Circular Saw Jig

Circular Saw Jig

When most people think of a saw, the first thing that most often comes to mind is some type of circular saw. Usually a hand held type that’s used for cutting wood. The fact is though that over the course of the past handful of decades incredible advancements have been made in saws that can now cut just about anything you can put them to.

Through it all though, one thing that hasn’t changed is the circular blade. This style of blade has two advantages that keep it from being rendered obsolete, and the first one is that all the teeth can be aligned in one direction because it spins in one direction. Also with the circular saw, maximum momentum can be achieved because it continually spins in one direction.

Even so, the standard circular diamond saw does come with its share of disadvantages that have led to the development of the ring saw. Those are that in spite of all the cutting being done on the outer edge, the sides of the standard flat round blade also have to pass through whatever is being cut. It causes excess friction, and wear. Still one more problem with a standard circular saw is that they can’t turn. That is that they cut straight lines only.

So the ring saw is basically a saw that uses only the outer edge of a circular saw. That is that it is as if a person simply cut around a round saw blade to remove just the outer ring to eliminate the friction and allow for sharp turns, but at the same time keeping the momentum factor as well as all the teeth facing the same way. They’re an excellent choice for cutting stone, and concrete.

Even so there are several types of ring saws that were designed to accommodate any number of different cutting situations, but one thing that they all have in common is that only an outer ring spins, and does the cutting. For instance, one very popular type of ring saw uses a very thin spinning diamond studded ring that functions in much the same way as a standard jig saw does. It has a table to hold the stock that can be turned, as with a jig saw.

Still yet another stationary table style ring saw functions just like a standard chop saw. The stock to be cut is set on the table and the ring blade is then lowered down into it, in the exact same way as you might cut a block of wood with a chop saw, or a mitre saw. The difference here though, is that because there is no flat blade, but rather just the ring, stones aren’t scratched, or affected by friction.

Now both of the above listed ring saws are electric powered and rather light, compared to larger petrol powered ring saws that are used primarily on commercial job sites for cutting concrete. Now because these heavier saws are used to cut larger stock and are hand held, the ring blade on them is supported by an inner circular plate with a groove that it rides in.

By Katrina Wagner

Article Source: ezinearticles.com