Movable saw carriage for a circular saw with my own hands

DIY movable sawmill carriage

Guide rail for circular saw. a device that ensures a smooth cut. There are a total of two ways to help make a straight cut:

The first variant involves fixing the tool on a workbench, with the workpiece sliding along a guide. Cutting quality will be high, but the size of the processed part is limited, due to the size of the machine. In the second method of processing the parameters of the workpiece can be arbitrary. The main thing is that the facing tool must be securely clamped.

Carpentry manufacturers produce a wide range of guide bars for circular saws. Parts are easy to use, meet safety regulations. The construction drawing includes a guide ruler. In some cases, you can set the required degree of inclination of the cutter, it is possible to avoid backlash, jamming of the working element when it moves.

The factory-mounted carriage on a circular saw does the job well, but is expensive. This article describes how to assemble a saw guide bar with your own hands.

Mandrel ruler

Making your own circular sawing attachments requires strict adherence to safety rules.

The cutting support is often used when processing circular saw material is effective only in the case of jigsaws, with sawing can be a problem: the guide bar is pressed against the workpiece with a clamp.

The chuck protrudes from the bottom and top of the machine table top. This results in a cut length limiter, but the saw motor inevitably rests on the clamp, the sawing is done in two steps. The quality of the edge will be poor and there is a high probability of an undesirable step: in order to have a perfect cut you need a continuous movement of the saw blade from the beginning to the end of the lumber. In the factory models, the fastener is set outside of the circular saw guide, not interfering with the work.

What is a carriage for a circular saw and what is it for?

The carriage, or guide rail, is an auxiliary tool when working with the saw. It comes in a variety of sizes and is required to cut wood blanks from small frames to large panels such as furniture. It provides the most accurate cutting, reducing the need for further adjustments to the product.

Such a useful accessory as a carriage for a circular saw, with their own hands to make sometimes easier than to buy a ready-made set. In this case, you can accurately fit all dimensions.

Characteristics of carriages

When buying or making a homemade carriage, indicators are taken into account:

In order for the machine to last a long, quality time, it must be controlled:

  • Length and width of the cut.
  • Direction and ease of movement of the tool.
  • The density of the product used by the craftsman.
  • The sequence of operations, safety precautions.
  • General purpose of the saw.

Homemade table saw

Manual circular saw. an indispensable tool in the home workshop of the self-respecting owner. It must have a circular saw guide rail for successful work. Saw blades are of no small importance, the quality and accuracy of cutting depends on their thickness and the size of the teeth. The smaller the tooth, the cleaner the surface to be machined.

A well-equipped workshop has a hand-held electric tool that has a guide bar for a circular saw, with its own hands made and adjusted for successful work. As well as a special connection for a vacuum cleaner and bags or containers for sawdust. It is a very practical solution, because during long sawing you won’t have to stop every minute to clean the workplace. This saw is made by Bosch for professionals. In addition, it has the ability to adjust the angle of deviation from the vertical and the depth of cut.

Choosing the right tool

Before you buy, it’s worth making sure that the tool you choose provides the right depth of cut vertically and at an angle. An additional aspect that can facilitate normal work is the length of the cable. If conditions are not favorable to using an extension cord, a saw with a long cable should be chosen.

Well-known manufacturers’ saws have an easy-to-change blade changer, which makes the job even easier. This is an excellent electric tool to use for minor home or garden repairs.

For those people who like to make crafts, this mechanism is a must. Thanks to its small size, there is always room for it even in a small home workshop.

Homemade table saw

Handheld circular saw. an indispensable tool in the home workshop of the self-respecting owner. It must have a circular saw guide rail for successful operation. Saw blades are of no small importance, the quality and accuracy of cutting depends on their thickness and the size of the teeth. The smaller the tooth, the cleaner the surface to be cut.

A well-equipped workshop has a hand-held electric tool that has a guide bar for the circular saw, handmade and set up for successful work. Also, a special connection for a vacuum cleaner and bags or containers for sawdust. This is a very practical solution, because when you are sawing for a long time, you don’t have to stop every minute to clean up your workspace. This saw is made by Bosch for professionals. In addition, it has the ability to adjust the angle of deflection from the vertical and the depth of cut.

Choosing the right tool

Before you buy, it’s worth making sure that the tool you choose has the right depth of cut vertically and at an angle. An additional aspect that can facilitate normal work is the length of the cable. If conditions are not suitable for an extension cord, you should choose a saw with a long cable.

Proposed saws from well-known manufacturers are equipped with a device for easy replacement of discs, which further simplifies the work. This is an excellent electric tool that can be used for minor repair work at home or in the garden.

For those people who like to make crafts, this mechanism is a must. Thanks to its small size, there is always room for it even in a small home workshop.

Advantages and disadvantages of a homemade circular saw carriage

When making a carriage for a circular saw, you can:

  • Achieve optimal size.
  • Modify the standard look, e.g. make a radius carriage for curved shapes.
  • Choose suitable materials: aluminum, wood, profiles, etc.д.
  • Save money. use the tools you have on hand.

However, if you make the guide yourself, there will be a number of difficulties. In particular, it is necessary to have the appropriate knowledge of the process, to have specific tools for the job which a carpenter without skills cannot have.

Carriages are divided into manual and stationary, amateur and professional

Advantages and disadvantages of homemade carriage for a circular saw

When building a carriage for a circular saw, you can:

  • Have the optimum dimensions.
  • Change the standard appearance, for example, make a radius carriage for curved shapes.
  • Choose the right materials: aluminum, wood, profiles, etc.д.
  • Save money. use the tools you have on hand.

However, if you make the guide yourself, there will be a number of difficulties. In particular, it is necessary to have the appropriate knowledge of the process, acquire specific tools for the work, which a non-professional carpenter may not have.

Carriages are divided into manual and stationary, amateur and professional

Miniature table type circular machine

In the previous section of the article we told you how to make a hand saw from an angle grinder, and now we want to share with you the secret of turning it into a stationary sample for greater ease of use. This process is very simple and involves assembling a U-shaped frame for the circular saw from a pipe with a diameter of 14. 20 mm with a movable cross arm. The construction is made so that its lower ends bend horizontally along the cutting direction, and they are bolted to the table for the manual circular saw. The stability of the base of the circular sander is ensured by additional supports, for which purpose a swinging lever, welded from a “T” shaped tube, is put on the horizontal crosspiece.

The mobility of the element is achieved by sawing the horizontal segment into two equal parts, which are fastened with clamps after installation. A circular saw is secured to the vertical part of the frame on a clamp. The table from the manual circular saw assembly can function as a cutting machine, if the standard cutting disc is installed on the angle grinder. It is worth noting that the through kerf here will not exceed 80 mm, and for processing larger lumber will need a self-made circular saw more serious, which will be discussed below.

Multi-tool attachments

Beginning craftsmen doubt that it is possible to make a straight cut with a hand-held mechanical tool. This is true if cutting according to the markings, but it is possible to facilitate the work by using a purchased or homemade guiding device,

Manual woodworking tools, especially of modern design, sometimes amazed by the number of auxiliary devices that help in the performance of sawing the material. The simplest auxiliary device is an ordinary stop on the base of the saw with an indicator of the line along which the cut will be made.

The most popular addition is a short guide with an adjustable extension length. complicated designs have a roller on this guide so that the movement of the saw is not hindered by contact with the edge of the material.

Sometimes there are indicators that show laser cutting lines and other devices that have the same disadvantage. All of these mechanisms serve to inform you that the saw blade is out of line for the cut trimmer. All simple mechanisms indicate imprecise sawing.

Why, then, are all these systems that do not allow the amateur to make a simple cut? Where is the error in this approach?? All known woodworking machines for professional woodworking have a parallel clamping device for constant pressure on the material to be cut and a rigid locking. Often the stop moves. For professional tools, the Interskol manual circular saw guide rail is available and can be used for other overhead.

Then a tremor in the forearm muscles does not affect the cutting direction, because it is controlled by the rigid support. Some will say that surgeons do not use stops and are able to do complex and precise operations. That’s probably true, but their material is more susceptible to machining, and perfectly straight lines don’t matter.

To cut down on the cost of a circular saw guide rail, you can make one yourself. Thanks to this homemade saw, the only thing you’ll have to worry about while you’re cutting is holding the saw securely to the stop and slowly moving it forward. The materials needed for making, the fixtures can be found in every workshop.

For example, a panel of thick plywood should be five centimeters wider than the width of the saw base. The length depends on the workpieces to be cut. Optimal dimensions:

The support ledge must be the same length as the guide length. The width should ensure reliable adhesion to the surface of the panel. at least 3 cm or even much wider. The height of the bar is at least 12 mm. The optimal size of the stop: 100 cm x 3 cm x 1.5 cm.

One note when choosing a rail in the supermarket. it must have one thin side flat. How to check this? Place the rail on a flat table and check for any bulges or gaps. It is this flat surface of the slat that will provide a straight line for the trimmer cut.

When all the materials are assembled, you can begin to make a parallel stop for the circular saw with your own hands. First you need to measure the distance between the saw and the edge of the panel towards its long side. To the result obtained, add some 3 cm. This size will serve for the centerline, removed from the edge by 2 cm.

Then measure the width of the base of the saw and draw the second trimmer fishing line. This size is needed to highlight the saw’s cutting area. Mark the space between the lines with a pencil so that there is no doubt that this area is off from work and is only for the movement of the saw. When all the dimensions are outlined, start assembling the rail:

  • Apply glue to the rail and place it along the second line that is to be used as a stop.
  • Clamp it with a clamp to make sure the glue is firmly in place.
  • Leave it for 12 hours to allow the glue to fully cure.

When everything is securely fastened, it is necessary to calibrate the device by making the first cut. To do this, set the saw up to the stop, trying to make so that the edge of the saw base is evenly pressed to the bar and with a smooth movement along the bar make the cut. It is this first cut along the stop rail that will calibrate the device for further work.

When the stop is ready, you can safely use it to get a quick cut. On the material to be cut, mark the fishing line for the trimmer of the cut. Along this line, lay a new guide so that the working edge lies on the line. the saw will cut the material exactly in this place.

After carefully laying down and making sure that there is no tabletop on the other side of the material to be cut, the saw is pressed closely against the stop and, moving along the guide, cut the desired size of material. Press the saw lightly against the unit and the surface of the stop when sawing, this will ensure a straight cut. Move it smoothly and evenly. The end result will be a straight line for the trimmer cut. When using a handheld circular saw fixture, two interesting facts are worth noting:

  • Firstly it prevents the soft material from crumbling while cutting.
  • Second, the guide provides extra protection against nicks in the edge of the cut material due to hand shake and uneven saw movement.

In a woodworker’s home workshop there is always a place for a home-made mitre saw from a hand circular saw. To make it, you need a homemade guide ruler and circular saw carriage.

To make the ruler we need several pieces of 12 mm plywood and a metal profile of 10×20 mm. The length of the ruler is 1.5 meters. Using a router with a diameter of 20 millimeters, a slot is milled to fit the profile over the entire length of the device. The profile is fixed with screws. The stiffener is fixed parallel to the profile line at a distance of 12 centimeters.

Homemade universal slider

For all of the above guides, you can make one universal slider that will fit any device. The slider consists of a metal profile and a carriage on bearings.

Such a construction, consisting of homemade guides on bearings, is very convenient: simple to make, easy to work with, fits any guide device. The carriage has eight bearings: four thrust bearings and the same number of side bearings for fixing the carriage to the rail. A profile rail is used as a guide rail. Rail guides are particularly precise, so they are used in furniture making.

Making a rail out of laminate

This method of making a carriage for a circular saw with their own hands is the easiest to perform, it uses readily available source materials.

Three blanks are made of laminate. One of them will serve as the base for the rail. The other two are cut in the form of two strips, each approximately half a meter long. At both of them the edges are aligned on one side with a router. Using self-tapping screws, the strips are fastened to each other in parallel with even edges. The width of the groove between them is checked using an A4 sheet of paper, inserted into the fixture and scrolled.

The rail is fastened to the circular saw sole with side support fasteners. If the warranty period of the saw has already expired, you can use the body of the circular saw, making an additional hole in it for greater reliability of attachment.

Before you begin, the homemade guide must be extended ahead of the handle of the circular saw. In doing so it is necessary that the guide is covered by the nose of the sole by a few centimeters. For perfect alignment of the edges of the guide strips and the marks on the material you need to use a laminate cutting wheel to carefully saw away any irregularities in the strips.

Such a homemade guide rail is not without its disadvantage. it reduces the depth of cut to one and a half centimeters. But this figure is not critical, and is more than compensated for by the ease and cost of making it.

Creation of the feet

Assembling a complete circular saw fixture is not limited to the stages mentioned above.

For the feet you will need a 5 x 10 cm board. Their height is 1-1,2 meters.

The board is cut along the longitudinal vector. A slight angle on one side is observed.

The legs are adjusted to the table top. When assembling, they need to be placed slightly sideways.

They are fastened on the outside of the stiffeners. The method of attachment. by bolts. To strengthen their stability, you need ties. For them you need a bar 5 x 5 cm.

The hand saw is placed in the groove created earlier from the lower area of the table top. The sole is fixed with bolts. The disk is placed in a slot.

The table is lacquered in 3-4 layers. This is a measure against moisture.

Step by step instruction

So, the construction details and the necessary tools are selected, you can proceed to the assembly and the following installation of the homemade carriage.

Making the base of the carriage

Next, the mobile base of the crosscutting carriage is constructed. To do this, two slats are taken, which freely fit into the U-shaped groove in terms of thickness. But there is one point The carriage

The carriage will have to slip freely along the table, and for this purpose it is lifted by 2-3 mm above the table. To do this, nuts of similar thickness are laid in the profile slots at regular intervals, and then the guide bars are placed on them.

Then they are coated with glue, which fixes the plywood base strip. To hold it tight, clamps can be fastened around the edges.

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When the resin dries, the nuts are removed from the profile grooves and the craftsman inspects whether the carriage is free to walk on them. After that, for the convenience of future use, the carriage is trimmed at the edges according to the profile of the table.

Materials and assembly

A homemade guide rail can be assembled from aluminum plaster rule. The fixture has a complex configuration, with a longitudinal groove on one side to set the handles in a comfortable position. Hidden clamps can be made from quick-release screwless clamps.

The foot from the clamp must be removed, and fluoroplastic or polypropylene runners must be installed in its place. The material of the moving element must be strong, have a reduced coefficient of friction. The part is best shaped with a milling machine or a fine-toothed metal saw, but in the second case you will have to shape it additionally with a file.

At the next stage, runners are installed in the groove of the rule, which will be used to create a guide for the hand circular saw.

Care must be taken to ensure that there is no slip, but no play. Do not use excessive force; the knot must be secured while working.

Screw the guide rail to the top of the clamps. Make sure that the connection is tight, so that the knot does not unscrew by itself while working. This will spoil the workpiece or cause injury.

The guide rail for the circular saw must hold well, without backlash. The resulting design will allow you to dissect flat lumber, the length corresponding to a similar parameter of the ruler minus the reserve from the sides of fixing clamps.

If a perfectly even cut is obtained during the test sawing, nothing obstructs the work, it means that the technology was followed, the guide is made correctly.

The plus of the design. the ruler will cost inexpensive. Labor costs are also negligible, consisting only in the formation of sliders.

Extendable guideway

The device with a guide rail has the disadvantage that it is necessary to control the lateral contact between the saw and the ruler. If you cut too wide a piece, your arms may not be long enough to guide the material. The solution is to use a carriage with ball bearings. It will not be so cheap, but it will pay off later.

The guide rail can be made from angle bars and metal plates. Width adjustment with wing locks integrated in the sliding slots. Complex profiles can be purchased from specialised retailers. There can be several variants, but it is necessary to provide a parallel stop for the circular saw.

If for some reason it is not possible to make an auxiliary element from the profile, which will guide the cut along a clear line, you can buy an assembled device, consisting of a carriage and a guide. The circular will be firmly connected by the sole to the design of the carriage.

It is important to achieve perfect parallelism in the circular saw’s path along the profile. An improperly installed stand will give a loose cut. The outrigger guide bar for circular saws is easy to make with your own hands. As a result, you can guide, handle large-sized lumber, make a quality cut, trimming will be neat, the saw will make light movements. The feed can be done manually or by means of a guide bar.

How to eliminate sole backlash on a Makita HS7601 circular saw

Bought an inexpensive Makita saw recently and was basically happy with it until I built it into a table. It turned out that at a shallow depth of sawing, when the sole plate is moved away from the engine, there is a noticeable play of the saw relative to the sole plate, the disc deviation from the vertical turns out more than 0.5 mm and if you swing the saw from below the table by the engine, you hear a knock and the disc moves from side to side relative to the table.

The motor with the disk moves relative to the sole on the hinge (highlighted by a circle), and is fixed by the handle (the arrow indicates the guide that the handle presses against the body), and the guide is made from a fairly flexible sheet steel, so that the rigid connection here is one. The hinge, that’s where the play is.

After disassembly, it turns out that the axle is backlash inside the hole in the cast bracket.

Here is a diagram to make it clearer, the play of axis 57 in the bracket hole 22. The steel bracket has 59 holes of fairly accurate size and the axle has almost no play in them.

This is what it looks like inside (pardon the manicure)):

There’s a tapered hole there that just might be used to pick out the backlash.

The bushing dimensions for this hole turned out to be this:

A friend with a 3D printer helped me make it.

He brought the inner hole to 6mm by himself with a reamer, I fitted the outer surfaces on site with emery board. When assembling and clamping the parts with a screw, the sleeve is pressed slightly inward and clamps the axle tightly. You can chamfer the 6mm hole inside the molded bracket for easier assembly.

This is probably more correct in the case of tapered holes, but using comparatively soft plastic and matching the size of the sleeve and hole, and the usual sleeve works fine.

The use of a bushing allowed to eliminate the backlash completely, the rigidity of the assembly has increased significantly. It’s strange that Makita itself did not install this penny piece, the more so there is already a landing place for it.

The nuances at work

In conclusion, here are a few subtleties that are useful to know if you want to make a homemade carriage for a circular saw:

  • It is recommended to put a thick bar on the bearing wall where the disk goes through it to prevent the saw from jumping over the edge of the wall, which could lead to injury.
  • In order to give the construction more slip, it is recommended to grind the slides with sandpaper, and periodically lubricate the slots with a candle burner (made of paraffin or stearin). Sometimes wax is taken, but it is not recommended to use it, because when it gets old during operation, it will stick to the slides.
  • Before applying glue to parts, blow away wood dust and chips to avoid unevenness after gluing.
  • After sawing through the walls, make sure that the saw goes through freely. You can make a sawed hole a little bigger than the thickness of the disk.

Important. A craftsman, no matter how experienced he is, should not forget that the circular saw is a machine of high injury risk, so when making the carriage and working on the saw with it, you should always be careful and accurate and remember about the safety precautions.

Having made the end carriage in such a simple way in the conditions of the home workshop, the master will have a convenient, universal tool at his hand, which will find use in most types of carpentry work.

Guides and carriages for CNC with your own hands: types, designs

The mechanics of every machine tool, regardless of its purpose and type, contains components that belong to the basic. Therefore their parameters must not be ignored. Slideways are generally recognized as an important component for metal cutting or woodworking machines. They determine the error-free and cyclic operation.

Therefore, whoever has decided to create a machine tool, should take care that in its design used quality guides for CNC, positively affecting the functionality of the device. There is no shortage of components to purchase.

Basic types of guides

There are various types of device guides used in the design and installation of machines (factory and homemade). This is due to their purpose. milling, drilling or turning. They can be of two types.

Slide guides

They are used in low-power equipment that does not require special precision and high performance. Such parts are used in table-top drilling and turning machines, woodworking machines.

The polished shaft, as a type of guide, is one of the low-cost types. It is the most common.

IMPORTANT! It is made from high-alloy steel, induction hardened and then ground. This treatment serves to increase run time, and the shaft wears less.

  • The end points are fixed, there is no attachment to the bed, so there is no rigid connection to the table and there is machining inaccuracy;
  • sagging at longer lengths, therefore a maximum of 1 meter is permissible. It is recommended to have an optimum shaft diameter to length ratio (0.06-0.1) to achieve normal results.

Rolling guides

They are designed with the participation of rolling bearings.

The linear bearings have more clearance than the carriage of the rails, it is less loaded. But it has a number of disadvantages:

  • low load capacity;
  • shortness of life;
  • manufacturing with a solid backlash;
  • sensitive to dust and chips on the shaft.

Material for the production of bushings. bronze, brass, kaprolon. If tolerances are respected, bronze sleeve bearings are as good as rolling bearings. From time to time, if a plain bearing is worn out, it is adjusted, and to eliminate clearances. Therefore, the ball bushing is preferred because it is available and interchangeable.

It is also worth giving a brief description of the other types.

  • The slotted shaft is characterized by the presence of a special track for the balls of the sleeve. Characterized by greater rigidity and wear resistance, compared with the shaft of the conventional type, it is applicable in mechanisms in which installation of guides on the ends is desirable. Very seldom used in machine tool constructions because of their high cost.
  • The shaft on the support in the form of cylindrical rails of linear type does not allow deflection under load and its own weight. It is fastened to the machine bed, securing it securely in place. Despite the disadvantages of high backlash in the bushings, their short life, the cylindrical rails have a high load capacity. Different from linear bearings, the carriage responds differently to the degree of load. On a small CNC machine with a heavy spindle, there is a chance that the accuracy will decrease.
  • The purpose of profile guideways is to provide greater accuracy. They are also fixed to the bed. Thanks to the special raceways, the loads on the carriage are distributed evenly over the surface and the contact profile of the ball to the guideway is an arc. Pros include good load capacity and wear resistance, and backlash is minimized. The difficulty of producing these rails, negatively affects the pricing, they are expensive. This is especially true for guideways supplied by well-known brands that have numerically controlled machine tools.
  • Roller guideways have flat raceways, and the support module, in place of the balls, has rollers that improve all guideway parameters. They are used in machines that mill ferrous metals, steel and stone.
  • “Dovetails are chosen for industrial metalworking equipment when extra rigidity is needed. This type of guideway has a sliding surface with a maximum contact area. They are made as a monolith with a bed. Because of the complexity and time-consuming manufacturing and repair process, hobby machine tools do not accept these guideways.

What designs are preferred?

Not everyone can afford, say, a CNC machining center for home production of small batch components, a formatting machine or for turning operations. But a self-made CNC machine, made by hand, is real. The assembled device in good hands will show patterns of correct workmanship.

Assembling the mechanics of programmable machines, usually use homemade linear guides, as devices with circular motion are not necessary. Let’s look at some of the designs used in this.

Galvanized or chrome plated tubes

They come with different diameters can be used as rods when mounting low-power devices. surface grinders, drilling or lathes. A cylindrical ground rod carries a bronze sleeve.

Sometimes the support is made without it. Tubes have a low price and are easy to work with.

Though there is a disadvantage: low resource (erasure of a protective layer comes after 15-20 passes, after that the steel wears more intensively), there is no necessary level of durability at high loads.

Milling machine

Effective milling, in which the guide mechanism is made on the basis of a second-hand matrix printer or typewriter “Yantar”. With this option will last a long time. No need to look for very wide bearings, their inner diameter should be equal to the diameter of the bolts.