A technique I find useful for making an accurate crosscut with a circular saw is to place a framing square on the work and scribe a pencil line at the desired dimension. Then, because I’m right-handed, I slide the square to the left, away from the scribed line. Next I place the saw shoe against the tongue edge of the square and move the two as a unit until the blade lines up with the cutline. With a firm grip on the square, I start up the saw and use the framing-square tongue as a fence, as shown. I get accurate, table-saw quality cuts this way every time.
Randy Cofer, Boyds, WA
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I use a machinist engineer square to make square cuts this way. The stop edge allows the square to lay flat on the wood. You just have to squeeze the stop against the edge of the wood. It's like a speed square but without the full triangle and all the numbers.
This is a fine technique, well-known to every carpenter who's been a professional for more than 6 months, but the execution is 20 years out of date- no one with any education would use a framing square- they'd use a Speed Square (or a wannabe) and they wouldn't mark a line across the board- you only need a tick mark where the blade will enter the wood, because the saw is going to follow the Speed Square, not the pencil line.
People who really want to become production framers will watch http://www.toolsofthetrade.net/videos/simple-saw-tips-from-a-pro_c. Larry Haun has some good tips too.
These issues aside, you really do have to wonder how long FH is going to keep trying to blindly recycle tips that are decades out of date- the industry has moved on and FH needs to do the same.
Yes, this was first published in issue #16 back in 1983. At least it got some good replies from BobboMax and CivilEng43.
To give you an idea how old this technique is, minus the line of course; I was shown this as an apprentice 50 yr.s ago by a master who had been in the Trade at least 40 yr.s.
BobboMax, they wouldn't recycle tips. BTW, I received this on 21 Dec, 2019.
Well, I guess if FH can recycle tips, I can recycle comments...
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This is a fine technique, well-known to every carpenter who's been a professional for more than 6 months, but the execution is 20 years out of date- no one with any education would use a framing square- they'd use a Speed Square (or a wannabe) and they wouldn't mark a line across the board- you only need a tick mark where the blade will enter the wood, because the saw is going to follow the Speed Square, not the pencil line.
People who really want to become production framers will watch http://www.toolsofthetrade.net/videos/simple-saw-tips-from-a-pro_c. Larry Haun has some good tips too.
These issues aside, you really do have to wonder how long FH is going to keep trying to blindly recycle tips that are decades out of date- the industry has moved on and FH needs to do the same.