College engineering project:Circular Saw guide

[petegt]

Hi I'm at college studying mechanical engineering and need to do a project over the year. I have decided to build a circular saw guide. I am thinking of something similar to the slide on a lathe with clamps etc which the base plate of the saw would bolt onto.

Has anyone got any ideas to improve this design? or anything that would help?

But any other Ideas/problems are welcome, especially if its audio related.

[Frankie G]

I found this after reading a post yesterday and thought it was pretty cool.

http://www.eurekazone.com/content/smart-base-large

Curious to see what you come up with. Please keep us informed on the progress.

Edit: I believe jswingchun was the one that originally provided that link.

[Rick Lee]

I've been following the posts on the Festool and Eurekazone but those won't work well when you're ripping a long piece of wood. Maybe you could improve on that aspect of the design.

[petegt]

I've been following the posts on the Festool and Eurekazone but those won't work well when you're ripping a long piece of wood. Maybe you could improve on that aspect of the design.

Thanks for the input thats the same sort of line of thinking Im on. Could you eleborate?

So far its just ideas kicking about but definitly thinking of a linear bearing similar to a lathe slide or cnc router so the saw is locked into it to improve acuracy and prevent any kickback (I hope)

[jswingchun]

I've been following the posts on the Festool and Eurekazone but those won't work well when you're ripping a long piece of wood.

How do you figure that? I have 70", 50" and 24" rails and connectors to hook them together. They connect easily, quickly and accurately. If you subtract 12 inches on either side to leave room to start and stop the saw before and after the cut, that makes for a 120" cut. That's 10 feet of cutting distance, I don't know how much longer a rip you would need than that.

[Rick Lee]

I was hoping you would comment here! I forgot to bring this up on the other threads. I build wood strip canoes also and rip 16' ~ 18' boards. I guess my statement isn't true because you can just connect rails together to come up with the length you need, right?

Seems like a fundamental part of this project is: are you moving the work piece or the tool? The advantages of a circ. saw is light weight, little waste (thin kerf), and ? Big disadvantage has been accuracy.

Hmm. Your project is definitely in Festool/Eurekazone territory but instead of moving the tool you're moving the workpiece on a table?

One reason I'm interested in your thread is the materials for my new workshop are arriving tomorrow and I will have a blank page to set my tools up once it's finished. So far my table saw takes center stage in the layout, but who knows?

[jswingchun]

I was hoping you would comment here! I forgot to bring this up on the other threads. I build wood strip canoes also and rip 16' ~ 18' boards. I guess my statement isn't true because you can just connect rails together to come up with the length you need, right?

Yep, the EZ guides are self aligning, don't even need a straightedge to get them aligned. You could hook together as many as you would need to get whatever length you would want, though a 20 foot guide rail would be pretty unwieldy.

I know Dino is working on something called the EZ ripper. I think it is going to be some sort of system that allows repetitive rips like a tablesaw, but using a circular saw mounted to the EZ-One. So it would be a system where you move the wood into a fixed saw, but it won't kickback like a tablesaw. He has a video where he is sticking a 2x4 into it to try to get it to kickback.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zIEYxXpdfA