Sorry that I can't help you with your battery saw, I have never used one but it should be sufficient for your purposes, what make and size and power is it? I wonder if the battery pack is a little old.
I would warn you about buying a cheap sort of any saw, any tool really. This is particularly true if you intend to do more and learn more, a poor tool will soon discourage you and you will either end up replacing it with a better one in which case you could have purchased an even better one with the money you spend on the two of them. I suspect this is partially what you are experiencing with the saw you presently have. When you are using a straight edge though, you will usually do just fine with both hands in their intended place and using the front hand to both keep the face down and shifted toward the edge. Is this a circular saw or a jig saw? I just realized that you had been speaking of a jig saw in earlier posts. ----- Original Message ----- From: Scott Howell To: [email protected] Sent: Saturday, June 14, 2008 8:57 PM Subject: [BlindHandyMan] cutting straight lines Folks, the answer of course to this question is to simply purchase even the most inexpensive table saw. A Ryobi at $99 is certainly not bad for the weekend-worrior from what I've been told. The point is some suggestions such as using a handsaw to get your cut started is not a bad idea at all and even a hacksaw would work in making a nice neat mark. Ok, so, keeping a straight line for several feet is more my problem. Even with a rip-fence on my circular saw, I can wander a little and have the piece kind of off a bit maybe quarter inch or so. This is possibly do to my desire to keep one hand on the outside of the fence trying to track it's progress and not keeping one hand on the back driving the saw and the other up top leading the saw. I try to lead by tracking what's happening with the fence. I'e tried using a piece of flat metal that is several feet long, but in this case, I can't clamp it to the material and let the saw's shoe ride against it, the saw shoe is nearly the width of the material. So, any other ideas are appreciated. I think this is the hardest part, just trying to measure and insure everything is setup before applying power. Of course I also have come to the conclusion that as much as I like my battery-powered circular saw, it does not hold a candle to a real electrical saw. I think the material is hard enough it fries the batteries pretty quickly. I am using a blade that has fewer teeth than what I started with to cut the laminate and so far it's not chewing the hell out of it. It seems to actually speed the process so that does help extend battery life. So, far this project isn't exactly looking perfect, but I think I have the idea, I just need to figure out how best to implement the steps. Of course setting my expectations to high isn't helping me either. I didn't think I'd end up wasting materials, but seems that is going to happen and I should have enough on hand to allow for wast, but it's still a little disheartening. I probably should have started with our living room first as it's a nice rectangle and doesn't have so many doorways to deal with, that there my friends is a good reason not to start in a hall with the shape ours has. So, Thanks for reading, I'm just sharing and asking questions as I go. Scott Howell [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG. Version: 7.5.524 / Virus Database: 270.3.0/1502 - Release Date: 6/13/2008 7:25 PM [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
