How to cut plywood with a circular saw

Techniques for even cutting with and without the circular saw, as well as what you can cut and how to use correctly

You don’t need any special skills to work with a hand-held circular saw. It is enough to try for the first time, then for a few cuts the user will understand the capabilities of the tool: how quickly it saws, how much pressure not to “choke” the engine, how the electric saw behaves when starting, how the cord is stretched so it does not get under the saw. This refers to simple sawing, for example, of firewood.

It is a little more difficult to make even kerf cuts and achieve a precise carpentry cut (plus/minus 1mm or degree). Greater accuracy with such a tool is difficult to achieve, although in principle possible. But such tolerances are in most cases acceptable, given that wood can dry and swell, changing volume and size with a large amplitude (up to 10%). Other tools are used for jeweler’s precision, including fine-toothed hand hacksaws.

Cutting plywood with a hand held circular saw

  • You can even find special saw blades “for plywood” in the store, however, check the number of teeth on them.
  • Circular saw blades come in a variety of sizes, so make sure the saw blade you choose will fit your saw.
  • If you decide to cut plywood with the “native” blade of your circular saw, it is likely that the cut edge of the plywood will be jagged and jagged.

Set the saw to the correct cutting depth. Before you cut plywood, set the depth of cut on your saw. If the cutting depth is too deep, the saw blade will pull over the kerf unnecessarily. If the cutting depth is too shallow, you risk not cutting the plywood through to the end.Make sure that the saw protrudes 5 mm deeper than the underside of the plywood when you saw it. If you cut a sheet of plywood 2 cm thick, the depth of cut on the saw should be 2.5 cm.

  • Lay a few 5×10 cm wood planks under the plywood sheet to support it during the sawing process. Use the 5×10 cm wood for this purpose only, because the circular saw will cut into the upper edge of the wood when sawing the plywood.
  • If there are no wooden planks handy, you can take a sheet of styrofoam insulation instead. Put it on the floor and put a sheet of plywood on top. Make sure the plywood does not slip on the surface of the foam board.If you decide to use foam insulation, you can safely move over the surface of the plywood sheet while cutting, and you don’t have to worry about the plywood sheet breaking off in the final sawing point.

Saw the plywood face down. To saw plywood with a hand held circular saw it must be placed face down. If so, the saw tines will run into the base of the plywood from the front, but come out from the back. As the saw teeth push out from the plywood, they may slightly tear the edge of the cut. So stacking the plywood face down will ensure that the cutting line on the face of the sheet is neat.

plywood, circular
  • To make the cut smoother, mark the cut line on the plywood. Take a construction knife and trace the blade along the marked line. To get a good notch you might need to run the knife down the line a few times.
  • A good hint in this case is the saying “Measure twice, cut once”. If you make a mistake when sawing, the only way to correct it is to take another sheet of plywood and start from the beginning.
  • When attaching the guide, be aware of the width of the circular saw shoe. Position the saw guide so that the saw shoe fits snugly against it when you cut, and the blade is in line with the kerf.
  • If you have a lot of plywood to cut, it is wise to think about buying a special rail that is attached to the circular saw itself. You can look for it in online stores or at your local tool store.
  • Working with a circular saw is dangerous. Be sure to use safety glasses and keep your fingers away from the blade.
  • Take care of the power cord from the saw when you use it. Keep your work area clean.

How to saw plywood properly

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If you are going to do any construction or carpentry work, at some point you may need to cut something out of plywood. That said, sheets of plywood are usually quite large and quite difficult to saw, especially in the absence of special tools. But if you remember a few basic rules, you can easily cut plywood with a simple hand saw or a circular saw, also called a circular saw. The main thing is to keep your saw blade sharp and the plywood sheet itself stable.

  • You can even find special “plywood” saw blades at the hardware store, but check the number of teeth on them. [2] X Ref
  • Circular saw blades come in different sizes, so make sure that the saw blade you choose will fit your saw. [3] X Source of information
  • If you choose to saw plywood with your circular saw blade you will most likely end up with a jagged and torn edge of plywood. [4] X Ref
  • Make sure that the saw blade protrudes 5 mm deeper than the underside of the plywood when you saw it. If you are sawing a 2 cm thick sheet of plywood, the depth of cut on the saw must be 2.5 cm. [6] X Ref
  • Put some 5×10 cm wood under the plywood panel to support it when you saw it. Only use the 5×10 cm material for this purpose because the circular saw blade will cut into the top edge of the plywood when sawing. [8] X
  • If you do not have at hand wooden bars, you can take a sheet of styrofoam insulation instead. Lay it on the floor, and place a sheet of plywood on top. Make sure that the plywood does not slip on the surface of the foam sheet. [9] X Source of information
  • If you choose to use foam insulation, you can safely move around on the surface of the plywood sheet while cutting, and you don’t have to worry about the plywood sheet breaking off at the end point of the cut. [10] X Ref

How To Cut Large Sheets of Plywood. Make a Circular Saw Guide

Saw the plywood face down. To cut plywood with a handheld circular saw it must be placed face down. In that case, the saw teeth will enter the base of the plywood from the front side and exit from the back side. When the saw teeth come out of the plywood, they may tear the edge of the saw slightly. Therefore, laying the plywood face down will ensure that the cutting line on the face of the sheet looks neat. [11] X Source of information

Set the guide to the size of the piece you are sawing off

It is not a minor problem to set the guide on which the saw will run. To do this, measure the basic dimension. the length from the edge of the saw blade to the edge of the steel base of the circular saw and write it down somewhere, for example on the wall of the workshop. will come in handy! Then mark on the plywood sheet: the width of the piece to be sawn off, the thickness of the saw blade itself and plus the base size.

As a guide, you can use a special steel ruler from a construction store. But it is much easier and cheaper to use a saw cut from plywood, where one side is factory, t.е. flat is good enough for this kind of work.

Position the guide rail along the marked dimensions and secure it with the piece of plywood using clamps.

To avoid damage to the plywood surface with the clamp’s legs, put e.g. pieces of old plywood under the guide.

Safety instructions for the circular saw

Before we dive into the technology of cutting plywood, I want to warn you that the work with the circular saw requires special care, because the sawdust from the working disk flies in all directions. So be equipped with safety glasses and gloves before starting. Also keep your hands out of the cutting zone when the circular saw is in operation. Clothing must be tucked in, so you do not want your clothes to get caught up in the saw’s rotating parts.

So we have a sheet of plywood which needs to be sawn with a circular saw. It is better to do all plywood cutting work on the floor. Lay several boards or planks beneath the sheet of plywood. Boards should be of equal thickness and they should be placed across the saw. After measuring out the piece to be sawn, place a guide on top of the plywood, in the form of a board or other piece of plywood.

Do not forget to secure boards with a clamp. This will prevent the sheet from slipping as it cuts against the guide and also prevent the plywood from breaking off at the end of the cut.

Make cuts without stopping

In normal conditions the saw blade should run smoothly and smoothly. If it is tight, or the disk is blunt, or you drive the saw too fast.

How To Make A Straight Cut Using A Circular Saw

If you drive too fast the teeth marks will be visible on the cut. If you run the drive too slowly, it can overheat, the plywood will begin to smolder, and you will smell the characteristic odor.

To get a straight and beautiful cut, do not stop when sawing. Make sure in advance that the power cord from the saw cannot get caught in the corners of the plywood sheet or the clamp. If the sheet is large, it makes sense to climb on it.

Why chipping occurs when sawing with a circular saw?

Again, plywood is just glued multilayer veneer. The veneer layers in different layers are oriented alternately: a layer with one direction of the fibers, a layer with perpendicular direction of the fibers. If you saw plywood crosswise you will most likely not have a problem. But if you saw across, the top layer of veneer is sheared off. The disk rotates so that the teeth move from bottom to top, and they just scrape the top layer of veneer.

As can be seen. chips up to 2 cm long. Sometimes even more.

In the case of the circular saw, this is due to the fact that there is a gap of a couple of nanimeters between the disk and the soleplate (platform) of the circular saw. It’s because nothing is pressing down on top of the plywood that these chips occur. Thinner discs (e.g. for laminate) did not work for me either. the result is exactly the same.

How and what to saw plywood and chipboard without chips: straight and curved cuts

It is believed that without a professional tool for a quality cut wood or sheet metal can not perform. Today we will tell about the ways to make a clean flat cut without chips, by our own forces and without using expensive equipment and consumables.

Cutting tools and the mechanics of how they work

Barring stationary cutting machines, there are not many alternatives for handheld operation. From available tools we can offer circular and pendulum saws, in common people are called trimmers and jigsaws. It is also possible to perform a fairly high quality cut with an angle grinder, on which a wood saw blade with teeth made of pobedite is installed. But this is not the most efficient and, in addition, far from being a safe option.

When cutting with any type of power tool, the working elements move at very high speed and the mechanics of the process are therefore kind of left out of the picture. However, its understanding is the key to obtaining a clean edge without chipping. The simplest principle is the basis of reciprocating saws. The cut is made with a straight saw blade motion, and the size of the removed fragments depends entirely on the size of the tooth and its degree of separation.

Chips are caused by unevenness in the material to be sawed, particularly due to the hard encrustation of laminated sheet material or because the density of the solid wood fibers varies. chipping may occur on different sides of the product depending on tooth shape, feed force and blade speed. When working with a jigsaw, chipping is caused either by the teeth tearing out large chunks from the back side, or by the top layer being pressed through, which breaks out in large chunks instead of cutting them off.

The teeth of the circular blade work much like a jigsaw, except that their motion is directed strictly in one direction and they move at a very high speed. Another important factor is the direction (angle) of the applied force: if the jigsaw blade moves strictly perpendicular to the surface, the circular saw cuts at an arbitrary angle, depending both on the blade diameter and on the workpiece thickness. This can play into your hands: the tangential plunge of the tooth makes the chips cut more accurately, but on the reverse side, the tangential movement of the cutting edges can cause fairly large fragments to be torn out. Of course a circular saw can only make a straight cut.

Cleanliness and cutting speed are inversely related to each other. It is worth noting that chips in the cut will appear in any case, so the main task is to reduce their size to a value where they can be easily eliminated by subsequent processing. The size of splinters will be smaller the smaller the tooth size and the closer to a right angle at which the cutting edge touches the surface of the material. For the circular saw blade selection these are the two most important factors of the three.

Third is the amount of set. the offset of neighboring teeth, which can be simply determined by placing a ruler against them. To ensure a clean cut, the set should be as small as possible, but remember that if you try to cut a thick board or plywood, the blade can get caught or the edge can burn due to the friction.

plywood, circular

Jigsaw blades are more varied. For splinter-free cutting, a series of clean-cutting sawblades is available, such as Bosch’s CleanWood line of sawblades. The main difference is their small size and lack of teeth guidance. They are usually in the shape of an isosceles triangle and cut in both directions of movement.

Also clear-cutting saws are characterized by the almost total absence of reaming and the opposite sharpening direction of adjacent teeth. In order to ensure that a shaped cut is possible with a small setting, the saws have a very small width, which makes them quite fragile.

Blades designed to handle metal can also be used for clean cuts in sheet metal. These saws have the smallest known tooth size so that the cut is slow but of the highest quality. Due to the considerable width of the metal blades, a clean shape cut can only be made with a large bending radius, on average about 60-80 cm.

Note also that the blunting of the teeth, typical for low-quality saws with a “mileage” of 3-5 meters, also leads to splintering. So do not be stingy with your consumables if you really care about the quality of your work.

Masters of carpentry most often use the principle of refinement of the sole of the cutting tool, which consists in reducing the gap between the working body and the clamping pad. This is almost guaranteed to eliminate the effect of “breaking” the crust in the upper layer of the material.

Tips

To cut a plywood sheet correctly, it is necessary to use the right tool and follow some rules:

  • Before sawing it is required to make all measurements and check yourself to avoid unfortunate mistakes;
  • It is necessary to keep an eye on the power cord during work;
  • Before using the tool it is necessary to adjust the depth of cut to the right value;
  • saw blade must be suitable for cutting plywood;
  • The use of the saw must be accompanied by the use of protective gloves and goggles;
  • Blunt saw blades are more dangerous than sharpened ones;
  • while sawing plywood it is necessary to observe safety not to bring your hands close to the blade;
  • Do not start work without power tool skills.