Help! Need to buy a 7-1/4" Circ Saw quick

[Doug Shepard]

Discovered to my consternation this morning that my Craftsman Circ Saw doesn't cut perpendicular to the base plate. Never noticed it before as it pretty much just gets used for breaking down sheet stuff into oversized pieces for cutting on the TS. The angle isn't all that obvious on something only 3/4" thick. But started rough trimming 2" layers of my workbench top glue up and the non-90 deg angle was pretty evident. Got it to straighten out a tiny bit more, but the base plate is bottomed out on the saw housing and no amount of adjustment will make it go the extra 3-5 degrees it needs to get perpendicular to the plate.
I'd like to pick something up tomorrow. So what's a good 7-1/4" accurate saw that Lowes, HD, or my local tool store is likely to carry? The deeper the max cut depth, the better. I think my Cr##man goes to 2-3/16"(?).
Thought about Festool, but I'd need the bigger one for this particular job, whereas for the stuff I normally use one for, the smaller one is a better choice. So I dont think I'll go that route for now.

[Bill Huber]

How is the blade on your saw, I had a problem and found it was the blade that was causing my saw to cut bad. I put a new blade on and that took care of my problem.

When I would start a cut of a 2x4 it was straight, then as I made the cut it would get off a little. I have a Diablo on it now and it does a great job.
The blade is a cheap blade at HD, like $14.

[Doug Shepard]

Doesn't seem to be a blade problem. The scale readings on the bevel adjustments probably aren't 100% accurate but it does show that it's a fair bit shy of being able to get it adjusted over to zero. Not sure if somethings gotten bent on it over time or not. I did try applying some muscle gently bending the plate in direction it needs to go, but no luck. Even locking it down under pressure it's hard against the saw motor and there's no more travel.

[Bill Huber]

Well that's a bummer, I don't use my saw that much, just for sheet goods like you are talking about.

I have a cheap Skil that works just fine for what I do.
http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10051&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&productId=100487673

Now I have a friend that has a worm drive and it is really nice and handles a lot better on the job type work. It is a Bosch and it is really nice to use but I just don't use one that much.
It is an older model then this.
http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10051&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&productId=100074406

Good luck...

[Jim O'Dell]

Lowes has the Hitachi without the electric brake. I have the one with, and it is fairly nice for the money I spent. I cut a lot of OSB for the shop with it using a 1X4 as a guide, and it performed very nicely. Comes with a decent blade. Jim.

[Greg Cole]

Doug,
I swear by the Skil #77. I also have the Milwaukee V28 cordless Lion battery circ saw. I'd advise to get a magnesium housed one as they aren't light in the standard offering.
The #77 is more for construction-grunt work. The V28 is more used for "finer" ww'ing, and I also bring it with when I want to break down sheets in the borg-lumberyard lot to make fitting "stuff" when full sheets aren't needed for a project in the Tacoma easier as I usually am a 1 man crew or have a 6 year old helper.:cool:
I also made a UHMW "zci" shoe for the V28 for cutting veneered ply etc.

Greg

[Mike Spanbauer]

Hilti is the name I hear repeatedly. Home Depot carries them.

The Festool 75 cuts nearly the same depth as a 7 1/4"

Mike

[Anchor Sarslow]

I have a Bosch, I used to cut everything with it till I got a TS.. It did very accurate cutting.. (3 years old) I made perfect butt joints with it.. so it was certainly straight. I would maybe invest in a nicer blade than comes stock though.

[Doug Shepard]

Thanks everybody. Just got back from picking China up at the groomers. I went straight there from Performance Tool (a local 2-store outfit) where I ended up walking out the door with a Makita. The chore I had planned for this afternoon got delayed to tomorrow AM so my saw buying excursion had to get squeezed in today. I took a 4" Engineers square along, and mental notes of the comments I had gotten from folks to that point. There were a number of Bosch positives either here or that other site and I kind of thought that's what I'd get if they had one. Amazingly the engineers square revealed the same flaw on supposedly better saw, although the Craftsman certainly had it worse. I looked at the Bosch CS20, a Hitachi, Milwaukee, Porter Cable, Dewalt, & Makita. The Bosch was about half as bad as the Craftsman but was definitely the worst of the ones I looked at. Shame, because I liked a number of other features though I wasn't crazy about the plate. The best for perpendicular to the plate were the Milwaukee, Porter-Cable, and Makita. The Dewalt and Hitachi were pretty good, but not quite as square. Either the Milwaukee or PC (I cant recall which) I initially thought was as bad as the Bosch but then realized the big gap was at the opposite end of the square. This one let you go a fair bit past zero which was nice, so you could actually set it to a sqaure. Anyway, it then became a contest of balance, weight, plate construction and other features. At the end I had it down to the PC and Makita and finally chose the Makita. I'll have to get a pic later. Also grabbed a 6 ft Irwin Alum level as I needed a longer straight edge.

[Jason White]

Bosch 1677 worm-drive. Best saw I've owned and I've had a few.

JW


Discovered to my consternation this morning that my Craftsman Circ Saw doesn't cut perpendicular to the base plate. Never noticed it before as it pretty much just gets used for breaking down sheet stuff into oversized pieces for cutting on the TS. The angle isn't all that obvious on something only 3/4" thick. But started rough trimming 2" layers of my workbench top glue up and the non-90 deg angle was pretty evident. Got it to straighten out a tiny bit more, but the base plate is bottomed out on the saw housing and no amount of adjustment will make it go the extra 3-5 degrees it needs to get perpendicular to the plate.
I'd like to pick something up tomorrow. So what's a good 7-1/4" accurate saw that Lowes, HD, or my local tool store is likely to carry? The deeper the max cut depth, the better. I think my Cr##man goes to 2-3/16"(?).
Thought about Festool, but I'd need the bigger one for this particular job, whereas for the stuff I normally use one for, the smaller one is a better choice. So I dont think I'll go that route for now.

[George Armstrong]

The DeWalt 368K I bought was perfect 90 out of the box and has an adjustment to get it right if it already isn't.