What is a "Toe-Kick" Saw?

[Kev Godwin]

I was looking thru this months coupon flyer from Harbor Freight and saw a coupon for a "Toe-Kick Saw". What in the world is such a saw for? I've never seen one before. Looks like some crazy device I would actually cut my own toes off with.... :confused:
Kev

[Ken Deckelman]

It's used to cut luan or other subfloor material when replacing a floor-say in a kitchen where you are not removing the cabinets. It gets under the toe-kick to cut the floor flush with the cabinet base.

[Rich Engelhardt]

You can also use one to trim door jambs & casings in place when laying a tile floor.
IMHO though - the multfunction tools have eclipsed the toe kick saw for the most part.

[Brian Kent]

Sounds really painful, whether you are the kicker or the kickee.

[Jason Roehl]

I don't think multi-function tools have replaced the dedicated jamb saw and toe-kick saw. I just got my Fein 250Q Top dirty today (gloat!) on the job, and while it's the bomb for a variety of tasks, it wouldn't hold a candle to a toe-kick saw when that's what you need. I once rented a toe-kick saw to remove particle board underlayment from most of a house, and it made very, very quick work of the task of cutting flush with all the walls--it's basically like a circular saw with an arbor extension and a tiny blade. I have never used a jamb saw, but I would say that it's probably much quicker, but I think the multi-function tools might be easier to control, and you can get a relatively square cut with them that you can't with a jamb saw (circular saw sitting sideways so that the blade is parallel to the floor and can cut flush to it).

[Rich Engelhardt]

I just got my Fein 250Q Top dirty today (gloat!) on the job
Get back to me on this when you've had a chance to really get it dirty :D.
I've had both the Dremel and the HF for about a year and a half.
The more I use them, the more uses I find for them.

Plus - my wife can handle the MF tool & so can my 11 year old grandson w/out me having to worry about them getting in the way of the blade.

[John Toigo]

The good toe-kick & jamb saws are made by Crain & they're kinda pricey. I have a Crain jamb saw and it's very handy when you want to undercut base moldings & door casings so get new flooring underneath. We've also used it to remove antique base moldings which were installed before the finish floor was laid. You can see Crain saws here: http://www.craintools.com/specialtysaw.htm

[Jason Roehl]

Get back to me on this when you've had a chance to really get it dirty :D.
I've had both the Dremel and the HF for about a year and a half.
The more I use them, the more uses I find for them.

Plus - my wife can handle the MF tool & so can my 11 year old grandson w/out me having to worry about them getting in the way of the blade.

Well, today I used it to widen a bathroom closet rough opening. The closet is 19" wide and had a 12" door installed. The customer said she could barely reach in to clean it or get anything out. She already bought an 18" door, so I still have two studs to cut out--I already cut out the jack studs, but I didn't know the width of the new door for sure. So, tomorrow, I'm going to cut out the king studs and replace those with 1x-ish material to get me a ~20" rough opening. Thankfully, it's a non-load-bearing wall, and it's next to an outside corner, and tees into another wall, so there still should be enough support beyond the king studs. Anyway, the MF tool allowed me to pull the interior casing by cutting the nails without having to also pull the shelf supports that wedged the casing in. It let me neatly cut back the drywall before removing the jack studs (a little slow on that, but straight lines were pretty easy to freehand). Sure, I could have done much of the same stuff with a Sawzall, but it probably would have been too big for the opening to use neatly without destroying everything else. It probably saved me 2+ hours over doing it by hand, which puts it well on its way to paying for itself.

[Tim Sproul]

I don't think multi-function tools have replaced the dedicated jamb saw and toe-kick saw.


I gotta agree. A multifunction tool like the multimaster and other clones can do the same thing.....but they do it at a snails pace. A toe-kick saw is essentially a circular saw made to cut horizontally and very close to the floor. It cuts mucho faster than my Fein Multimaster. But it also spews a lot more dust and spews it a lot further.

[Rick Lizek]

http://www.exfactory.com/detail.aspx?recnum=SC-011217
This is the original type of saw called a toe kick saw. When I saw the Harbor Freight notation I knew it was a jamb type saw that has taken the connotation now.