Ripping with 10 1/4 circular saw

[Coralillo Lo Pro]

There was a thread talking about this that I chimed in on once I got my Big Foot 10 1/4 circular saw last year, but it was more about whether 10 1/4 saw ripping works at all or not, not a discussion of its limits. I've done limited ripping with my 16 5/16 Makita, which works okay real slow but bogs down in any serious hardwood and needs dead flat wood to not bind up. Works pretty good on pine. My Big Foot 10 1/4 generally works great, but 3-4" thick hardwood it starts vibrating pretty badly in the cut. Was an old used saw so thought the blade was no good, and got a new Big Foot blade. Still seems to be vibrating in deeper cuts of dense hardwood. Thought maybe the Skil wormdrive motor had bad bearings or something, so I switched a compatible Bosch wormdrive motor I had on to it. Still some vibration.

At this point I'm wondering if none of the 10 1/4 blades available are much good for precision ripping hardwood, because of the flex. Think I'm trying to create a silk purse from a sow's ear here on the cheap. Would like to hear from any folks that have done much ripping with their 10 1/4 saws, if they've noticed much vibration at all in deeper cuts, especially in hardwoods.

 

[Franny K]

A portable board edger that uses 10 inch blades (Baker for example) the blade has 4 teeth around the perimeter and two teeth of sorts radially maybe a third of the way in and an inch long in the radius direction. I generally make 1 3/4" or 1 1/16" boards and edge with the dual battery Makita left hand imitation worm drive set up saw run down a straight edge when things are quite heavy. I don't know what a big foot saw is but have been on jobs where the monster Makita conventional set up circular saws were "killed".

Here is an image I found it is likely a 14" edger blade for a Cooks machine.

 

[Coralillo Lo Pro]

A portable board edger that uses 10 inch blades (Baker for example) the blade has 4 teeth around the perimeter and two teeth of sorts radially maybe a third of the way in and an inch long in the radius direction. I generally make 1 3/4" or 1 1/16" boards and edge with the dual battery Makita left hand imitation worm drive set up saw run down a straight edge when things are quite heavy. I don't know what a big foot saw is but have been on jobs where the monster Makita conventional set up circular saws were "killed".

Big Foot is just a brand of 10 1/4 circular saw - though they don't make the motor so it's or more precisely a conversion kit to put a Bosch/Skil wormdrive motor on a 10 1/4 saw. The other 10 1/4 brands are Skil Sawsquatch (also worm drive) and sidewinders Milwaukee and Makita. This is more of a woodworker's issue than a milling issue, so may not be the right place to ask it. If I just wanted to rip lumber I'd use a straight edge guide and my saws work good enough with that, not fussed about the vibration in that case. The saw doesn't bog just gets choppy and the cut face gets a little imperfect. I'm guessing they're just limited by being 15a 120v motors and are too weak for precision thick hardwood ripping.

I think I kind of know the answer to my question already, and it's just because I'm working with the hardest of US hardwoods - mesquite, pecan, white oak, rock elm, live oak, etc - and they need way more powerful tools than normal to cut them. A thin kerf blade that can cut okay will have too much vibration in a 10 1/4 circular saw and any thicker blade will bog down the saw to where it's unusable. The Makita 16 5/16 is grossly underpowered for that size blade and I imagine is easily killed on job sites. In a table saw, you'd want at least 5hp to run that blade. The Festool HK85 220V saw from Europe is likely the only portable handheld saw that would work well with my hardwoods for precision deep cuts.

 

[nedsim]

In a table saw, you'd want at least 5hp to run that blade.

5HP sounds right. I've ripped white ash with the blade buried on my 3HP Unisaw. It did it, but only for about 15 minutes at a time before tripping the overload.

 

[Coralillo Lo Pro]

5HP sounds right. I've ripped white ash with the blade buried on my 3HP Unisaw. It did it, but only for about 15 minutes at a time before tripping the overload.

I managed to put a 12" .125" thick Tenryu blade on my 1.75hp Dewalt 746 just to precision crosscut a couple of 45 degree waterfall joints in 1.5" white oak on a big sled - which was about 2 1/4" of blade buried and it just managed to do it. Tripped breaker at least once though. Then I tried ripping small blocks of 3.5" rock elm through it at 90 degrees and it was tripping the breaker after 30 seconds even when I lowered the cut to 2". Imagine even a 3hp saw wouldn't have been real happy doing a full buried 3.5"+ cut with that heavy fine tooth Tenryu 12" blade. Sooner or later I have to get serious and upgrade my equipment, been trying to do the most possible with the least possible for too long now. The wife of a relative of mine in Maine has an unused SawStop in storage in DC she offered me last year she got for her late husband right before he died some years back. Just have to make it out east this summer or early fall to collect it.

 

[Lightning Performance]

Big Foot is just a brand of 10 1/4 circular saw - though they don't make the motor so it's or more precisely a conversion kit to put a Bosch/Skil wormdrive motor on a 10 1/4 saw. The other 10 1/4 brands are Skil Sawsquatch (also worm drive) and sidewinders Milwaukee and Makita. This is more of a woodworker's issue than a milling issue, so may not be the right place to ask it. If I just wanted to rip lumber I'd use a straight edge guide and my saws work good enough with that, not fussed about the vibration in that case. The saw doesn't bog just gets choppy and the cut face gets a little imperfect. I'm guessing they're just limited by being 15a 120v motors and are too weak for precision thick hardwood ripping.

I think I kind of know the answer to my question already, and it's just because I'm working with the hardest of US hardwoods - mesquite, pecan, white oak, rock elm, live oak, etc - and they need way more powerful tools than normal to cut them. A thin kerf blade that can cut okay will have too much vibration in a 10 1/4 circular saw and any thicker blade will bog down the saw to where it's unusable. The Makita 16 5/16 is grossly underpowered for that size blade and I imagine is easily killed on job sites. In a table saw, you'd want at least 5hp to run that blade. The Festool HK85 220V saw from Europe is likely the only portable handheld saw that would work well with my hardwoods for precision deep cuts.

I haven't heard of or seen anyone using a circular saw on 4" oak but the old Homelite 100cc type. It is about five horse power with a good bit more grunt I'm told than anything four stroke or 120V.
If your only cutting 90° to the face 240V is the way to go imho. Running off of a three phase genset would be even better for speed control. 22 amps of 120V or move up to 12 amps 240V would also work well imo. Building them new would be cost prohibitive versus a used drive motor in something robust with a large crankshaft. Weight will be staggering but so is my 60" csm setup.

Good thread to find more options out there based on homemade designs.

 

[Coralillo Lo Pro]

Yeah, I hadn't really thought this through about how unlikely it would be to use any of my big circular saws in the types of hardwood I work with for more than rough cutting. I largely quit bothering with the giant Makita it's so cumbersome and wouldn't cut straight in thick hardwood, and thought a 10 1/4 would be far more useful. But even the 10 1/4 is wildly underpowered for thicker hardwood slabs. My 7 1/4 saws do so well up to 2 1/4" in most of my wood that I didn't really factor in that cutting would get kind of exponentially more difficult from there going toward 4". Where I think it will work out fairly well is on the universal track setup for clean slab/table edge trimming. My 7 1/4 circular saw track setup only does 1.25" or so because the track and sawbase takes an inch off the cut. I really wanted to be able to tracksaw cut 1.25-2.25" thicknesses more to trim table edges and straight cut slabs with real precision. The 10 1/4 does that range pretty well, I'm just trying to settle on who makes the best blade for it for that purpose. As long as I'm not doing much more than 2" thick wood, I think I want the heaviest blade of the few offerings there are, which I think may be the Milwaukee 40 tooth one. Anything beyond 2" up to the max of 2 7/8" in the track, I think I'm kidding myself to expect perfectly clean cuts in hard hardwoods given it's the same worm drive motor of the regular Skil Mag 77 trying to run a 10 1/4 blade.

 

[j-jock]

That is a nice looking unit. I use either my 12 inch table saw, with a 7 hp direct drive motor, or for lighter stuff, I use a DeWalt 10 inch Radial Arm saw.
I am very careful when ripping, and either wedge the kerf, or reverse the end of the board if there is any binding. I have thought of putting one way guide wheels on the saw, but I worry about stalling and damaging the smaller saw. The big saw cuts like a brute.
For large jobs, I use my Norwood bandsaw. It does a great job, but I haven't got it set up for short lengths.

 

[nedsim]

The wife of a relative of mine in Maine has an unused SawStop in storage in DC she offered me last year she got for her late husband right before he died some years back. Just have to make it out east this summer or early fall to collect it.

Nice saw, long ride...