Anyone bolted their circular saw, upside down, to the underside of a workbench??

To create a bench saw??? How’d it go?

Was thinking I may give it a go… what’d go wrong……….

I don’t think many things are too dangerous for me to try but this is one thing I just know will result in a visit to A&E or the coroner.

You won’t have a guard and you may not be able to keep your fingers away if it kicks. You won’t be able to stop it very easily either.

Having said that my Festool saw’s manual gives a how-to guide, but I closed my eyes and pretended not to see.

clearly nothing could go wrong at all. Why don’t you video it for us to see?

You are Homer Simpson and I claim my £5

….. and maybe a foot operated switch to turn it on and off…..

Or a motion sensor…

Almost as lethal as black & decker’s “convert your drill into a circular saw” kit.

I bolted my circular to a piece of chipboard then screwed that to my workbench.
I cut a slot in the chipboard so the guard and blade stuck through and made guide from a piece of timber and 2 clamps. I wrapped tape around the switch and turned it on and off at the plug.
It worked perfectly but I hated using it and wouldn’t recommend it. It always felt dangerous.
If you do do it just make sure you use push sticks instead of fingers to feed the wood through.

Andy

I had one of these many years ago and survived with all my finger and thumbs but wouldn’t use one again… The attachment is available on flea-bay under WM141 or WM140 attachment for Workmate

can you make a video like this one?

table saw kickback

Altho’ for anyone working on product testing this might be a test too far….

SawStop

EDIT: Drat Pete, you beat me to it.

one of the reasons this exists:

Festool offer a (quite expensive) system for mounting all sorts of tools upside down in a table

its worth watching twice anyway!

Not done it but there are lots of good YouTube videos explaining how to do it.
(For some reason I like watching woodworking videos on youtube – I have no idea why)

Matthias Wandel is always entertaining:

Loads of detail and links on his website here:
http://woodgears.ca/homemade_tablesaw/

More importantly, has anyone done this and still have their compete complement of fingers left? 😉

You know how in the first five minutes of any episode of casualty……..

wwaswas

now go away and price that lot up and let’s see what the STW massif make of that!

(you don’t have to price the up the new cordless TS55 btw)

I know the brushes will be made from disused pencil sharpenings and you’ll probably have to spray the entire thing with locktite, but is it really worth the effort?

Cheapo Table Saw

Have done. Used it once. Decided I liked my fingers, didn’t use it again.

Then again, mounted properly with a decent switch and a fence and so on, it could work almost as well as a regular table saw.

now go away and price that lot up

the more I look at their stuff the more I think it looks like it might represent value for money. Which is quite worrying.

Graham that matthias wandel saw looks pretty good. I thin kits about a million miles away from and upside down saw bolted to a workbench though…

Yeah Matthias likes to engineer things. 😀

He does raise good points though – how will you make sure it is perpendicular? How will you adjust depth or angle?

Check his website though, he links to a bunch of other homemade table saw videos – some have a more straightforward approach.

My Dad had a table saw (might still be in his shed), always fancied a go on it. Having watched the above videos, don’t think I’ll bother.

Yes I’ve done it many years ago on building sites (I wasn’t the only one).

Well it wasn’t exactly a workbench it was just something you knocked up to fix the upside circular saw to – a table shaped object.

It works surprisingly well, the slot for the blade is made by simply plunging the circular saw, and the guide is just a length of timber screwed down.

And the switch has to be jammed on, so make sure you can quickly unplug should things go wrong.

Obviously it works best for repetitive rips as the guide can’t easily be moved. And not having any guard or being able to quickly switch off is obviously a little dangerous.

I would suggest screwing the circular saw to the bench even if you have to drill holes into the base as I wouldn’t trust clamps not to suddenly release without warning due to prolonged exposure to vibrations.

Better still buy the right tools/kit.

That sawstop is amazing!

Just for info. My old geography teacher did exactly what you propose. He cut his hand off at the wrist not long after. 😯

That’s all.

How the f*** do you quickly unplug it should anything go wrong without any fingers?

Still trying to work out how its any different to my table saw….. Manufactured 1992

No guard on that.

Provided the things bolted down propper- wouldnt clamp it or even screw it and the bench is substantial id do it.

But i dont have to, i have an elu.

( and all my fingers , toes and other appendages- some folk just shouldnt be let near bladed tools)

“He does raise good points though – how will you make sure it is perpendicular? How will you adjust depth or angle?”

My circular saw lets me do both relitvie to the base plate…. So bolt down baseplate and adjust height and angle as you wish.

I have one of these:

Got it off fleabay from a builder for about £20. As long as your alignment is good then it works fine. Big stop button controls the power but you do need to frig the trigger on the ripsaw to stay on whilst you use the table switches to run it.

Just buy a flipsaw instead.

Pointless. By the time you’ve made a Half decent fence for it you may as well have bought a little jobsite table saw.

I did it with a jigsaw once, worked fine – wouldn’t even consider it with a circular, but then I’ve a table saw.

tbh If you’ve space table saws’ can be bought cheap and even cheap ones work well as long as you set them up properly.

It always felt dangerous.

Can’t possibly think why.

More importantly, has anyone done this and still have their compete complement of fingers left?

Are you expecting anyone to be able to type a response? 🙂

It wouldn’t be any more dangerous than a regular bench saw if you included the features that a bench saw has – which is a guard for the blade (which shouldn’t be too difficult to achieve) and a means to stop it quickly. You can get in-line no volt release switches which you could screw to your bench in an appropriate position. But the circuitry of the saw is part of that two. A bench saw (if its been manufactured in the last decade or so) should actively stop the blade in a few seconds, rather just turn off the power and leave the blade spinning. Your circular saw might do that too – but it uses power to do that, so releasing the trigger will stop the blade, but pulling the plug (or using an in-line switch) might just leave the blade spinning.

You also want to create a reliable fence and maybe a mitre guide.That and making sure the saw is attached firmly enough and straight enough…. means you’ve sort of gained a bench saw and lost your circular saw – getting it set up and working well enough to be be properly useful rather than a quick bodge would mean you wouldn’t want to un-set it very often.

The other question is – are you going to use it for? Since I bought a rail saw I’ve almost never switched my bench saw on – I only use it for cutting repeated batches of material. For everything else the rail saw is quicker, easier and more accurate. Its also more space and effort efficient. If you want to cut an 8ft sheet you only need yourself and 8ft of clear space – with a bench saw you need 8 feet in front of the blade, 8 feet behind the blade and two people to handle the board.

You can make your own rail saw in about 5 minutes.

I bought a table saw at considerable expense when doing 4 rooms of hardwood floor in our new house. It saved a shitload of time. I use it now and again and it terrifies me. I always wear short sleeves and treat the thing with a great deal of respect.

There’s no way I’d bodge one. Very dangerous. I only know one person who’s properly injured themselves with a machine tool and it was a table saw.

Anywhere near South Wales, PLEASE borrow mine!

wwaswas

“now go away and price that lot up”

the more I look at their stuff the more I think it looks like it might represent value for money. Which is quite worrying.

I know what you mean. I’ve looked at Festooning myself with more kit.

You could always just use your normal circular saw with a guide fence, like Steve Ramsey does here (watch from 1:40 onwards if you want to skip the waffle):

More importantly, has anyone done this and still have their compete complement of fingers left?

My great-grandad had a home-made table saw, and eight fingers. These two facts are not unrelated.