Replies

1. 
   Sphere | Oct 23, 2006 04:00am | #1

   Excellent one in the latest FWW for a router, but it is the same idea for a circ saw.

   Just take some 1/4" ply say about 12"widex3' long. and add a 1x3 to one edge, saw, rides against the 1x and cuts the ply. This is now the edge you line up on yer mark and cut away at what ever it is you are trimming.

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   Shooting rubber bands at the Moon

2. 
   gb93433 | Oct 23, 2006 04:02am | #2

   Take a look at http://www.whitemountdesign.com/ShootingBoard.htm

1. 
   EricPaulson | Oct 23, 2006 04:24am | #5

   View Image

    

   WOW!

   Thanks. Not exactly what I was looking for............THAT'S a LYON Trimmer![email protected]

    

    

   It's Never Too Late To Become What You Might Have Been

    

    

    

1. 
   RogerEverett | Oct 23, 2006 06:22pm | #9

   For terminology purposes, as I learned them,  what is in the web site thing is a shooting board ( used with planes ), what Gary is demonstrating is a saw guide. I've been making similar guldes for 30 years and I find that if you make the bottom board out of 1/4" drawer bottom board ( 1/4" tempered hard board with melamine on one side )  makes a good smooth surface to run your saw shoe along. When I make them out of ply, I wax it for smoothly sliding the saw along. Also the upper board is best to keep no more then 1/2" ply ( when cutting doors down, you want enough blade below to do a 1 3/4" door, without the motor riding on the board ). I also make the top guide plenty wide to allow for clamps not to interfere with motor. And after making the first cut, to establish the straight saw line, I put this against TS fence and cut cut the back as wide as possible , then if I ever need to clean up the cir. saw edge, I just run board over TS with back edge against fence and blade up just enough to trim upper guide ,then just redo the cir. saw edge. Also when doing doors or material you want to cut very cleanly, once guide is clamped down, you can run your knife along guide before sawing to get a smooth no-tearout cut.

    

   Roger

   Edited 10/23/2006 11:23 am ET by RogerEverett

3. 
   Piffin | Oct 23, 2006 04:13am | #3

   Dino's EZ guide with cross cut guides is a systemized form of shooting boards.

   A shooting board is basicly a guide for saw or router that generally gives a square cut, but the term is also used for other cuts. For instance fixing a long straight board to a deck to guide the circ saaw to cut off the deck board ends is a type of shooting board.

    

    

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4. 
   Pierre1 | Oct 23, 2006 04:21am | #4

   A shooting board is a site-made edge guide used to make tablesaw-like cuts on sheet goods, only with a skilsaw. You get cuts that are as straight as osb or ply factory edges, because the guide is made from those materials.

   FHB just reviewed some fancy metal ones in FHB #182. Dino here on BT sells his own design under the E-Z Smart Guide System name.

   To use, you set your shooting board's edge to the marks, account for the blade's thickness depending on which side of the mark the waste is on, clamp or screw it down, and run your skilsaw down the shooting board's top piece. The sawbase rides along the bottom piece, and the blade cuts right next to either of the shooting board's outside edges.

   Mine is osb, 8' long. I took a 6" or so wide 8' strip with a factory edge. Ripped it carefully to 5" on a tablesaw, so now I've got two perfectly parallel sides. Screwed this strip on a wider remnant, say 8'x20", with the ends matched up. You now have a two-layered contraption, 8' long. Now run your skilsaw along both factory edges of the narrower strip...this will trim the wider bottom piece to the exact width that 'your saw with that brand blade' will cut to.

   You now have a shooting board that works best with your particular saw/blade combo.

    

5. 
   Gunner | Oct 23, 2006 05:19am | #6

     Here's a video by Gary Katz.

   http://rs.recol.net:8080/ramgen/taunton/hvt041.rm

    

    

    

    

   http://www.hay98.com/

1. 
   EricPaulson | Oct 23, 2006 01:09pm | #7

   Thanks,

   That was awesome.

   Eric[email protected]

    

    

   It's Never Too Late To Become What You Might Have Been

    

    

    

6. 
   Gene_Davis | Oct 23, 2006 04:50pm | #8

   An edge guide for a skilsaw, one with a blade diameter large enough to get through the door, is maybe what others are calling a shooting board here.

   I call a thing a shooting board when it looks like the one in the pic in the web page referenced earlier.  A hook cleat under, to fix it to the edge of a bench, with a top strip stop for your board, it is typically used to true the saw-cut end of a board, using a plane.

   You've used edge guides, for sure, before.  I wouldn't crosscut a door, to shorten it, without using a guide.  Since I now have Dino's EZ, though, I have retired my guides.

   Jack up the inside bottom edge of a guide, and you now have one that cuts a bevel, with the saw still set at 90.

   To bevel a door edge with a guided sawcut, I would first cut the opposite side, with a tiny kerf cut, for the other side cut to meet, so as to minimize tearout on the back side.

   An edge guide jacked up three degrees would also work for a router, but you will need a big hog of a bit.  Running into that need occasionally, I sprung for a solid carbide 1/2" spiral upcut bit, about 4 inches long.  Chucked into a 3.25HP plunger, it is a scary thing to look at.