Serious question for people with shop made saw guides

[Rich Engelhardt]

I get it about using a shop made guide for cutting smaller pieces.
I even use shop made guides on occasion, despite the fact that I have a Makita track saw & a set of UnGodly expensive Woodpecker's parallel guides. ( I know - I could have gone with Banggood for a whole lot less - but..)
Somethings just can't be cut with a track saw - things like ripping pieces of flooring - cutting ready made counter tops with a built in backsplash. You have to make a guide and or jig and use the right circular saw for that - which I do.

Where it comes off the rails for me is - how do you make long cuts, like cutting a 4X8 piece of ply into 2 pieces, 8 feet long and 23 1/2" wide - or - cutting strips of 1/2" ply or underlayment, 3.5" wide and 8' long for toe kicks?

How did you make a shop made guide to deal with doing that? Pictures would help a bunch here also.

I really am curious about this and I'm not pushing a "track saw agenda". I think about this nearly every time I make cuts with the track saw that are over 55" long.

[Zachary Hoyt]

I don't have shop made saw guides or a tracksaw. I make the kind of cuts you described on a 1940's Unisaw with no infeed or outfeed tables. It requires a bit of care and heavy lifting, and if I had to do it all the time I'd come up with something better, but it's not that bad the few times per year I have to do it, even with 3/4" maple plywood which is the heaviest I use.

[glenn bradley]

I make the cuts you describe adding a second track to my Makita. I did buy an extra rail connector set to make the connection point more stable. I leave the tracks connected most of the time. Shorter cuts are done at the tablesaw.

[Maurice Mcmurry]

Now that I have added long bottom rails, I like my Safety Speed Cut style vertical panel saw. I also walk around my table saw mid cut and pull long pieces through. Cutting ready made counter tops with a built in backsplash is one of the trickiest jobs I know of. I cut post formed counters over size, freehand with the Skilsaw, from the underside & back. Then clean up the cut with a belt sander. Thanks to SMC I now have full sheet slider envy.

This thread shows several ideas.

https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?296148-Making-wide-square-perpendicular-crosscuts

[Rich Engelhardt]

I make the cuts you describe adding a second track to my Makita. I did buy an extra rail connector set to make the connection point more stable. I leave the tracks connected most of the time. Shorter cuts are done at the tablesaw.
As do I.
I did that with my Festool TS55EQ also.

I also muscled the sheets onto my job site (Hitachi) saw and my contractor's saw (Ridgid TS 3660)

What I'm trying to figure out though is what type of shop made guide will work for this - or - how do the people that use those types of guide make cuts over 48".

@ Maurice,
Countertops with the built in backsplash can be a challenge. I use a guide made out of 2x4s and clamped tightly for the saw's base to run against
Dealing with the cutoff so you end up with a nice clean edge is the most difficult thing I ran into. I usually cut the countertop a few inches long, then trimmed to length.
Using a brand new 40T 7 1/4" Diablo blade in the circular saw helps also.

[Tom M King]

Having used shop made guides for 50 years now, an 8' cut is no problem. Using 8' plywood as the base. Can you explain what the problem is. The saws I use for such cuts have bases that protrudes both in front of the blade and behind it. Only very rarely is the cut started as a plunge cut.

I have 8' guides for 7-1/4", Porter Cable 314, and 10'1/4". I've never needed one for the 16-5/16" circular saw.

This particular cut in the hard to get 20' long Heart Pine flooring was made by pulling a line and marking it with a very sharp pencil every 8'. The guide had to be moved several times. Using mirror image left bladed and right bladed circular saws, I went both ways to get as close as possible to the walls.

[Rich Engelhardt]

Ok Tom, That is exactly what had me wondering.
It looks like you fabricated a guide out of 1/4" underlayment.

Thanks!

[Bill Howatt]

Made mine out of a 8' length of ply. Fastened straight edge (Bought couple pieces of 4' aluminum angle) on it such that the blade side is wider than where the blade cuts. Ran my portable saw down it and cut off excess. Now the guide edge is right where the blade cuts to don't have to measure anything regarding edge and blade location - OTHER than making sure you allow for blade width depending on which side of your measurement you are cutting the workpiece,

[Jim Becker]

I have a long track for long rip cuts, regardless of the material.

That said, to the specific question, one can certainly create a shop-made guide for long cuts. The challenge is with having an accurate, straight reference edge. There was a time when folks would say "use the factory edge" (referring to sheet goods) but anyone who as actually measured/examined sheet goods will know that a truly straight/true "factory edge" is often a unicorn. So it can take some doing to get that straight and true edge, but it's possible. Use that straight and true edge for the guide portion (fence) and have the base of the fixture initially wider than finish. Assemble and then run the saw down the fence to trim the reference edge for the cut parallel, doing so very carefully so that the saw doesn't wander from hand pressure. (that's the true variable for a simple guide as compared to a track that captures the tool)

[Lee Schierer]

I get it about using a shop made guide for cutting smaller pieces.
I even use shop made guides on occasion, despite the fact that I have a Makita track saw & a set of UnGodly expensive Woodpecker's parallel guides. ( I know - I could have gone with Banggood for a whole lot less - but..)
Somethings just can't be cut with a track saw - things like ripping pieces of flooring - cutting ready made counter tops with a built in backsplash. You have to make a guide and or jig and use the right circular saw for that - which I do.

Where it comes off the rails for me is - how do you make long cuts, like cutting a 4X8 piece of ply into 2 pieces, 8 feet long and 23 1/2" wide - or - cutting strips of 1/2" ply or underlayment, 3.5" wide and 8' long for toe kicks?

How did you make a shop made guide to deal with doing that? Pictures would help a bunch here also.

I really am curious about this and I'm not pushing a "track saw agenda". I think about this nearly every time I make cuts with the track saw that are over 55" long.

I can cut all of those pieces on my table saw using the extension table I built for the front side of my table saw. My table is only 48 inches long, but with it mounted to the saw I have 61 inches in front of the blade. I can also slide the cover on my Beismeyer fence forward so I have 43 inches of fence in front of the blade.
514968514969514970514971
I can also slide the cover on my Biesmeyer fence forward so I have 38 inches of fence in front of the blade.
514967514964514965514966

[Cameron Wood]

So make those 8' rips by first ripping pieces on the table saw to make the guide to make the rips with a circular saw?

If only there was a better way...


I made an 8' one decades ago, but the masonite didn't stay straight enough. Cut in half, and still using those. If necessary to make an 8' rip in plywood, I cut 1/2 way, then leaving the blade in the kerf, slide the guide forward and continue.

My jobsite saw can rip 24"- easier with two people for a full sheet, and occasionally will rip pieces oversize with circular saw, then rip to final dimension on the tablesaw.

[Tom M King]

No table saw needed. The first one I ever saw used was by a carpenter building cabinets in my best friend's house in the 1960's that didn't have a table saw.

!/4" leftover plywood. In that picture it's Luan. Leftover straight edge off some plywood. Helps to be able to see straight. Measure blade offset to edge of saw base. Glue and fasten the straight edge of whatever you're using for the straight guide to the 1/4" plywood some wider than that offset measurement. Trim the extra width off the edge using the saw you're going to use for the purpose. That leaves the edge next to the saw to show you where to put the guide with the blade on the waste side of your marks.

The other side of the jig past the straight edge added to it is left wide enough for a quick clamp without interfering with the saw motor when the blade is at full depth.

Takes longer to find what pieces of scrap you want to use than it does to make one.

I keep different lengths. 8' can be cumbersome for cutting off a 24" wide door. One for trimming house door bottoms is decades old and still good.

That 20' long cut was made at about 5 degrees. The saws were set the same and both the old and new were cut without touching the saw bevels. The other boards until that last one were T&G. We didn't want fasteners in the surface, so it needed to be cut perfectly so I could tap it down in place over construction adhesive on the milled down old part of the floor boards in that 1828 house and the friction held it in place until the glue dried.

The windows in that house got knocked out by Hurricane Hazel and the tops of the floor boards had rotted away over those 58 years inside some of the windows. We milled 3/4" off the tops of the bad ones, but there was still over an inch of wood left that still makes the ceiling in the basement all original.

https://historic-house-restoration.com/Woodwork.html

[Maurice Mcmurry]

@ Maurice,
Countertops with the built in backsplash can be a challenge.

I do not mind at all that counter tops have become their own digitally controlled industry.

[Maurice Mcmurry]

Having used shop made guides for 50 years now

515012
That is an epic fix! Its nice to see!

[Tom M King]

Thanks Maurice. That especially means something coming from you. As you know from your own experience working on old buildings, you have to figure out a lot of it as you go along. That Record rabbet plane that I bought new has lost most of it's nickel plating from sweat.

That one 19" wide wainscotting replacement panel came from behind a kneewall on the the top floor of this three story on top of a basement house. It has the tree center in it and had split down the middle. I think they just used it where it would never been seen so they had something to walk on to put the rafters up. I ran saw cuts not all the way through down the split on the back that was right down the middle and kept clamping it together until there were just very small openings left. That cavity was filled with epoxy and you would have to know it's there and look very closely to tell.

[Maurice Mcmurry]

Tom M King, You have brought back some remarkable structures, from remarkable states of deterioration! I hope you have a scrap book or blog to keep track of them. I know there are some good images and stories in the archive here at SMC. Keep up the good work!

[Curt Harms]

I made two saw guides, 1 4' long and 1 8' long. Both use 1/8" hardboard as a base. That seems kind of thin but I use them with a Porter Cable 314 trim saw which is limited on depth of cut, about 1 5/16" as I recall. The guide edge is aluminum skinned honeycomb material. I glued the aluminum to the hardboard using Roo Glue. I made sure there was enough room between the aluminum/honeycomb material that it was greater than the space from the edge of the 314's base to the blade. Once the glue was dry I carefully ran the saw against the aluminum fence so the cut edge was exactly where the blade would run on subsequent cuts. The little P-C saw tracks tight against the guide with no tendency to track away from the edge. I'm not sure why, I suspect the motor and handle being oriented in the direction of travel may have something to do with it. This edge is not replaceable like the tracksaw guides but so far the edge hasn't gotten damaged. The other side is similar but sized for for a Porter Cable router with 1/2" straight bit.

I'm sure this setup is not as good as a track saw but for 1 or 2 uses per year the cost is reasonable vs. a tracksaw.