I know there’s been lots of discussions here about FC tools. Well last night I was reading the April JLC and the in the article about FC details the author says that he has been using regular chopsaws, table saws and circular saws for 5 years and they have lasted with frequent or occasional blowing out with compressed air.
I’ve done some FC jobs and,like him, I’ve not been happy with the quality of the cuts with electric shears (not straight and too rough), or the Makita dustless circular saw for FC (too slow and often not square cut). I haven’t tried the manuel guillotine-like shear.
I’ve got a large FC job coming up soon and picked up a cheap Ryobi mitre saw on sale at HD for $79 and a cheap Delta TS from TylerTools.Com for $110 for rips.
The mitre saw works great. Quick, square and good cut quality relative to the other methods I’ve tried. The TS has not arrived yet so I haven’t ripped .
Here are my questions. Am I being silly searching for quality of cuts like this? Does anyone feel the same way about the previously mentioned methods of cutting FC? Has anyone tried this approach?
Oh, I think I’ll order the blades he mentions for the saws. I’ll bet they’ll probably cost more than the saws
Replies
Nothing wrong with wanting good cuts on FC.
I use across cut sled. The saw has a FC blade from lodepot, about $40
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Here is the outside corner of the 1x12 with a pvc drip cap on top.
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Done
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Chuck S
Edited 4/16/2008 6:59 am ET by stevent1
we get excellent cuts with the Malco shears,
we own the makita hooded FC saw and a good vacumn... but we no longer use it
i' going to buy a third Malco shear... they have come out with an air-powered one that uses the same nose as the ones that mount on a drill
if we're doing long rips, the battery powered drills tend to bog down... so we use a corded drill
i think the air power will be a nice addition
I use the electric snapper shears from pacific tool. I make my mark with a square and cut it. I don't find it hard to make a straight clean cut. On a post from a year or two ago by Mike Smith, I started using the shears for long rips too and again, no problems getting a clean cut and keeping it straight.
I've seen some siding outfits use a miterbox and put a fan behind it but they create A LOT of dust. They will cut very nicely and quicker than with the shears since you can gang cut and you only need one quick mark with the tape. It will definitely work for you but I would never do it because of the dust. It makes for a very long and not fun day.
fingers,
when we were siding our shop building with hardi we were trying to find a good way to make the cuts (the shop is a machine shop) anyway we decided to try our 3' foot shear (similar to guillotine?) it worked great!.No dust ,perfect cuts,easy. I know everyone does not have a shear but maybe you should research in this direction for a really clean cut.
Best of Luck
Cathy