Crosscuting 24" wide Oak plywood

[Jim Gunter]

I have been making all sorts of one of a kind furniture pieces in my home work shop. Each time I run into something new that I don't have the proper tool for I research the best fit and buy a quality new or used tool. Not the very best industrial 3 phase machine available, but a good quality machine. I now have a reasonably good tool selection that still includes a 10" Craftsman Radial Arm Saw I bought new in the early 1970's. It was my first piece of equipment and I made all cuts on it. Made sort of okay furniture on it. It takes a lot of "tuning" to get good results from it though.
Over time my quality requirements got more refined and so did my equipment needs. I have always used my RAS to crosscut boards and plywood and take the time setting the saw to be sure it cuts exactly 90* so my fit is as perfect as possible. It drives me crazy to fight through any plywood over 16" wide though as I must flip it over to finish cutting through the overall width. Miss-alignment and splinters on the good side are just not acceptable any more. I do use a Freud 80 tooth crosscut blade for good cuts on the first 16" pass but on a 24" table top the last 8" is not so good.
Sorry for the long lead in to my request but thought it may help explain what I am looking for.

What type of saw is available that will cut a clean, accurate 90* crosscut on hardwood boards and plywood tops at least 24" wide.

Thanks for some ideas, it's time for a change!

[Mike Henderson]

Festool track saw. You have to accurately measure where to cut but the cut is good.

Mike

[Art Mann]

Makita, Dewalt and possibly Grizzly track saws will also do the job if you get sticker shock with the Festool.

[Jeffrey Martel]

I have the Grizzly track saw. With modifications and a new blade, it's a great tool for the money. Festool is still nicer, but way more expensive.

[Jim Gunter]

Interesting, I didn't think a hand held circular saw could make splinter free cross cuts.
So do you mark length, use a square to indicate 90* and clamp the track to the wood?
Any way to make repetitive length cuts ?

[Marty Tippin]

I use a shop-built cross-cut sled on my table saw. I made it 25" wide for exactly this purpose.

But if you don't have a table saw, a track saw is probably your next best solution.

[Cody Colston]

I use a panel cutting sled with my tablesaw, ala Norm.

[Erik Christensen]

my festool track saw has a better x-cut quality than any other tool I have including a sliding table TS with RidgeCarbide finish blade & new ZCI. I have a large format MFT that can quickly & safely x-cut to a perfect 90 things up to 40" wide and with the flip stop do so to a repeatable, precise length . I am not suggesting it is reasonably priced but that is not what was asked :)

[Jim Gunter]

Marty - Cody, I do have a good table saw, but no sled. I have about 48" clear from the TS blade to the RAS table. Have any info on making a good sled?

Erik, What is a large format MFT ?

[Rich Engelhardt]

Another happy Festool user here :).

[glenn bradley]

Large crosscut sled. Built for a specific project but, years later is still in use for those occasional larger panels.

Ad a little support:

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Banzai!

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[Art Mann]

I am not suggesting it is reasonably priced but that is not what was asked :)

If price is not a consideration, then I recommend a new beam saw. It is made for the purpose. In that case, the Festool would sound like just a cheap little hobbiest tool. I just want people to know that there are viable alternatives to what Mike Henderson suggested, more and less expensive.

[Prashun Patel]

I love that infeed dickie, Glen. Thanks. I'm making one today.

[John TenEyck]

If you already own a TS then the answer is pretty easy, build a cross cut sled to whatever size you need, tune it once to cut dead accurate 90 deg cuts, and it will stay that way forever. I built mine when I made my kitchen cabinets over 20 years ago, but it still cuts perfectly square and I use it for any crosscut that my RAS can't handle. It can handle crosscuts about 36" wide.

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The design is by the late Jere Cary in his book about building kitchen cabinets.

John

[Wes Ramsey]

I don't have any new saw recommendations, but have you considered backing the cut with a sacrificial piece to minimize tearout? If you're in the middle of a project it might minimize tearout to get you by.

[Jim Dwight]

A sled could work as long as the pieces are not very long. If you are trying to crosscut something like an 6-8 foot piece 24 inches wide, I think you may be disappointed with a sled too. The bigger the piece of wood, the less you want to move it past a stationary blade. Best to move the blade when the wood is big.

I use a DeWalt track saw and made a Paulk style workbench and crosscutting jig. I can crosscut 36 inches accurately without difficulty. 8 foot length does not affect accuracy at all.

[Cody Colston]

Marty - Cody, I do have a good table saw, but no sled. I have about 48" clear from the TS blade to the RAS table. Have any info on making a good sled?

A panel cutter is a bit different from the standard cross-cut sled. It does not straddle the blade and runs in only one miter slot. The panel cutter only has a fence at the back edge. I used a piece of 3/4" MDF for the sled with a hardwood runner for the left miter slot. Attach the runner so that the sled extends past the blade a bit. Attach and square the fence at the back only, also extending past the blade. Once completed, turn on the saw and push the sled through a cut. The sled and fence are trimmed even with the L/H edge of the blade. When cutting stock, align the cut mark with the end of the fence and it will be correct every time.

Since the fence is at the back, a wide panel can be laid on the sled and it's easy to keep it flat on the saw top, even if the panel extends past the front of the sled/TS.

For cutting narrower stock, I use a "standard" TS sled that straddles the blade and has a fence at the front and a connecting fence at the back.

[Rod Sheridan]

Hi, another option is what I use, a small Euro sliding table saw with a scoring blade.

Both surfaces are perfect and the wood is square.............Rod.

[mreza Salav]

your best option is a good quality track saw with good blades to get good results.
Although I know I'm going to get a lot of flak for saying this, I doubt you can claim "splinter-free" cross-cut on oak plywood with that either.

[Rich Engelhardt]

your best option is a good quality track saw with good blades to get good results.
Although I know I'm going to get a lot of flak for saying this, I doubt you can claim "splinter-free" cross-cut on oak plywood with that either.No flak here - but - you'd lose that bet.
I can get splinter free cuts with a fairly new Festool blade in my Festool track saw even cutting Luan & Melamine.
Oak plywood - - pfffft, no problem.

[glenn bradley]

I love that infeed dickie, Glen. Thanks. I'm making one today.


Threadjack Alert!

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[Prashun Patel]

What is that green track, under the front rail, Glen?

[Rick Moyer]

I love that infeed dickie, Glen. Thanks. I'm making one today.

Prashun, get a full sheet of ply so you can duplicate his paddle stop switch as well :D. Geez Glenn that's a big one!

[Andrew Pitonyak]

Yes, you can get pretty good cuts off a track saw.

I lay the saw onto a sacrificial backer. In my case, this means thick insulation similar to Styrofoam; I purchased it at a big box store.
I set the blade to just barely clear the board.
If you are using your own circular saw, be sure to choose a blade that will nicely (cleanly) cut the plywood (don't use a roughing blade).
With a track saw, the track itself also helps to protect the top of the cut along one edge anyway. No idea how big of a difference this makes.
Finally, there is always the old trick of putting some painters tape down along the cut line to reduce tear-out.

[mreza Salav]

No flak here - but - you'd lose that bet.
I can get splinter free cuts with a fairly new Festool blade in my Festool track saw even cutting Luan & Melamine.
Oak plywood - - pfffft, no problem.

I have a Festool track saw too and have cut lots of sheets with it , and yes I get the blade sharpened....

[roger wiegand]

Cross cut sled on the table saw. For more ungainly pieces I clamp the longer side of the board to the sled so it can't twist. Zero clearance slot in the sled helps with tearout on the back side. I use a roller table as necessary to support the overhanging work.

[Jeremy Treibs]

Although there are some expensive tools that would work just as well, I had this very same issue come up this weekend while I was building a shelf system for my girlfriend. I only had a Milwaukee circular saw with a Freud blade. I used blue painters tape on both sides of the cut to achieve better results than I get from my Festool TS 55. The key is to ensure the tape is firmly pressed down. I then used an Emerson straight edge clamp measured to account for the base plate of my circular saw ( in my case, it's adding 5" to the measurement). The results were amazing.

[John TenEyck]

It's not hard to cut long, wide pieces with a TS sled. You put an outrigger under the end that needs support. I've cut 24" wide pieces nearly 8' long that way w/o problems.

John

[Martin Wasner]

What type of saw is available that will cut a clean, accurate 90* crosscut on hardwood boards and plywood tops at least 24" wide.


In order from best to worst. (Probably most expensive to cheapest too) Your order may vary, greatly.


CNC (With the added advantage of cutting more than one piece at a time, and machining parts
Beam Saw
Vertical Panel Saw
Sliding tablesaw. The range of quality and price is staggering though.
Tablesaw (though only as square as the sheet unless you've got a good sled or really good square)
Bigger Radial arm saw
Track Saw
Skil saw
Jigsaw
Handsaw
Hatchet
Car door (not the best results, may also damage your vehicle. You've been warned)
Kicking the material really hard.

[Ole Anderson]

Interesting line up. Not sure how a beam saw? or a panel saw got to the top of the list. My plywood supplier's pro panel saw is square but anything but splinter free. But how do they line up as far as splinter free on both sides? Most (except for a track saw with a splinter guard), are only as good as the blade and the blade alignment. Uber sharp, many teeth with a high cut angle perfectly aligned seems the best, but how long until even they start splintering? A ZCI will help, but even they need to be almost new, or the kerf starts wallowing out from vibration. And the track saw's splinter guard often works perfectly only for the first few cuts.

Edit: Beam saw: I realized you are likely referring to a Holzher style pressure style beam saw, not a Makita beam saw. Looks like it would eclipse the price of even a big CNC machine. Orders of magnitude difference. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qT9kVcoHuOo vs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZdNpfHvU7k Very cool though.

[Pat Barry]

I use a panel cutting sled with my tablesaw, ala Norm.
There really is nothing better than this for getting the job done and making a dedicated panel cutting sled will help ensure a splinter free cut to boot.

[Marty Tippin]

Marty - Cody, I do have a good table saw, but no sled. I have about 48" clear from the TS blade to the RAS table. Have any info on making a good sled?

I built mine based on a Fine Woodworking video featuring Marc Adams - here's the link to the video series, but you'll have to be a "member" to view the videos: http://www.finewoodworking.com/item/106771/tablesaw-techniques

Basically, it's a sheet of 3/4" MDF with a laminated fence attached front and back. The size can be whatever you want. The laminated fence consists of 5 layers of 3/4" stock, top and bottom are Baltic birch and the middle 3 layers are MDF, width is about 2".

The trick with any good crosscut sled is getting the fence set accurately to 90 degrees - there are numerous videos online that discuss how to align the fence - this is probably one of the best https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbG-n--LFgQ - I used this technique and achieved alignment to something like .010" over 48" or so, which is way more accurate than my ability to assemble...

My sled is big and heavy, but I'll pull it out for every cross cut I need to make, even in smaller pieces that could be served by my Incra miter gauge.

I did recently buy a DeWalt track saw, but my only real use for it is in breaking down full sheets of plywood. Once I've got the pieces small enough to fit on the table saw, that's where I do the remainder of the cutting.

[Brian Tymchak]

Cody, when using your panel cutter, do you let the offcut drop on its own at the end of the cut or is it supported somehow? Seems like it would be a risk to splinter at the back edge due to the weight of the offcut.

[Martin Wasner]

Interesting line up. Not sure how a beam saw? or a panel saw got to the top of the list. My plywood supplier's pro panel saw is square but anything but splinter free. But how do they line up as far as splinter free on both sides?

My panel saw, you score the face when raising the head into position, then plunge to full depth to complete the cut. A hollow tooth blade, scoring, and proper feed rate and it's as clean of a cut as you can possibly get from a blade. If there's splinters, it's loose grain in the material, not the saw. Stacking multiple parts helps even further with that if you are cutting multiples of the same part.

Yes, a beam saw like the Holz-Herr.

[Jon Endres]

I have an early model Eurekazone EZSMART track system that uses a Hitachi C7SB2 circular saw and a Freud Diablo 60-tooth blade. I built all of my cabinets in my house with it and it cuts square and straight. I rarely get chipout with anything, including oak ply. It's probably not the cheapest or best option anymore though.

[Jim Gunter]

Many thanks to all for the education. Some really good ideas to work with.
I think I will build a TS sled for the immediate work and think about a long arm RAS for the future. Just like the ability to quickly flop the short or long piece up, set a stop and cut one or 20 all exactly the same. I don't own a chop saw so the RAS gets a fair amount of use......................... Perhaps a fold down sliding table for the table saw, Hmmmmm.
I really enjoy and can always depend on this site for great ideas, Thanks again!

[Joe Beaulieu]

Hey Glenn,

What is that 2nd rail below your Sawstop fence rail on your table saw? The one with the green facing? Just curious.

BTW - I posted a question a few months ago about this issue - how to control pieces when they are pulled back beyond the edge of the miter slot. This is a great solution. It keeps the sled supported and the runner in the slot. I like it very much, and will be adapting one for my Sawstop PCS as well. Thanks Glenn! Great idea.

Joe

[Bill Sutherland]

+ 1 for the Festool Track Saw.

[Pat Barry]

Many thanks to all for the education. Some really good ideas to work with.
I think I will build a TS sled for the immediate work and think about a long arm RAS for the future. Just like the ability to quickly flop the short or long piece up, set a stop and cut one or 20 all exactly the same. I don't own a chop saw so the RAS gets a fair amount of use......................... Perhaps a fold down sliding table for the table saw, Hmmmmm.
I really enjoy and can always depend on this site for great ideas, Thanks again!
My current sled was made from 1/2" BB plywood and rides in both slots on the saw table. That helps to ensure proper tracking the zero clearance slot in the panel supports the offcut and helps to give a very clean cut. Previously I had a 3/4 particle board sled that rode in only one miter gauge track and it didn't work so well.

[Rich Engelhardt]

I have a Festool track saw too and have cut lots of sheets with it , and yes I get the blade sharpened....I don't know what to say or why it is the way it is, but, the number of people that get perfect splinter free cuts with a Festool (or DeWalt) seem to be in the majority.
My quality of cut only degraded after the blade had been in use for some time.
I replaced the original Festool blade with an Oshlun, and the quality of cut went back to perfect - for a short time.

[Marty Tippin]

Hey Glenn,

What is that 2nd rail below your Sawstop fence rail on your table saw? The one with the green facing? Just curious.


I think that's the sensor for a Wixey digital fence readout. http://www.amazon.com/Wixey-WR700-Fence-Digital-Readout/dp/B001PTGBT4

[lowell holmes]

My Porter Cable 7 1/4" side winder fitted with a Frued Avanty Thin Kerf 40 tooth carbide finishing blade makes precision cuts. Having been around before track saws, I have my own homemade plywood track that will make splinter free cuts in hard woods and or plywood. If you just have a few cuts to make, buy the saw blade.

I just checked to see if they are still available. They are and they also have a 6 1/2" blade.

[Mike Wilkins]

Another vote for the Festool track saw. After making a mess of a sheet of hardwood plywood with an underpowered circular saw, and a not-so-straight edge guide, I quickly got a track saw, and been happy since.

Or Felder will be happy to sell you a nice sliding panel saw.

[Jim Dwight]

It is possible to reduce chipout with a tracksaw by making an initial scoring cut. Some saws have a special setting for this. Any can do it with a low depth setting. It shouldn't be needed with a decent blade in oak ply but is available and easy to do. The full depth cut will be in the exact same spot.

A difference with a tracksaw versus a circular saw is the tracksaw blade is parallel to a slight toe out to the groove in the base that slides along the ridge in the track. A circular saw rarely has an edge of it's base that is parallel to the blade. It may be possible to grind the base or even move it a little to get it parallel but no adjustment will be necessary with the track saw and my experience is it stays that way. Another difference is the track saw cannot drift away from the guide like a circular saw can.

A feature of the Paulk crosscut jig is a movable stop with provision for a stick on rule. So it is very possible to cut identical multiples and even to do so without measurement.

[Ken Kortge]

Jim,

The EZ-ONE Woodworking Center (http://www.eurekazone.com/product_p/ezt1000.htm) at Eurekazone.com is an option you may want to look into, though its not low cost. Even though it uses a typical circular saw, the track edges and saw base inserts are custom cut for each blade so that they work together to provide very clean edges on all four sides of the kerf. Watch the video available in the "Video" tab. Its the best way to understand how it works.

... and it cuts boards & panels much wider than 24" ...

This video shows how the edge and base work together to keep the cuts clean ... and the base's fin prevents kickback.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSGkG17sNE8

The end of the video shows Eurekazone's Universal Edge Guide that works with the same saw base. It provides rips with the same clean cuts at a low cost.

BTW, Eurekazone is a small business based out of Florida. I'm not associated with them. Just a happy user of their tracks and accessories for many years. I bought the EZ-ONE last fall.

[lowell holmes]

"A circular saw rarely has an edge of it's base that is parallel to the blade. "

There is no doubt, a track saw is superior to a circular saw with a guide. But, if you make a guide with plywood, the bottom piece of plywood is wider that the base of the saw. Then, when you first run the saw down the guide, it leaves an edge that is absolutely parallel to the blade and the edge touches the blade so that it is easy to cut absolutely on a line. I have been cutting door bottoms with that set up for 20-30 years. They didn't have track saws when I started.

I mis-read what Jim said. I have a 7 1/2" and a 4" side winder. Both bases are have perfect rectangular bases, so the home made sled works.

[Terry Therneau]

Jim,
If you want to crosscut 24" with a radial arm saw, you could look at http://www.owwm.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=169207&p=1153069&hilit=unipoint#p1153069
It's a long way away though. I know the seller and he's a great guy. The cut will be square. (I could fit it in my shop you might not have gotten this note.)

Terry Therneau
Rochester, Minn

[glenn bradley]

What is that green track, under the front rail, Glen?

Wixey DRO. Love it. It is an integral pat of how I decide to perform operations.

Again, sorry for the threadjack. There are two basic camps; it seems track saws and sleds with sliders and shop made guides serving a lot of folks well too. Circular saws with adjustable shoes are getting harder and harder to find. Track saw popularity may contribute to this. I have an old Porter Cable that is setup with both sides of the shoe parallel to blade travel so a shop made guide suits me well.

A track saw gives more confidence as all you have to do is push forward (which is a wonderful thing). Assess your budget and the frequency that you will require the function. This will help keep your money and your storage space from being tied up on something that doesn't get used enough to warrant it. For me, a shop made guide and a sled suit me fine. If I used a lot of plywood, I would look to a track saw but, that's me and my shop. Only you know what is right or you.