Thread: 185mm circular saw

hi sawstool, stick with the makita, they make a great circular saw.

as for the lasers on circular saws, waste of time, just another marketing gimmick. lasers wont make you cut straight, only the operator can do that, so i recommend you clamp a straight edge when cutting.

i dont see any other chippies using laser guided circular saws, planers and jigsaws, but no doubt someone will want to prove me wrong here.

regards, justin.

I dont have a problem cutting straight, I just want to save the eyes when looking at the pencil line and blade. the laser i thought might make you able to be quicker and accurate, I dont know have not used one on a hand tool only on a scms and they work great, as for clamping forget it tooo slow. Yeah the makita is probably the only one light and powerfull enough, perfect for 4 by 2 work in my opinion.

I just bought one of the 185mm Triton saws on runout for $99 which is roughly half price. They have a laser thingy but I can't see the point of it.....although I havent used it either

I stumped up for this one because I felt I needed a saw I could manouvere instead a bigger 235mm (I have a Triton on sitting in my table) but only needed it occasionally. So not much point investing in a Makita....which I would've if I had a real need. But for $99 the Triton jobbie was pretty good value.

hi sawstool, if the clamping idea is to slow, you could always splash out and buy a festool track saw.

if your eyes are the problem, maybe its time to get a decent pair of glasses, i had problems for years until i went and had an eye test done.

i dont think the laser guide on a circular saw is going to be the "cure". but if you do buy a saw with this gimmick attached, please give us all a review so other people can benefit from your findings.

cheers, justin.

Originally Posted by sawstool

I dont have a problem cutting straight, I just want to save the eyes when looking at the pencil line and blade. the laser i thought might make you able to be quicker and accurate,

Lasers don't make accurate cuts. If you can't follow a pencil line then the laser won't make things any better. I wouldn't get too hung up on a laser. I've got a couple appliances that have lasers and don't even bother turning them on anymore. They are next to useless in bright sunny conditions anyway and they always run the risk of becoming unaligned.

With a SMCS it's a little different as the laser shows you the actual path it will take for sure due to the nature of a SMCS being "tracked". It's no big deal anyway. I still prefer to bring the plunger down and check against a pencil line at either end of the travel. The laser doesn't save much time if any quite frankly on a SMCS but at least it's semi useful unlike other tools which don't have a built in guide.

If you want to speed up your cuts and have them straight save your money and buy a track saw or one of those track systems for regular saws. You don't need to splurge on super expensive festool either. I wish I had known about them a few years ago.

Originally Posted by justinmcf

i dont think the laser guide on a circular saw is going to be the "cure". but if you do buy a saw with this gimmick attached, please give us all a review so other people can benefit from your findings.
cheers, justin.

I have one and found it useless in terms of maintaining straight cuts. One naturally drifts if inexperienced because you unintentionally put pressure to one side. A laser won't stop that. You'll just notice it going off line. Once you've noticed it going off line even by a small amount it's game over and your cut is screwed with notches as you try to get it back on track. Nothing beats a guided system whether it be a simple bit of timber as a fence or a track guided system like a track-saw.

If the Festool saw is out of the budget, try the Protool saws. They are Festool's sister company, also can run on a guide rail system, made in europe, come with a 3year warranty have high torque motors and are very well priced in the market