I’m planning to clad 2 garage walls with 8×4 sheets of 18mm OSB. I’ll need about 7 of them which I can have delivered with B&Q’s new bulk delivery service.

The problem is they’ll all be 120mm too high and I need to cut around a door frame. So that means cutting lots of long, straight, accurate lines.

What’s the best way of doing this DIY style? I don’t have access to a table saw. I also don’t have any other power tools yet and don’t mind buying them. I only have a cordless drill and a grinder!

I’ve used a jigsaw before and I know they like to wander around. Also it would take forever to do the long lengths that I need. Unless I’ve just used a toy in the past and I can buy a more beasty one. What about those handheld circular saws? They look faster but do they wander around? Any recommendations on the best tool for the job?

Maybe I’m over thinking it. It might be easy with a decent jigsaw and a clamped down guide but it’s a big job and it’ll all be visible. I’d rather not cock it up.

Track saw.

I have an erbauer from screwfix but the titan one is probably perfectly acceptable.

To be fair though i’d do it with a panel saw quite happily if I wasn’t going to need the track saw again.

Buy with the 120mm ready cut from a B&q with a saw facility? Or similar from a properly timber merchants?

Any jigsaw (very slow) or circular saw will cut straight if you clamp or screw a straight bit of plank to run it against.

Mini plunge saw, really useful little things to have in your arsenal.

I have this model but there are cheaper ones around:

https://www.toolstation.com/draper-20979-600w-89mm-mini-plunge-saw/p66271

I did this a couple of weeks ago framing out the extension.

Circular saw and a straight edge.

If I was buying. New tools then track saw it would be.

As it was the circular saw was the tool of choice for a 1 man cut of a full size board……….and that’s with me having an elu table saw.

Check out Peter Millard’s videos on tracksaws. Some helpful stuff for beginners, including reviews of cheap models. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7S6M0i1Mz9pf2uo5SpFSWrQOu0qpjeIs

What’s the best way of doing this DIY style? I don’t have access to a table saw.

Its not a job for a table saw really – big stationary saws for small bits of wood, small portable saws for big sheets of wood.

A track saw is ideal if you think you’ll do other stuff with sheet material in the future. A regular circular saw is more versatile if you don’t have other tools already (with a bit of planning and jig making it can do the job of a track saw or a mitre saw just not as quickly)

That said Its not difficult (either in terms of skill or effort) to cut 7 sheets of OSB with a handsaw to a standard that will suffice for cladding a garage.

B&Q should also be happy to do any straight cutting of boards to length or width for free before they deliver (although I know they’d stopped their cutting services initially when the lockdown started I don’t see a reason why they shouldn’t have resumed them now)

Circular saw and a guide batton. Could chew through 2 at a time if you have clamps, although if it goes wrong thats 2 screwed boards.
You can borrow mine if you like, in Hampshire tho.
You using osb3 and some sort of insulation? Cellotex or polystyrene will help keep it cosy if your using it ad a workshop in winter. Might need to fit a membrane depending on outer skin integrity.

Be a bit mindful in your planning. Across different thicknesses and grades OSB can vary in sheet size

Some is the an imperial 8ft x 4ft (2444 x 1222) much the same as all ply/mdf etc and some is a metric size (2400 x 1200) so smaller, especially in length – its easy to miss the difference written on paper but if you’ve planned for one and the other arrives it can spoil your day. So double double check the panel sizes when you order with OSB

OSB is a devil for this for reasons that are probably very sensible (im going to guess its got something to do with framing and plasterboard which is also typically 2400×1200)  – you don’t get this issue with Ply, chip or MDF

I’ve used a jigsaw before and I know they like to wander around. Also it would take forever to do the long lengths that I need. Unless I’ve just used a toy in the past and I can buy a more beasty one.

Jigsaws can cut quicker and straighter if they have a pendulum action – the blade swings as well as goes up and down – the same way as you would cutting by hand really – and progresses better on longer straight cuts (you switch the pendulum off for tighter curves) . You can’t cut beautifully straight with one freehand but you could probably cut straight enough for the job you want to do. Nominally you could use a clamped guide but unless the blade runs absolutely parallel to the edge of the baseplate the blade tries to deviate rather than follow the guide. In my experience I’ve never found a jigsaw that cuts well with a guide.  But a good jigsaw with an appropriate blade shouldn’t be particularly slow. You could cut a good enough line for a garage wall. But you’d have more versatility for any fiddlier shape cutting.

If you don’t already have other tools I’d buy a jigsaw before I bought a circular saw. Anything with a pendulum actions should be good enough. The Makita 4350FCT is very good – seems to be less prone to vibration than other brands I’ve used and helpfully both illuminates the line you are cutting and blows the dust clear so you can see it –  its as as good as you get before you start spending 4x the price on esoteric nonsense from festool and mafell …… which one day you will 🙂

All you need is a sharp new £10 panel saw…
It won’t take you any time at all. Probably a lot quicker than clamping up guides and stuff.

Thanks for all the pointers so far. I’ve been watching circular saw videos on YouTube!

I think that’s the way to go. They’re not too expensive.

I can get this corded Makita for £76- LINK

But then, I’ve been thinking about buying into the Ryobi cult for a while now and they offer this… LINK

Then when I need to tackle the rest of the house I can just buy bare sanders, jigsaws etc.

I was thinking I could get away without batons and membranes and stuff. They’re both internal walls. It’s on the ground floor of a terraced house. There’s no draft and it’s bone dry. I just want to cover the breeze block walls which are full of the holes left from the previous owners cupboard and shelves and have a surface I can attach my own stuff to.

EDIT: more replied while I was typing!

Jigsaws can cut quicker and straighter if they have a pendulum action – the blade swings and well as goes up and down – the same way as you would cutting by hand really

I was wondering what the pendulum referred to so thanks for that.

All you need is a sharp new £10 panel saw…

I’m tempted to try this. I might give it a go on a test piece before I spend any money.

I’ve been thinking about buying into the Ryobi cult for a while now and they offer this

The equivalent cordless makita is a superb wee saw. If you were buying into a battery system that saw on its own is the reason to go makita – its more versatile than a corded circular saw – having the blade on the left of the handle rather than the right seems a trivial difference but its really useful – paired with a roofing square as a guide they are a pretty good subsitute for a mitre saw and if you are cutting sheets freehand you can see your line much better

makita have pretty much the widest range of tool off one battery there is – including coffee percolators and wheelbarrows –  they don’t make one bad cordless tool.

So if you were looking down that line get whatever makita drill driver you fancy bundled with battery and charger and either the Makita DSS611Z the DHS680z as a bare tool – they are sold quite widely and theres always a bargain somewhere for bare tools

You need a cordless Mafell plunge saw kit. It’s the only way I’m afraid.

https://www.its.co.uk/pd/MT5518MBL-18v-57mm-Plunge-Saw-with-2-x-5.5Ah-Batteries,-2-x-1.6m-Guide-Rails,-Charger-and-Case-_MAFMT5518MBLKIT2.htm?gclid=Cj0KCQjwgJv4BRCrARIsAB17JI5-2XzkBBCpF_5xGhyhQre6c210-iwrA95wft9CPbElN82wVNBdkpEaAkj-EALw_wcB

😉

I would second the above. Makita is a fantastic cult battery platform to get into. I’ve got shed loads of it.

I’ve already got a cordless Makita drill that I bought in a sale about 10 years ago (I got an absolute bargain judging by the prices I’m looking at right now). Still going strong. Have they ever changed the battery design? I’ll go out and buy a Makita if it works with my existing battery.

What drill is it? It’s possible you may have a nicad one perhaps?

if its an LXT battery then that’ll work with anything current (LXT came in about 10 years ago I think so it’ll either be an early  LXT or an older style nicad / nimh. The nicads/nimh batteries have a sort of prong that slots up inside the handle of the drill – the LXT ones are flat on top – you might find newer, higher capacity LXT batteries (4amp and up)  aren’t compatible with your drill / charger but older LXT batteries work fine with newer tools

Where are you based op?

I’m in Sheffield. I’m about a 30 second drive away from a B&Q, Screwfix and Halfords.

I just checked my battery it’s definitely Lithium Ion but not LXT.

my battery it’s definitely Lithium Ion but not LXT.

Ahhh – theres a budget drill driver / set that Makita did that came with a non LXT battery but is sort of look-likey and doesn’t work with other makita tools. B&Q sold them and it wasn’t easy to tell they were not the same line as Makita’s standard range. LXT batteries (once slotted into the tool) are all black apart form the grey/white button – the budget range and a grey/white band around the top of the battery.

If anyone you know is travelling past Cambridge I’m selling a circular saw and some ruler clamps. Just be careful if you’ve not used a circular saw before as it’s a bit more powerful than a jigsaw.

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Seeing what you’re saying through the thread, it’s up to you really how far you wanna go.
Because for this project you could very easily do it with a fresh panel saw. Osb cuts very easy by hand, you can rip across the top of an 8×4 in 30 seconds, for a tenner. (Actually two saws for £13 seems the norm now!). And by the 7th (probably sooner) sheet you’ll have developed a good technique that guarantees a straight quick cut. I’m a big fan of hand tools.
However, I’ve also bought into the makita cult. I’d do this job with my lxt circular saw. I probably wouldn’t bother getting the track saw out because I don’t actually need it that accurate, I’d just run the circular along a pencil or chalk line. I certainly wouldn’t use the jigsaw, even if I push it in a straight line the cut won’t be square and it’ll take me longer than a handsaw to produce an inferior result. And I wouldn’t use my table saw because I’m not waving an 8×4 sheet over that thing!

All you need is a sharp new £10 panel saw…
It won’t take you any time at all. Probably a lot quicker than clamping up guides and stuff.

Nowhere near as fun though!

All you need is a sharp new £10 panel saw…
It won’t take you any time at all. Probably a lot quicker than clamping up guides and stuff.

I regulalry choose a panel saw over pwoered tools. btu a tracksaw would be through it before you managed to draw the straight lines to cut to. sand the cut will be smoother too.

But i do agree totally that a hand saw would be no biggy for this task.

2 strips of MDF, screw together with an overlap, measure the plate of your saw, Make a cut, make your own track. easy peasy.

What NeilGlover says. Handsaw and MTFU.

cicular saw with an adjustable guide. Set guide to 120 and its simple.

my neighbour is a furniture maker and joiner by trade but supplements with general chippying stuff as there isn’t always a lot of work (eg: he does big houses and pub refurbs etc.)

In other words, he’s a pro.

He helped me do my shed which was OSB in part. With a good panel saw (he recommended a bit more than a tenner each, and coated for use on composite type boards as the glue can make the blade stick*) – and a strong arm and technique – he was cutting through boards in the time it would take me to unroll an extension lead.

* failing that, a spray of wd40 every now and then

As a fan of buying expensive power tools myself, you should be asking: “what other jobs have I got to do?”

My usual pattern is: struggle doing the first job without having the best tool, then buy one for the second job. Having spent 2 minutes doing what previously took me 2 hours, kick myself for not just buying the right tool in the first place.

I have some Ryobi tools – mostly household stuff that isn’t going to take too much abuse, and I’m happy with it – the cordless hot glue gun in particular gets used frequently for fixing the kids toys! I do also have the circular saw. It’s fairly good: as above, the blade being on the left makes it very easy to use.

However, I’ve also got a load of Makita kit – including their track saw. It’s awesome, and the Makita kit is noticeably more solid and better made than the Ryobi stuff – I’m expecting it to last for decades (it’s mostly corded). I’d advocate for a track/plunge saw if you have the budget, and have other jobs on the horizon for which you could use it.

cordless ryobi vs corded Makita? I’d get the Makita.

If you’re not likely to use it again for the forseeable, then I’d get the cheapest circular or plunge saw you can find. Track saws are awesome but you can replicate it easily just by clamping a straight edge on the board (which ideally I’d use one of my pile of random bits of wood but you could use one of your other boards for hte first cut, which will be horrible and cumbersome but will work a charm, then the offcut from the first for the future ones.

I don’t like deterring people from buying tools, but, if you do this cheaply then you can spend the money on buying more tools.

B&Q and Selco will both cut them for you, why put yourself through it? (Just measure twice!!)

.

Handsaw

What’s happened to this place! You’s have changed man. 😐

Altendorf F45 ftw

Option to rent?
https://www.hss.com/hire/search?text=panel+saw

OP, I’m sure this time last year was when Lidl had their tracksaw on special buy. Worth checking

theres a budget drill driver / set that Makita did that came with a non LXT battery but is sort of look-likey

G-series? I think the batteries now have a white top to distinguish them. Mine doesn’t though. I’m considering buying the matching impact driver

I’m considering buying the matching impact driver

It looks like they might be winding that range down. There was supposedly a whole range of G Series stuff aimed at home / garden users – so thing like stimmers and hedge cutters seemed to be pretty short lived and currently Makita’s site only lists a drill driver so even the impact driver might be discontinued.

Cutting sheet OSB yesterday, its evil stuff, spits sharp bits out,when being cut with a hand held circular saw so wear gloves and safety glasses, for obvious reasons.

Resist he temptation to run hands down newly cut surfaces.A set of plastic trestles also help to support the sheets when cutting, and an old door on top acts as a worktop, ask at Band q or Selco if they have any damaged doors or worktops going free or cheap

With the Stanley plastic trestles and probably others there are slots for 2″ timber and when used they make a very sturdy working platform

Makita’s site only lists a drill driver so even the impact driver might be discontinued.

It’s available as a bare tool from Amazon. It was really to make use of the batteries, rather than buying into another system. Another option is a Worx one as I have the pressure washer

Soon as I see the words ‘one of them circular saw things'(or to effect, I get scared.

I feel that such power tools are not to be thought of as a power tool along the lines of a drill, jigsaw, impact driver or anything like that, it is a separate entity and by far the most dangerous tool available for professional or home use. I cannot emphasis that enough. That and the chop/slide saw. This regularly cuts fingers of joiners and carpenters, and they instinctively know the ins and outs of the tool.
The big one is one hand on the saw and the other hand they put under to catch the off cut from falling forgetting the projection of the blade. It’s usually all fingers halfway up.

Im sorry to be vivid, but im a furniture maker(like others here), done the qualifications training under professionals on these specific tools. My approach to these things means I cannot stay silent(ahem) and must direct you to the other incredibly good suggestions of using a hand saw.
Which is satisfying enough to have fair working up an appetite, or if you feel its a bit of a struggle, a powered jigsaw and a straight edge. In fact that would probably be your best bet as the jigsaw on a fence will breeze through osb and the fence(straight edge) it wont wander.

To know A circular saw must have a riving knife as this prevents the cut closing on the blade and causing it to kick backwards towards the operator. It used to be the law that they must have a riving knife, but there are saws on the market without them in the form usually of a cheapo track saw. The technique of a track is you plunge cut and move forward so the riving knife descends with the blade can slide into the cut. The cheap its just no riving knife.
Try using that handheld in osb and it will bind and it will kickback. you tube will show you all the ways to operate the saw, plunge cutting mid board, angled cuts, but theres a whole aspect of safety to each of those operation
On you tube it looks very easy, but what are the inherent dangers ? again most buying one from b&q arent going to know.

My recommendation as a safety nut whoo approaches all machinery with the attitude its going to cripple me. So i do mentally prepare, Ok im doing this, this this etc. On a big machine its , where am i standing, anything impeding etc. Even for powertools like the hand held circular saw.

Not wanting to be nippy or offend anyone. Just saying from a safety basis the circular saw should be a pro only bit of kit, or unless you have prior experience,training or are very used to it. Straight off out the b&q box please dont. There are just too many things to know and can go wrong.