Guided Circular Saw - Shop Made - v2

[glenn bradley]

My old faithful circ-saw guide has served me well for years.

From this . . . To this . . .

An upcoming project will involve a fair amount of sheetgoods for the guts of the carcass. It is time for Shop Made GCS-v2. Rip a piece of MDF (I used 3/4" . . . wish I would have had some 1/2" around) and a piece of hardboard (I used 1/4").



The pieces are an over-sized 54" long and 3-3/4" wide for the MDF and 9-1/2" for the hardboard. These widths will vary depending on the offset of your blade from your circ-saw's plate edge. I glue and clamp the parts flush along one long edge and go get some sleep . . .

The next morning, using the known parallel long sides on the hardboard as a guide, I run the hardboard edge along the fence and shave the laminated side to assure things are accurate. I also cross cut the length to have known square ends.

[glenn bradley]

You can do this however you like but, I cut out the majority of the waste before making a t-slot to reduce stress on the tools and effort on my part. I set the saw blade to about 1/8" higher than the height of the hardboard. I make a few passes to get a fat 5/16" slot about 5/16" high. This will vary with your hardware that you plan to use.



You can use a keyhole bit to make the "T" but, I have a Rockler bit that is sized for this function so I will use that. Set the "T" to just clear the hardboard (sorry about the blur). I use featherboards to control my material and give me a nice clean cut.



I would never cut off a piece of ply like this but, this makes it easy to show. The ply could be setting on the floor (my intended method) on top of some doubled pieces of foam insulation. The height needed for clearance will again vary with your hardware. The t-slot allows my holddowns to slide to any size within the capacity of the jig. I made this one 54" long and can easily handle a 48" cross cut. I have not made the first cut but, when I do I will create a zero reference edge that tells me right where the circ-saw will cut. I just clamp the jig to that line and saw away.

[glenn bradley]

I dug into the jig parts box I keep around for such things and ended up with this hardware. It is easily operable with the ply on a couple of foam boards so that part of my plan seems to have worked out ;-)

65

[Rob Keeble]

Boy am i glad i checked the individual forums this morning this one almost got away.

Thank you Glenn. I have been looking for a solution to clamping like that. The motor height and width on my el cheapo Skill saw is always in the way when i use clamps. As luck would have it i picked up one of those slot cutting bits a month or so ago to make some jatoba clamping cauls.

This jig is definitely going on the top of my list and i am scrapping the old one. I wont confess to the reasons why

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