Circular Saw

Hi all,
I finally threw off the malady that comes via the anti climax of Christmas and made a start on the box I am making for my wife. However, things soon ground to an halt. I don't know if it's the lack of wood working practise that is a result of my concentration on watercolour painting, but I couldn't saw a straight line to save my life.

I was sawing by hand with a lovely small saw, but I kept veering to the left. This isn't any good at all because one of the most important things when making boxes is that the sides and ends need to be exactly the same length and both edges need to be straight.

It was easy enough to square up the ends with my disc sander, but to sort out the length I would have to resort to the plane. This is where I encountered another problem because the nice little model maker's plane that I'd had for years had gone missing. I checked every draw, tool box and every place possible in my workshop no less than 3 times, but it had gone. There were two possibilities, some horrible little thieving bastard had nicked it or I'd thrown it out with some rubbish. Knowing me it was probably the latter.

Anyway, this whole episode got me thinking. Cutting wood to size with square edges and sides has always been a bit of a problem so I decided to buy a powered circular saw to make the whole thing stress free. I could then concentrate on the arty side of any projects, which to me is where the fun is.

Now you might think it easy to get a small circular saw and there would be a bit of choice, well you'd be wrong. I'm only working in 6mm (quarter inch) thick wood, so one of the saws a builders a uses would be over kill. I don't think that a saw that will cut roofing joists would be right for my delicate craft work. Most of them have teeth like crocodiles, so they would probably mince my small pieces of wood into tooth picks.

I did manage to find one saw that looked like it would do the job. It is made by Proxxon and the model is a KS230.

It got mixed reviews on Amazon, but like I said, there was no alternative so a Proxxon it would be. If only life were that simple, I would have ordered it from Amazon but it was mentioned in some of the reviews that it came with a European plug, which would be no good to me.

After scouring the Internet, I found that my best bet was to go and buy one in person from my nearest stockist and that was Axminster machinery, in Nuneaton. I knew the place because it was where I got my scroll saw from. So off we went yesterday on the 75 mile round trip to get me a new circular saw.

We were lucky because when we got there because we managed to buy the last one for a few pennys short of £100. I was also surprised about how small it was. If you look at the picture above, I have put my Dremel next to it, to give you an idea of size. One thing is for sure I won't be building a new garden shed with it. To be honest, the size isn't an issue, it will cope with making my small boxes and it won't take up too much space in the workshop.

I let you know how it performs in my next post, meanwhile I have a free book on offer on Amazon for the next two days. It is called "Bossyboots" and you can get to it by clicking on the books tab at the top of this page.

 It's certainly a book for the boys, but open minded ladies will enjoy it too.