Thread: Circular Saw - better support on the other side of the angled blade

Screw a piece of 12mm ply to the base of the saw (large enough to provide a good bearing on the post) with the edge that will sit against your guide parallel to the base plate. Set the saw to the required angle in the fully raised position, turn on the saw and SLOWLY lower it until it bottoms out on the base plate. You could also get the angle you want on the posts using a reciprocating saw or the just use a normal hand saw if you have the energy and stamina, its murder on the arms and shoulders.

Have done what it quite a few times, basically as you have explained, yes you are relying on the small side of the foot plate.
But mark out well keep above the line, an if need be touch up with a belt sander if your brave, or use a file.

The Option it to use caps on the posts.

Cheers Matt

Hi DC. The process you have described is correct and you actually have plenty of support. Assuming posts are 100 x 100 or more, the saw blade doesn't cut all the way through. Even the 4th (last) cut is still supported for most of its travel, just let the saw blade stop in tbe cut as you come to the other side of the post. When you say 70° do you actually mean 20° from the horizontal? As in a shallow peak. The traditional peak for pickets was around 60° but only some circular saws can cut 55° at best, and at this angle you will be finishing off the cuts with a handsaw. A reciprocating saw will require a lot of sanding to clean up faces of cut afterwards.

Originally Posted by rwbuild

Screw a piece of 12mm ply to the base of the saw (large enough to provide a good bearing on the post) with the edge that will sit against your guide parallel to the base plate. Set the saw to the required angle in the fully raised position, turn on the saw and SLOWLY lower it until it bottoms out on the base plate. You could also get the angle you want on the posts using a reciprocating saw or the just use a normal hand saw if you have the energy and stamina, its murder on the arms and shoulders.

ok good to hear it isn't a crazy idea to do that and effectively make a zero clearance shoe

Originally Posted by Mountain Ash

Hi DC. The process you have described is correct and you actually have plenty of support. Assuming posts are 100 x 100 or more, the saw blade doesn't cut all the way through. Even the 4th (last) cut is still supported for most of its travel, just let the saw blade stop in tbe cut as you come to the other side of the post. When you say 70° do you actually mean 20° from the horizontal? As in a shallow peak. The traditional peak for pickets was around 60° but only some circular saws can cut 55° at best, and at this angle you will be finishing off the cuts with a handsaw. A reciprocating saw will require a lot of sanding to clean up faces of cut afterwards.

yep, shallow peak. 20 degrees from horizontal, i said 70 degrees aswas measuring the angle from the post vertical