56 VIDEO THREE DECK BUILDING POWER SAWS

In this video I want to explain to you the three different kinds of saws, power saws, that make sense for building a deck

And the first one, and if you can only have one power saw, then a handheld circular saw is the one to get

This is also another handheld circular saw, a little bit of a different design

Both of these are cordless and cordless is nice. Battery technology has come a long way, so that you really get a lot of cutting or drilling or whatever from a charger and a battery

But you do pay a premium for that too. So if you're building your tool collection on a budget, then go corded

You're going to get a little more powerful performance in fact. It's a little less convenient because you have a cord and you have to plug it in and things

You will save a fair amount of money and you don't have to buy replacement batteries

Replacement cordless batteries now are usually warranted for about three years. RIDGID actually has a lifetime warranty on batteries

So it's not as bad as it used to be as far as keeping your batteries

They also last longer than they used to. But you still will need to replace them unless you get a RIDGID and register that tool

So corded is okay. Cordless is nice if you can get it

This tool will do all the cutting that you need to do for your deck

It won't do all the cutting as well as some of these other tools

But like I said, if you want one tool, then this is the one to get

I guess the main drawback, if you could say that, is that all of the cuts with this are hand guided

I mean I guess you could clamp down a piece of wood to guide it for you

But generally speaking, if you're cross-cutting deck lumber, it's a hand-eye coordination thing

So I'll show you how that works in a second. But one tool, this is the one. You can cross-cut. You can rip wood

You can build a whole deck with a saw like this. Oh, you're going to do a cut there

Yes, I am. I'm going to mark it here. This is just a test cut

Just a sample cut to show you something. This applies to every kind of handheld circular saw

Don't forget your safety glasses. There's two things you need to keep your eye on when you're trying to make an accurate cut

First of all, mark it. If the cut matters. There's nobody out there who's good enough to do 90 degree cuts every time without a mark

The next thing is you have to decide what side of the line you're going to cut on

You don't want to cut down the middle. In this case, we'll call this the waste side

So this is the piece we want. So we want to cut on the waste side of the line

What you do is, can you see how I'm locating the blade to the left side of the line

I'm going to start this cut in a minute. But that's not the only thing I'm looking for

Every shoe, that's what this part of the saw is called, every shoe has these slots or marks or something

that show you where the blade is going to cut. And in this case, since I'm set to zero degrees bevel this way

so in other words, I'm straight up and down, that slot in the shoe there represents the way the blade is going to cut

So I can have the saw teeth lined up here, but if I'm out here and I'm trying to follow the line

I'm going to bind the blade. And that's no good. So I'm going to start the cut now. I'm going to actually see where the blade is cutting in relation to the line

Then I'm going to adjust here and complete the cut so you can see it

Now, there's the cut. It's not perfect. I can see that

I can see I cut a little bit too far on that side of the line

It's not perfectly square all the way along. It's pretty close. And for most things, that would do fine

Now, as I'm going to show you another saw, kind of the ultimate cross-cutting power tool is the miter saw or the chop saw

And it makes cuts like this perfectly accurately every time, very quickly, nice and smooth

That's what I'm going to show you in a second. But before we do that, I want to point out two different configurations of circular saws

So this one, the one I just used, has the blade on the right-hand side of the saw

This one has the blade on the left-hand side of the saw

Now, most circular saws are like this with the blade on the right

It's fine. You can use this. But as a right-handed user, and most users are right-handed

I have to look over the saw in order to see where that blade is cutting

For some reason, and I don't know exactly why, a minority of circular saws have the blade on the left

even though we live in a right-handed world. This is actually better for right-handed people

because you can more easily see where the blade is cutting. It's not a huge deal, but it's right there

It's easy to see how it goes. And I actually prefer a left-hand blade configuration

So I should mention too, that if you're investing in tools for your deck building project

don't just go by this video. This is just an introductory video. Contact me and I can give you some specific recommendations on different models

Make some models depending on your budget. I'm constantly receiving tools from manufacturers for testing

So I know pretty well what the best tools are, what the best values are

So be sure to contact me and I can direct you in the right direction

If I was getting a second saw to help me with deck building, any other kind of home renovation, fix-up stuff

some kind of a miter saw or a chop saw like this would be the thing

And as I mentioned previously, this is the ultimate cross-cutting tool. So cross-cutting is what I did with the circular saw there

It's any cut that goes across the grain. Not necessarily at 90 degrees either, it can be at differing angles

Ripping is cutting along the grain and that's another matter. Table saws excel at that

I'm going to show the little table saw in a minute, but this is a miter saw

Once again, it's cordless. If you want the best value for your tool-buying dollar, don't go cordless

Although cordless tools have really come a long way lately and they are convenient

This is called a chop saw because the blade chops down. This in fact is called a sliding compound chop saw

And what that means is that... ...it chops and then it also slides

So you can cut wider material. Even though the blade here is quite small, it's not a particularly large blade

As miter saws go, they go 10 inch, 12 inch even. But the sliding action does let you cut fairly wide stock

You can change the angle by rotating this. A good miter saw will go beyond 45 degrees

A little bit. You can see that here. So there's the 45 degree mark

We're a little bit beyond. We're getting close to 50 here on this side and this side

That's kind of nice because occasionally when you want to do what theoretically should be a 45 degree angle..

...to get it to work, you might have to go a little bit more. And the final thing..

So it's a sliding compound miter saw. And by compound, I mean you can move this..

...loosen this thing back here. And you can tilt. It'll tilt on both sides

Actually it'll go both ways if it's activated. And this is a feature that you don't often need or use in deck building

It's a compound angle. But for trim work and things, it's useful for that

So that's where it gets its name, sliding compound miter saw. For most deck stuff, most deck construction, you're going to be doing straight cross cuts

And they're nice and fast and extremely accurate. And very square and nice and smooth

And that's why I like them. They really help you to do a much better job, as you'll see

So I'm going to make a cut here. But before I do, I want to explain things

So before I had to mark the cut. I had to mark the cut with a square

And I had to follow that. And you rarely get it right on perfect

With this, I don't have to worry about angles or anything. This is set to cut a 90 degrees

So all I need to know is where to place the cut. And you can see that little pencil line there

Now, Milwaukee and DeWalt are two companies that employ a method for helping you to see where the blade is going to cut before it actually cuts that I really like

There are different ways of doing this. But if you take a look here, there's a light

I press this little button. And the light will come on even when I hit the saw, too

But I can also get the light to go on. And you see there's a shadow there

The blade is casting a shadow. So I know exactly where that blade is going to cut

Now, what I'll do is the light will be on when I start to cut

And the shadow of the blade will even be more representative of how it cuts when it's spinning

Because right now, if you look closely, you can see little whiter spots where the teeth are

But once it's spinning, it'll be one solid shadow line that lets me know exactly where this thing is going to cut

And it works every time. So let me just start this up, and we'll try the cut

Now, can you see that? I actually split the line. It's exactly what I wanted

And it happens every time because the machine is meant for that

And it's perfectly square this way, as well as this way. And a nice smooth edge, too

I mean, it's not furniture grade, but it's certainly more than fine enough for deck use

So, if I was buying a miter saw, a sliding compound miter saw, for general use

I would go with a 10 or 12 inch model. Something that can cut a 2 by 12 at 90 degrees

I have a saw like that, and I use it. But for the project I'm working on right behind me here, I don't need to cut that wide

So I just use my little portable one, and it's handy. I can bring it out, I can put it back in if it starts to rain

There's no problem. So that's saw number two, miter saw, chop saw

There's one more that I'd like to show you that does something else really well, too

So the third deck building saw, it's the most unnecessary, I guess, for deck construction

But it's still nice to have sometimes. And that's a portable table saw

That's what this one is to here. Once again, it's coreless. And if you want the most tool for your money, go corded

But you're looking for something in the category of table saws called bench top table saws

And that's just because they're small and portable, and you might use them on a bench

They also have portable stands that you can use as well. But unlike these other saws, the blade, it rotates, but it doesn't actually move anywhere

You move the workpiece over the blade instead of the blade through the workpiece like you saw before

So all table saws, you can vary the height of the blade sticking up

I've taken off the guard here so that you can see things better

And when you're using a saw like this, this is mostly for what they call ripping

which is cutting solid lumber along its length. You can also use it for cutting sheet goods, too

And this part of the saw here is called the fence. And this kind of supports the workpiece and lets you slide it in an accurate manner

So I'm just going to adjust this to cut off this bit of inner part of the tree that came off this hunk of scrap

So you can move this wherever you want. There's a scale here that shows you how far it is from the blade

And you just lock it down. Now as far as blade height goes, the rule of thumb is that the blade should come up above the workpiece by about a quarter of an inch

So I could make it stick up higher, and that would offer the benefit of less chance for kickback

Because the blade is, when it's encountering the wood, it's going into a more downward direction

If I wanted to minimize... But of course the drawback here is that there's all kinds of blade above the wood

and if I'm careless, I could run into that with my hand

So on the other side of the equation, making it so that the blade just barely peeks through eliminates the accidental cutting hazard

But because the teeth are encountering the wood as they travel in a more horizontal direction

it increases the chance for a kickback of the wood. So rule of thumb, bring it up a little bit, quarter of an inch or so, and that'll serve you well

One other thing before I actually make a cut so you can see how this thing works

I talked about kickback, and that's where this spinning blade, which is spinning very fast

for whatever reason catches the wood, and instead of chewing through it, throws the wood back

Now don't let me frighten you too much here. It hardly ever happens, and it almost never ever happens if you use the right kind of blade

And you see here, this is a tooth. It's a carbide tooth

It does the cutting. Another carbide tooth here, another carbide tooth. But behind each tooth, there's this little bump of metal

You can see it here and here and here. Every tooth has its bump of metal

And the bump of metal, its arc of travel is just slightly lower than the arc of travel of the tip of the blade

So essentially, this bump here, this one here, limits the amount of wood that this tooth can bite in any one given revolution

Because a kickback happens when instead of chewing through the wood, the tooth grabs the wood and then throws it

So if you can limit the bite of a tooth, then it's not going to be trying to bite off more wood than it can chew through as it goes through

So that's what these bumps are called. They're called anti-kickback pawls. P-A-W-L-S

And most blades have them these days. It's actually a safety requirement, required by law in Europe

The only blades that won't have this are blades that are very fine, that have a lot of teeth

There's no room for the bumps. But table saw blades aren't usually like that, at least not general purpose blades for the kind of cutting you're going to see here

But that is something to look for when you're selecting a blade

So like I said, the guard's removed so you can see what's going on. Safety glasses, a must

And I also wear hearing protection. It's not terribly loud, but over the years it's going to build up

Any damage might build up. So put on the muffs, turn on the saw, and away we go

Now that's interesting. What happened there? Well, I'll tell you what happened there

I'm pretty sure we're low on battery here. Yeah, we are. You see, the modern lithium batteries are quite smart

And you can push that button and you can see I'm on its last legs here as far as the charge goes

So I'll just swap out another battery. This is kind of interesting

Both these are 18 volt batteries. That's part of Milwaukee's system. And this is a high output

It's actually a 12 amp hour, which is the biggest batteries get nowadays

But even though the voltage is the same, the larger battery will maintain its voltage to a higher level under load

And so when you're dealing with high draw power tools like this one

the bigger battery is going to give you better performance even though the voltage is the same

So this has got enough juice in it. I think this is going to work fine for us

Just complete the cut. So if you want to cut a piece of deck lumber to a specific width, this is your tool

You can do it with a circular saw. If the cut matters, you're going to want to clamp a second piece of wood to act as a guide for the saw

Otherwise, you're not going to get this kind of result. But that's the bottom line

Three tools for deck building. The handheld circular saw, miter saw, and if you can manage to fit it into the budget, table saw