Cheap tracksaw?

I’m rebuilding a summerhouse in the garden – the front deck is rotten which seems fair after 30+ years. I’ve just spent a couple of hours trimming down the decking, the main culprit being a 3m banana – it’s bent lengthways, laying flat on the ground the centre is forward and the ends are back. I’ve been using a hand plane to straighten it. It’s better but still not perfect. I do have a lovely pile of shavings though. I tried a hand saw but taking 3m long cuts of 10 -15 mm width didn’t go well.

Would a cheap tracksaw a) do the job and b) be worth having afterwards?

Just buy a new banana, but yes more tools = good. You can get pretty good results with just a normal circular saw and a straight edge.  I picked up a rough Makita 18v for £40 on eBay, stripped and rebuilt it and gave it a new midrange blade and it’s lovely. Can’t bear to sell it on now it’s done the 1 job it had to do.

tracksaws are great IMO – and mine’s cheap (the saw and the opinion)

WHether it’s the best tool for what you’re doing is probably arguable.  Could you wet the banana and weight it down on a flat surface ??

It’s warped on the width (144mm) not the depth (27mm) so I don’t think soaking it will straighten it in a reasonable time.

My Lidl tracksaw is the best powertool I’ve ever bought.

I got a cheap MacAlister track saw from Screwfix, it’s been great. Same as the Titan, just a different colour. Peter Millard on YouTube does some great reviews of cheap track saws.

Sounds like you just need to buy a new length of decking.

Bought an evolution generic track for my ancient Bosch saw.  Guide just fits into the slot at the front of the saw and away you go.  It’s bloody brilliant.  Gone are the days of me clamping bits of timber and levels down to run against. What I really wanted about a month ago was an adapter for it to work with my jigsaw.

I ‘built’ a long zero clearance fence for my circular saw and use Irwin Quick clamps.
This guy is a bit of a wazzock, but the video gives you the gist. It’s been invaluable!

I used a circular saw with a home made fence for a year or so before I bought my Festool tracksaw. I made some excellent furniture with it. My quality of work was the same, the tracksaw is quicker and easier to use, that’s all.
The base of my Festool is now a bit out of shape after dropping it a few times so it’s hard to get a true vertical cut. I think a cheap one would be just as good.
The big problem with budget ones is they tend to have short rails. And long (compatible) rails can be hard to find. My 2800mm rail is two 1400s with a join. Fiddly but straight. It’s an Evolution. Cost about £85 including the bag. The Festool rail bag alone costs nearly that!

I got what was the cheapest at the time, the Draper 1200w. You can get the exact same saw under different brands, inevitably, and yes they do review better or worse depending on the perception of the brand 😉

They’re basically pretty simple things, tracksaws, what’s most important I think is rail compatibility/availability. Not just compatibility but <known> compatibility, there’s some which you can’t get good info on. My Draper uses the same standard as Excel and others so they’re available, but tbh it’s not brilliant as it’s single fixing and therefore kinda hard to get straight. But it’s also really close to Makita. Close, not quite, but it took me about 10 minutes to modify the base plate so it works perfectly, and makita rails are both easily available and not too expensive, and also really good, more stable at the joins if I’m ever using multiples.

Also I absolutely ****ing love it and I’d hate to do any sort of cutting job without it now. It’s not just that it’s easy and accurate, it’s so fast and easy. Like sure, you can recreate it with a straight edge and clamps and care but most fo the time unless I’m doing a really long cut I don’t even bother to clamp the rail down, I just throw it down and cut. You can work at the speed of thought pretty much, easily recut and edit, use it to shave off tiny amounts for clearances, it’s a great tool for proper skilled workers but probably even better for bodgers like me. Some tools make things possible, what these do is make things practical.

Like, when I was moving house I cut the entire back off some old ikea units as they were too deep for the new place, just took 20mm off every single panel and base and shelf and then cut in some channels for the back boards. There’s absolutely no chance I’d have done that with a normal circular saw but it was just bzzzt bzzzt bzzzt done.

but probably even better for bodgers like me

Amen, brother !

I’ve got the Aldi version, which is great for the odd time that I need it and is compatible with one of the common tracks (but I now can’t remember which!)

Take care to run a test cut before committing because the blade undercuts the width when set to an angle, posh ones don’t do this

Kreg do a sled and track that can be added to a standard circular saw – I use it with a dewalt.

@gravedigger Thanks that will be useful when re-roofing the garage later this month. Lots of ply needing a cut across the sheet to shorten it and one sheet requiring ripping along it’s length.

yes, mine seemed to work quite well for me when cutting an 18mm ply base platform for my Kickr Move/Climb

I bought a MacAlistair for a couple of jobs. Really pleased with it and how easy it is to get consistent results.

I used a home made one for my circular saw for a while, and it was great, but had a project that justified a proper one and its an order of magnitude better.

i feel its one of those tools, that if you have it you will make us of it. Worth getting one thats as good as you can afford/stomach, rather than trying to cheap it.

I shopped around and got a Makita 240V saw and 2 lengths of track (1m and 1.5m), and the track connectors, and clamps, for £400. Money well spent, its great.

My 2800mm rail is two 1400s with a join. Fiddly but straight

I’ve got a single 3m Makita rail because i needed something dead straight over long cuts to try and joint very long boards for a massive table and always found the join on two shorter rails gives you a little bit of a bump as you pass over it no matter how careful you are.

But, cutting two long board edges and flipping one around to meet the other I never find found that they were perfect.
Never.

I think it depends on what level of ‘straight’ you want.

… I’ve just spent a couple of hours trimming down the decking, the main culprit being a 3m banana […]

Would a cheap tracksaw a) do the job and b) be worth having afterwards?

Is it pressure treated? If you trim the decking you’ll remove any preservative treatment from those faces.

Can’t you straighten the bow out when you lay it? Get one plank down straight then clamp the next one to it with packers between to set the gap, taking out the bow as you go. Screw it down and move on to the next.

Thanks all, I went for the cheapest rail saw, R185CCSX Multi-Material Circular Saw, £89.99 on Amazon with a 3 piece 1.2m rail – Makita compatible. Just used it to cut the excess length off the deck – so easy and accurate!

@tillydog, I’ll be painting all the cut surfaces with end grain sealer. I had to cut one bit of decking lengthways anyway as the veranda isn’t a multiple of decking boards. The original deck was father boards turned upside down, no wonder it always felt shonky.

Bought an evolution generic track for my ancient Bosch saw.

Does anyone know if the evolution track comes with some sort of sled to fix the saw to? Can’t find anything online or on the evolution site about it but I would have thought it was necessary

AFAIK Evo track is designed for saws that are track compatible, not sled addition types, which cost almost as much as a cheap track saw – note some saws are track type but not plunge – so loose out on the dust collection , safety, and mid plunge cut facilities.

Thanks, makes sense

There’s no sled, but you can buy a bosch adapter which then runs along the track (2 607 001 375)

Watch out that Bosh rail adapter likely is for Bosch and Mafell rails  not Festool pattern.

My Mafell can use both types and an ancient DeWalt circular saw I have has a base cutout for the pre Festool – Festo track saw which is compatible with modern Festool.

The Kreg system looks very good, but needing another section of rail(or buy the XL kit) means its £156, and you still need a circular saw with a reasonably good quality blade. All in all thats now looking at the best part of £200, probably more. So lets say £250 tops inc saw.

Which tracksaw can you get for 250 quid ? possibly a 2nd hand bosch,dewalt or makita, rather than new but cheap and possibly nasty.

Triton , Sheppach, and a a few others for around 150  leaving budget for extra rails , even a cnc mft style top that you can mount in a diy table , I don’t think I have seen a rubbish plunge saw yet . I have a Parkside Lidl saw and although it’s not as refined as the Mafell it can do most things the same , variable speed is the most obvious difference , for the home gamer who has a bit of time to setup and learn how best to use them the basic plunge saws are really empowering , dust extraction and safety of operation are a big plus.

I don’t think I have seen a rubbish plunge saw yet . I have a Parkside Lidl saw and although it’s not as refined as the Mafell it can do most things the same , variable speed is the most obvious difference

Yeah but it goes well beyond whether its got variable speed or not. Quality of build, as in the motor, accuracy of castings. overall general accuracy from the off, adjustability etc.

Other issues may include the levers. OK if you use it a few times, but tighten/lossen then it might become sloppy. I doubt any of the bolts in them are very good quality

So for a limited use bit of kit it’s probably going to be fine. Only issue is guide rails and many of the cheaper brands like to use their own configuration which basically means its not compatible with other makes.

I had one of those Kreg circ-saw adapters – used it a few times, but didn’t find it very satisfactory – It just felt a bit janky.  Also, for not much more you can get a cheap tracksaw, which is much better to use.  I since upgraded mine to a Makita – which I appreciate is significantly more cash, but I would think you’d get 90% of the benefit even from the budget tracksaws

Which tracksaw can you get for 250 quid ?

Loads!

Scheppach

lumberjack

Draper

Triton

excel

kayak23
Full Member

I’ve got a single 3m Makita rail because i needed something dead straight over long cuts to try and joint very long boards for a massive table and always found the join on two shorter rails gives you a little bit of a bump as you pass over it no matter how careful you are.

I spent a little time bevelling and smoothing the edges slightly on the makita rails, like you say there was always a bit of a bump and a little disturbance before, but it just works better this way. I reckon they’d do it from the factory except it’d cost them 10p, instead they can just go with the simple extrusion.

I reckon with teh double connector on the makitas you can get them as straight as you want and they stay that way without rough handling, but first you’ve got to have something else that’s exactly that straight- only way to do it is to stick the rails on top of something straight and smooth on their edge, and then nip them up. So that’s kind of awkward!