Thread: "Opening" a box with a circular saw

G'day Will,
Do you have a router???

Originally Posted by watson

G'day Will,
Do you have a router???

Yes; I have a little Ryobi for hand held use & a Triton in a simple table I made

Cheers,

WILL

Yes, I've used a circular saw to open boxes.

The main problem you will face is getting the cuts to line up if your box (or saw blade) is not perfectly square. I found I had to plane both surfaces after opening up, being careful at the corners of the box where the grain is in two directions.

Regards,

Tom

If I had to open up a box with a circular saw, I would make a guide to hold the box firmly and guide the saw and keep it cutting straight and parallel. I would also choose a good quality blade with lots of teeth. I would also make sure that the depth of cut was only just enough to cut through the thickness of the box.

Chipman

Originally Posted by jackliveshere

Yes; I have a little Ryobi for hand held use & a Triton in a simple table I made

Cheers,

WILL

Ok WILL,
The router in the table would be the safest way to go I reckon.
Now, I'm a tad tied-up at the moment, but I'm sure other members will lead you down the path of router rebated boxes. The method depends on what style of box you want to make, like lifting lid/hinged lid/sliding lid/ dovetail sliding lid....etc,

Have fun

Originally Posted by Chipman

If I had to open up a box with a circular saw, I would make a guide to hold the box firmly and guide the saw and keep it cutting straight and parallel. I would also choose a good quality blade with lots of teeth. I would also make sure that the depth of cut was only just enough to cut through the thickness of the box.

Chipman

agree with Chipman, but would just not cut through the thickness of the box (and finish the cut with a hand saw) that way the box wont collapse on itself when you make the last cut


ian

drill three 1/4 inch holes in the base plate of the saw and bolt it to a piece of pineboard.
set the saw height to leave a 1/2 mm from cutting thru. Clamp a straight edge to the cut line. Saw.... to finally open use a stanley knife to cut thru. I have sheets of garnet paper glued to a melamine table and I rub the cut edges on it
les

Originally Posted by Chipman

If I had to open up a box with a circular saw, I would make a guide to hold the box firmly and guide the saw and keep it cutting straight and parallel. I would also choose a good quality blade with lots of teeth. I would also make sure that the depth of cut was only just enough to cut through the thickness of the box.

If I were to use a circular saw this is what I would do.

Originally Posted by ian

agree with Chipman, but would just not cut through the thickness of the box (and finish the cut with a hand saw) that way the box wont collapse on itself when you make the last cut

Another way of avoiding this would be to 'fill' the kerf of the blade. eg - If your blade has a 3mm kerf you can slide an piece of 3mm MDF in to the void in the 3 sides before making the final cut.

Personally though, I am with Watson. The router and table is probably the safest and probably won't need as much planing or sanding after.

Jon

Thanks for the feedback guys. Sounds like I have a few options to try out. Just got a couple of dumb questions

Router - if I used the router table to open the box up.....is it a simple as setting the fence to the correct distance for where I want to cut, then slowly cutting through each side gradually increasing the depth?? And which router bit would be the best to use??

Circular Saw - les88 what is the pyneboard for on the bottom of the saw plate?

Cheers,

WILL

well you turn the saw so it is on the bottom of the pineboard with the blade protruding thru rest the pineboard on some stools so now it looks like a table saw.
les

Originally Posted by les88

well you turn the saw so it is on the bottom of the pineboard with the blade protruding thru rest the pineboard on some stools so now it looks like a table saw.
les

Oh I'm with you now Gotta say I'm not too keen on the idea though....haha.

Cheers,

WILL

I do mine on the T/S all the time. Set the blade so that it doesn't quite cut all the way through. Cut all round with the T/S, then do the final cut with a Jap or tenon saw. Trim it up with a chisel and/or plane.

Originally Posted by AlexS

I do mine on the T/S all the time. Set the blade so that it doesn't quite cut all the way through. Cut all round with the T/S, then do the final cut with a Jap or tenon saw. Trim it up with a chisel and/or plane.

yeah if I had a table saw I'd have no worries Hence the thread of trying to work out the best way to do it without a table or band saw. I should be picking up a table saw within the next couple of months, but until then, looking for alternative techniques.

Cheers,

WILL

Sorry Will, I should have read more carefully.
I used to use a Jap saw before I got a T/S. You need to be pretty careful, and tidy it up by sanding on a couple of sheets stuck to melamine.