How to make saw guides. DIY guide for a circular saw. Cross cutting stop

Any citizen, purchasing a cutting power tool for household work for the first time, very quickly comes to the conclusion that, despite all the delights of the purchase, it is not able to provide an even cut on its own. Additional equipment required. It’s good if the manufacturer took care of consumers and diversified its range with such devices. What to do if the creators of your unit did not show such foresight?

In any case, do not despair and certainly not think about replacing the power tool. Perhaps you are luckier than the clients of “caring manufacturers”. The fact is that in almost 100% of cases, additional accessories are compatible only with power tools created by the same company. At the same time, the price for them, to put it mildly, is not adequate for what you hold in your hands. No one can convince me that the cost of an aluminum tire for circular saw can be 100and more than % of the cost of the saw itself.

Business sharks bite, but we have to cut. Luckily, there are always arguments against predators. One of them is making accessories for power tools with your own hands. Moreover, making them is not as difficult as it might seem.

Today's story is about making your own guide bar for a circular saw.

There are plenty of examples of homemade guides on the Internet. Most of them are created according to the same principle - a flat block, against which you need to press the sole of the circular saw and at the same time push the saw along the guide. This can be a flat board attached to a workpiece to be cut or a separate tire in the form of a strip of plywood along which a beam (slat) with a smooth edge is attached.

After thinking carefully, I was forced to abandon this approach and here’s why:

Firstly, when cutting, it is necessary to simultaneously apply multidirectional forces to the saw body - forward (for cutting) and to the side (for pressing against the template). The evenness of the cut in this case is better than without a guide, but still depends on skill.

Secondly, there must be absolute confidence that the edge of the saw sole with which we press against the even template is absolutely parallel to the cutting blade. I have a cheap household saw with a stamped rather than cast base. From work experience I know for sure that on my saw these things are not parallel. In addition, the electric motor of the saw is located quite low and the even template to which it needs to be pressed will be too thin and flat. Raising the saw above the base will reduce the depth of cut and further disrupt the parallelism of the blade and the edge of the base (flimsy design).

In order to compensate for the shortcomings of the mentioned guides and my own circular saw, I chose another option. The saw will move along the metal rail, rather than rest against a flat template, which will make it possible to apply force only to move the saw forward. In addition, this force will be less (rails after all). Using a metal template instead of a wooden one will increase the accuracy of the cut and the durability of the guide itself.

I started designing the tire by purchasing a cutting disc. Most often, laminated chipboard and plywood will need to be sawed. To ensure a clean cut, you need a blade with a large number of teeth (the more teeth, the better the cut line).

I purchased U-shaped aluminum profiles as rails from a construction supermarket. The smaller profile fits into the larger one without any gap or play and slides freely along it.

Let's start designing:

We fasten a large aluminum guide to a sheet of plywood 3 mm thick with M3 screws and nuts. Screws and self-tapping screws must have flat heads so that they can be screwed flush..
Close to the guide, we fasten 10 mm thick plywood with self-tapping screws. I had pressboard laminated platbands of the same thickness on hand - I used them instead of plywood.

The guide is almost ready, all that remains is to saw off the excess from it. There are no step-by-step photos - I’m posting a photo of the finished tire, which shows all the stages.

Now let's move on to the circular saw.

The photo shows that the smaller profile inserted into the larger one protrudes by 1 mm. Having screwed the profile with self-tapping screws to the end of the workbench, I removed the excess with a jigsaw.

We attach a smaller profile to the base of the circular saw, parallel to the cutting blade, and secure it with two M4 thumbscrews. I've already talked about problems with the base on my saw. Therefore, I was guided not by the platform, but by the plane of the cutting disk. To ensure parallelism between the disk and the fixed profile, I lifted the protective casing and pressed a flat wooden block to the disk, and then pressed a piece of aluminum profile against it. I secured it all with clamps, drilled holes in the profile and tightened it. Then he removed the clamps and removed the block. The saw is ready.

Finishing touch. We install the circular saw on the guide bar, aligning their aluminum profiles. We start the saw and, moving it along the rail, saw off the excess from the tire. In the future, for an even cut, it will be enough to simply align the cut edge of the tire and the line on the workpiece, secure the tire with clamps and make the cut.

Before you start making circular saw with your own hands using a hand-held circular saw, you need to know the basic rules for safe work on it.

Scheme of the drawing of saw sharpening and routing - 1) Saw blade. 2) Sharpened tooth. 4) Sharpening device. 5) work table for sharpening saws. 6-7-8) File directions, relationship to the work table and saw teeth being sharpened. 9) — Line of bending of teeth when setting.

Work related to sawing timber using this tool requires maximum attention. When mounting a powerful hand-held circular saw permanently on a table, you must remember this and install all the required safety equipment on the frames. The saw blade must have a protective cover and a parallel stop on the table.

Applications of Circulating Hand Saws

A hand-held circular saw belongs to the category of hand tools.

The initial characteristic of a circular saw is the cutting depth, which can vary from 30 to 130 mm for different models.

The required power and saw blade diameters depend on this parameter. According to the cutting depth, the tool is usually divided into categories:

Up to 45 mm - power from 0.8-1.2 kW, disk 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 inquire about its capabilities. For example, is it possible to move the disk in a vertical plane, which allows you to start cutting material not necessarily from the edge. It’s good if there is an adjustment of the rotation speed and quick braking of the disk after turning off the tool. Smooth starting is also important for the home electrical network, which significantly reduces the surge 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 a table and used as a stationary sawmill with a limited cutting depth. Stationary sawmills necessarily have a guide, with the help of which you can cut, for example, a board, so that its longitudinal edges are parallel and the corners in the cross section are straight.

Cutting large sheets even on a stationary sawmill is inconvenient for one. This problem arises when making furniture yourself, when it is necessary to cut plywood or other material in the form of large sheets. When using a hand-held circular saw in the usual version, it is impossible to cut the sheet exactly along the entire length and with perpendicular edges.

Therefore, when buying a hand-held circular saw, the master also purchases a special device for it, which is a guide rail (guide ruler), which allows you to evenly cut the sheet along the entire length. Image 1 shows one of the guide 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, and at the same time has a high cost. Making the same device yourself will cost much less. However, despite the apparent simplicity of the guide bar, 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 rail 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.

When equipping 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 secured to the sheet material being cut so that it does not interfere with the cut at the beginning and at the end.

It is the fastening unit that causes certain difficulties when making the guide yourself. Therefore, it is very important to decide in advance on the type of clamp suitable for securing the workpiece.

Image 2 shows a circular saw that, when the saw blade is in the zero position, has a short distance from the bottom of the platform to the motor. This significantly limits the size of a self-made height guide. With such a height of the ruler, there will be problems with ensuring rigidity when securing it. As the rigidity of the guide bar increases, the depth of cut of the workpiece decreases, since you will be forced 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 a 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-made cabinet, can be used to make a guide rail. To do this, it is necessary to cut a strip from it with a width equal to the maximum width of the circular saw in plan, plus 20 cm. The length, L, of this sheet should be slightly greater than the maximum length of the material from which they plan to make furniture.

Figure 3. Guide bar for a circular saw - it can be made from improvised means by filing a flat sheet of chipboard or plinth.

Having stepped back from the factory edge (we believe that it fits perfectly smooth) on a cut piece of plywood 5-7 cm, we cut off a strip. This will be the ruler along which the frame of the hand-held circular saw should move. The remainder of the cut piece of plywood will serve as the base on which the ruler will be attached. The saw is moved along the ruler, leaning on it, while cutting.

It is very important that the height of the ruler is at least equal to the thickness of the saw bed, but no more than the distance to the engine.

Now you need to secure the ruler to the base. Fixed at a distance of 10 cm from the edge or less, but sufficient for the use of clamps.

Very important point fastening: the factory edge should be directed towards the direction where cutting will be carried out. The guide is glued to the base and additionally secured with screws.

The final stage of manufacturing is to remove 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 as smooth along its entire length as the factory edge of the plywood on the ruler.

The guide bar for a hand-held circular saw offers a number of distinct advantages when working with power tools. At the same time, many refuse to additionally equip the circular saw with a tire, since its cost is close to the price of the saw itself. Let's look at the tire issue from all sides.

Photo of the guide bar

A guide bar is a useful addition to your saw. Is it worth the money the manufacturer asks for it? The question is controversial.

If you regularly use a hand saw, the bar will quickly be worth the investment;
A purchased ready-made tire that you will use once a year becomes a completely pointless waste of money;
Many people agree that the optimal tire for a manual circular saw is a homemade guide.

Making your own guides for Bosch, Makita, Interskol hand-held power tools is not difficult. Such products are not difficult to assemble, but they are significantly inferior in price to factory guides.

Functions

If you have worked with a hand-held circular saw, you have encountered the difficulty of creating a perfectly straight cut. No matter how hard you try, the saw every now and then tends to move aside and ruin the entire labor-intensive process. Often such work with a circular saw ended in receiving incorrect workpieces, wasted time and wasted nerves.

The saws themselves, produced by leading brands, are characterized by excellent capabilities. But to replace the guide, many craftsmen use a pair of clamps, which secure the bar along a ruler. When working with such a guide with a manual circular saw, you will definitely encounter a lot of inconveniences. The clamps will simply touch the circular.

For your circular saw to perform at its best, it will need an appropriate guide bar.

Several useful functions speak in favor of buying or making your own guide.

If you use a rule, its position will have to be adjusted regularly. It is attached at a short distance from the cutting line, otherwise it will not be possible to move the circular saw exactly along the line. For rare operations, this option can still be used. But if you regularly work with a circular saw, you cannot do without a high-quality guide.
The guide from the manufacturer Makita, Bosch has a special design that ensures perfect alignment with the cutting lines. All you have to do is align the two strips to achieve an even cut. A homemade tire is also capable of this if it is made correctly.
To improve the quality of work, the tire is additionally glued with soft tapes. This way it is possible to avoid chipping the material when cutting it.
Having equipped the hand tool with a guide bar, the master only needs to move the circular saw gradually forward. Without it, you have to simultaneously perform two operations - monitor the position of the rule and saw the material. In practice this turns out to be very inconvenient.

Homemade guides

A homemade guide designed for Iterskol, Makita or Bosch manual circular saws can have various configurations.

Finished tires produced by manufacturers are divided into two types:

Specialized. They are only suitable for certain models from a specific manufacturer. It is impossible to use them to equip other circular machines;
Universal. Suitable for various circular saws, regardless of model and manufacturer. Universal ones are usually more expensive.

It is the high cost that forces craftsmen to make guides with their own hands.

We suggest you consider two options for manufacturing a guide bar:

From laminate;
From the building regulations.

Laminate tire

The most important advantage of laminate tires is the availability of the material and the ease of manufacturing the device.

Cut two laminate pieces. Their length should be about 50 centimeters. Try to make the cuts even.
Perform milling along one of the edges.
Armed with self-tapping screws, secure these sections to the base. Also make the base from laminate.
The width of the groove can be checked with a sheet of A4 paper. Insert the paper into the device and scroll.
On the base of the circular saw, the connection to the guide bar is made through fasteners designed for the side stop. If possible or desired, make an additional hole in the circular body. It is advisable to do this if your saw is no longer covered by the warranty.
Before starting work, the homemade tire is pushed forward as far as possible in front of the tool handle. Try to place the toe of the sole a few centimeters away, stepping on the guide. Take a cutting disc and saw off the edges in place along the guides. This way they will perfectly match the markings on the material.

This guide for your saw has one drawback - it will eat up the depth of penetration of the blade. But in practice, the cutting depth usually suffers by literally 1.5 centimeters, which is not a critical indicator.

From the building code

If you have old stuff lying around at home building code, it will make an excellent homemade guide.

Arm yourself with a rule that has handles and moves along the gutter.
Remove the handles. In their place, clamps equipped with spring handles should be installed. The fixation should be as soft as possible. Some models have a removable top. They are the easiest to work with. Remove the top part and secure the clamp to the rule with adapters.
For adapters, use polypropylene. You won’t be able to buy them, so you’ll have to do it yourself. Adapters are manufactured for milling machine. You should end up with elements that resemble the letter T in cross-section. Insert them into the grooves for the handles. Make sure the pieces fit snugly into place.
Make additional holes in the adapter legs. Through them, the clamps can be fixed with screws.
Place the guides on the material. They are positioned with the groove down. In this case, the material is pressed tightly from below using clamps. There will be no elements on top that could interfere with the normal operation of the saw.

For such homemade guides, the work is limited only by the length of the rule used. Therefore, choose the longest possible source materials, but do not forget to take into account the blanks with which you have to work. A longer rule is not always preferable to a shorter one.

Having spent enough money on buying a good saw, you can easily make the guides yourself. We have shown you examples of the simplest designs, although there are a number of other options for their manufacture.

Stop ruler
Materials and assembly
External guide
Rail miter box

A guide bar for a circular saw is a device that ensures an even cut. There are two ways to help make a straight cut:

Rigid fixation of the electric saw on the work table.
Stationary fastening of the workpiece, installation of a guide rail for a manual circular saw.

The first option involves fixing the tool on a workbench, while the workpiece moves along a guide. The quality of the cut will be high, but the dimensions of the workpiece are limited, due to the size of the machine. With the second processing method, the workpiece parameters can be arbitrary. The main thing is that the trimming tool is securely fixed.

Manufacturers of carpentry equipment produce a wide range of guide bars for circular saws. The parts are easy to use and meet safety regulations. The design drawing includes a straight edge. In some cases, it is possible to set the required degree of inclination of the cutter; it is possible to avoid backlash and jamming of the working element when it moves.

The factory carriage installed on the circular saw does the job well, but is expensive. The article describes how to assemble a saw guide bar yourself.

Stop ruler

Independent production of devices for circular saws requires strict adherence to safety rules.

The cutting stop is often used when processing material with a circular saw; it is effective only in the case of a jigsaw; problems may arise with cutting: the tire is pressed to the workpiece with a clamp.

The bracket protrudes from the bottom and top of the machine table top. The result is a limiter on the length of the cut, but the saw motor inevitably rests against the clamp, and the cut is performed in two stages. The quality of the edge will be poor and there is a high chance of creating an unwanted step: to ensure a perfect cut, continuous movement of the cutting blade is necessary from the beginning to the end of the lumber. In factory models fastener placed outside the circular saw ruler, does not interfere with work.

Materials and assembly

A homemade guide rail can be mounted from aluminum plaster rule. The device has a complex configuration; on one side it is equipped with a longitudinal groove for installing the handles in a convenient position. Hidden clamps can be made from quick-release screwless clamps.

The paw from the clamp must be removed and fluoroplastic or polypropylene sliders installed in its place. The material of the moving element must be durable and have a low coefficient of friction. It is best to shape the part with a milling cutter or a hacksaw for metal with fine teeth, but in the second case you will have to additionally shape it using a file.

At the next stage, the runners are installed in the groove of the rule, from which a guide for a hand-held circular saw will be created.

It is necessary to ensure that the sliding is free, but without play. It is not necessary to make excessive efforts: the unit must be fixed during operation.

Screw the slide to the top of the clamps. In this case, you need to make sure that the connection is strong so that spontaneous unwinding of the unit does not occur during operation. This will damage the workpiece or cause injury.

The guide bar for the circular saw should hold well and not give any play. The resulting design will allow you to unravel flat lumber, the length corresponding to the same parameter of the ruler minus the margin on the sides of the clamps.

If during test sawing a perfectly even cut is obtained, nothing interferes with the work, it means that the technology was followed and the guide was made correctly.

The advantage of the design is that the line is inexpensive. Labor costs are also insignificant, consisting only of the formation of the sliders.

External guide

A device with a guide bar has a drawback - the need to control the lateral contact of the saw with the ruler. If you are cutting a piece that is too wide, you may not have enough arm length to guide the material. The solution is to use a carriage with ball bearings. It won't be that cheap, but it will pay off in the future.

The guide carriage can be made from a corner and metal plates . The width can be adjusted using wing locks integrated into the movable grooves. A profile of complex configuration is purchased in a specialized department of a hardware store. There may be several options, but you need to provide a parallel stop for the circular saw.

If for some reason it is not possible to make an auxiliary element from a profile that will guide the cut along a clear line, you can buy an assembled device consisting of a carriage and a guide. The circular will be firmly connected by the sole to the carriage structure.

It is important to achieve strict parallelism of the circular motion along the profile. An incorrectly installed stand will result in a loose cut. It is easy to make an external guide bar for a circular saw with your own hands. As a result, it will be possible to guide and process large-sized lumber, make high-quality cuts, trimming will be accurate, and the saw will make easy movements. Feeding can be done manually or using a guide rod.

Rail miter box

The operation of a circular saw with a guide bar assembled using the first two methods will be comfortable, but quite slow. To speed up the process, it is better to use a rail miter box. To make a guide device you will need:

same type of metal corners (2 pcs.);
a sheet of plywood or chipboard with a thickness of 1.5 cm (as a base);
nuts and bolts (4 sets).

The guide angles must be fixed in one plane at a distance slightly greater than the thickness of the workpiece. The workpiece should move freely under the rails, the cutting wheel should not be too high. The bolts will act as studs. To reduce friction, you can glue strips of fluoroplastic, but it is better to equip the device with wheels.

A guiding tool made according to this design is complex, but its efficiency is higher.

The video shows the assembly process and operation of a circular saw with a guide bar.

The cost of a branded guide bar is close to the price of the circular saw itself. Is this accessory really necessary, what is it used for, is it possible to neglect the tire, replace it or do it yourself?

Purpose of the guide bar

Anyone who has worked with a circular saw knows how difficult it is to get it straight. No matter how hard you try to guide the tool clearly along the markings, it still tends to move to the side. The result is material damage and waste of time.

Some craftsmen adapt this way: they fasten the bar along a ruler with a pair of clamps. However, with a manual circular saw this method is inconvenient - the clamps touch the tool. There are several other reasons for using a guide bar:

When using a rule, it is necessary to correct its position all the time. It is installed with a slight indentation from the cutting line, only then the disc will accurately follow the line. This method will work for single jobs. If you need to make a lot of precise cuts, the process is tedious;
The proprietary circular saw guide is designed so that its edge clearly coincides with the cutting line. The master only needs to combine these two stripes and work;
high-quality tires are additionally taped with a soft tape that prevents chipping of the material, for example, MDF or laminate;
It is inconvenient to saw and monitor the location of the rule at the same time. A little too much or too little, and the material is ruined. When working with the bar, you only need to move the saw forward.

There are many types of guide bars on sale: universal or specialized for a specific model or manufacturer. The price of universal devices is usually higher than specialized ones. Therefore, many home craftsmen make tires with their own hands.

Making a tire with your own hands

The main task is to make a geometrically accurate product with your own hands, which is not easy. I would like to make a convenient and reliable device, spending a minimum of time.

The following can be used as a base: a channel, a corner, a rectangular pipe and even a laminate. Wooden and pressed guides have a serious drawback - they are sensitive to moisture.

Option 1

The guide rail is made of laminate - the simplest and most affordable material.

We cut two pieces of laminate of the same length along a ruler (for example, 50 cm).
We mill one edge at a time.
We attach it with self-tapping screws to the base, also made of laminate.
The width of the groove is checked using a sheet of A4 paper, approximately 0.11 mm thick: the paper is inserted into the device and screwed.
The guide is fixed to the sole of the circular saw with your own hands through the mount for the side stop. You can drill a special hole in the case, if you don’t mind and the warranty period has passed.
When working with the guide bar, it should be extended as far as possible in front of the hand-held circular saw. And the nose of the sole should extend a few centimeters onto the guide. Now let’s take a disk for sawing laminate and saw off the edges of the guides on the spot so that they align perfectly with the markings;

This device eats up the cutting depth a little (by about 1.5 cm), but it is very convenient and easy to do with your own hands.

Option 2

Now let's take the construction rule as the basis for the tire. A model with handles that move along a groove is suitable.

We remove the handles and instead select soft-locking clamps with spring handles. There are models with a removable top - they are just right. Having removed it, the clamp is fixed to the rule using an adapter.
The adapters will have to be made yourself from polypropylene on a milling machine. As a result, you should get parts that resemble the letter “T” in cross-section; they are tightly inserted into the groove for the handles.
We make holes in the “leg” of the adapters and screw clamps onto the screws.
The guide is placed on a sheet of material with the groove down and securely pressed with clamps from below. There is not a single part on top that slows down the operation of the circular saw. There is only one limitation in the work - the length of the rule, so you need to take the longest one.

Option 3

To obtain an accurate cut with a circular saw, one important condition is necessary: the edge of the base of the tool, which is adjacent to the guide, must be perfectly smooth.

Professional units with cast soles have this property by definition. The same cannot be said about inexpensive stamped bases. Therefore, we offer another guide option - a rail.

The tool will move along it without resting against the guide rail. At the same time, significantly reducing the force required to push the hand saw.

An aluminum U-shaped profile is suitable for the rails. Two pieces of different sections are required. The smaller profile should be inserted into the larger one without a gap, but move freely.

Now you can assemble the guide rail with your own hands:

We take plywood No. 3 and attach a larger diameter guide with screws. We grind off the heads of the screws and screws to hide them flush.
We place the guide tightly on both sides along a strip of plywood No. 10 and also fasten it with self-tapping screws. Instead of plywood, you can use chipboard.

We saw off the excess pieces to the width and the rail is ready for use.

Now you should prepare your hand saw:

We insert the small profile into the rail and remove the height of the “legs” so that it fits flush.
We fix the cut profile to the saw sole parallel to the saw blade. To do this, we use a pair of M4 wing screws. If the disk tool platform is of high quality and level, you can stick to its edge.
We place the hand saw on the guide, inserting the profile into the guide rail, turn on the saw and saw off the excess strip in width.
Now, for a perfect cut, you need to place the edge of the tire on the marking and attach the guide with clamps. The main feature of the design is the rails. When using such a guide, the saw moves smoothly, does not wobble, feeds easily and cuts very accurately.