as planned after all.

Part of the reason for this project is to try to find a use for this motor.

@Rob - thanks for the marktplaats links I'm going to chase up the bitsa home made one in Twello - he's just down the road from me.

My grandfather cobbled together a saw blade connected to a grinder motor with an automotive V belt, and surrounded the thing with a wood frame and chicken wire and a plywood top.

Pretty dangerous, but it did work well enough. Not sure where he got the bearing setup for the saw blade, but to my knowledge, the blade hasn't been removed in 30 years. he used to sharpen it in place, so I imagine its something hard to undo or permanent.

He never properly rigged up the power switch, and the blade spins down just like an unbraked bench grinder, so it remains incredibly dangerous for a couple minutes spinning after the fact with no noise. The on/off switch is of course underneath and behind where the motor is.

x2 to all the comments to buy a saw of craigslist or similar. Having a braked stop for blade spin is a pretty nice feature after you watch a blade spin silently for a few minutes. :D

When I was 14 in 1963 a friend of mines Dad died. He gave me boxes of his Dad's collection of Popular Science, Mechanix Illustrated and Popular Mechanics magazines. I learned a TON from reading them.

I can remember several articles for building a table saw of sorts from what we then called a "Skil Saw." There's not much to it, but if you're going to bother, give lots of thought to the fence and miter gauge groove.

By the time you build one, you could probably find something much better at a garage sale for not much money.

The problem with the second hand stuff is that most of it seems to have blades that are smaller than 300mm in diameter (about 12 inches diameter)...

...it isn't really big enough for what I want! It sounds a bit mad but here's what I was doing today =>

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/...1&d=1372695278

These are 12cm square lumps of oak - my current circular saw is pretty crap - it can cut it but the depth is pretty useless. This is probably why I don't use it that much. As you can see I've resorted to making a first cut and then...

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/...1&d=1372695284

...finishing off with a hand saw. It is less than ideal.

I'm amazed at how many times I've had to do these "once in a life time jobs"!

I think I need to just buy industrial everything.

{And sure in principle if you have a nice square bit of wood you can flip it over and cut into the other side - so that the two not deep enough cuts meet - but how many times have you actually seen a nice square bit of wood? If you've ever tried this before you'll be taking your time with a hand saw too!}

If you only need to cut wood like that once in a while you can take it to a shop that has the right equipment.


Rob