Redid a Cheap Cutting Guide.

[Scott Hildenbrand]

I picked up a cheapy cheapy cutting guide (http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productDetail&productId=119887-1099-CG100) from Lowes a while back and was never real happy with how flexible it was so I decided to take a bit and fix that issue so I could get more use out of it.

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For what ever reason, when we moved I decided to cart along 6 or 7 boxes full of good laminate flooring, which just happened to be off print seconds. Got a great deal on them and was easily able to piece together a flawless floor with many "oops" sheets left off to the side.

At any rate, I chose to take three of these and glue them together so that they could be trimmed up to the size I needed.

Once the glue set I fired up the table saw and ripped the glued up flooring straight down the center, giving me two equal boards to work with which were wide enough to have a little "play" room.

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Then I moved on to mounting the factory aluminum rails, clamping the rail firmly to the flooring board and putting two holes to either side.

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With the holes drilled, the bottoms needed to be countersunk so that the screws did not protrude past the flooring.

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With four screws in place, with nuts snugged down well I clamped them to the table saw rail so that I could cut them down to match my circular saw.

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One swipe was all it took. The panel was finished, stiff, and would be just what I needed for cutting those long bits of sheet material down.

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Shows the factory beside the new one.. I've got both of them done now so I'm ready to rock.

Side note, the circular saw is a Hitachi c7582 which I'd been real happy with. Decided on it because it seemed like a nice mid range with a good, heavy cast base. Works real well and feels very stable during cuts.

[Dan Friedrichs]

Very nice, Scott. How to you hold the guide to the sheet you're cutting? Do you clamp it in any way?

[Scott Hildenbrand]

Each of the guides measures 50", giving a little over room on a 4x8 sheet, joining them gives 100".. Once they're in place they just get clamped down. Just like two pictures up, along the back of the guide.

[Dale Lesak]

Scott, now you need to make a guide that fits the front of the saw and fits over the lip of the guide. That way the saw can't pull away from the guide when cutting. I made one out of UHMW and it works real nice. I'm set up with a PC saw Boss tho.

[Scott Hildenbrand]

I actually thought about doing that.. It's got some drilled and tapped holes in the base of the saw that I can use.. Might whip something up just to be safe, though a careful cut wouldn't need one anyway.. ;)