Using a Circular Saw to square up benchtop ends...

Call around and see if you can find a lumberyard or a cabinet shop that has a 12” radial arm saw. But then again, you don’t mention how wide the top is, so I don’t know if that would work or not.

Woodchuck, good thought, but the top will be about 28” wide and 8’ long weighing close to 250lbs. There has got to be an easier way. Pat may be on to something that I hadn’t thought of.

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4” is pretty thick, thats a tough decision. There are large circular saws, but they are about $500, and I don’t know who you would call that would own one that you could have them cut it. Maybe check a rental outfit and see if they have such a beast.

I had the same problem and got a good method from some forum posters. Use a straight edge guide and cut as deep as you can. Then turn it over and clamp the straight edge so that it cuts 1/16” past the first cut. Then use a pattern bit to flush the longer side up to the first cut. One note though – I ended up buying a new circular saw to do this. The old one (a CMan) would not adjust to perpendicular to the plate. It was off by a couple degress due to the motor housing hitting the plate before it reached square. A number of the ones I looked at had similar problems. So double check your CS squareness before cutting.

-- Use the fence Luke

I use a homemade circular saw guide whose edge references the actual blade cut. Having that, it’s a simple job of laying out the cut lines and then clamping the guide dead-on before making the cut. With a deep cut such as you have, I always make a shallow scoring cut before going full depth in order to circumvent any chip-out. If you go this way, make sure your circular saw is tuned, that the blade is sharp and that you’re making a cut that’s square to the table top.

I used this method on my bench top which is 3 inches thick, but I made housed tenons for a breadboard end-cap instead of leaving the end grain exposed.

Good luck.

Always,
J.C.

-- "Imagination is more important than knowledge" -- Albert Einstein

I would probably just do the cut by hand myself if I didn’t have
a timber-frame saw handy. A circular saw will probably burn
and leave deep marks anyway so you’ll need to clean-up with
a hand-plane either way.

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I had exactly the same problem last year when I built my bench, Doug S. did almost what I did but I think his idea of the flush trim bit is one better.

I used a straight edge and set my Circular saw to max depth and squared it up. I crosscut the bench top and then used the kerf left behind by the C.S. as a guide and finished the cut with a hand saw. Came out really well with only a small amount of cleanup work with a sanding block.

Prevented me from having to man handle the top by myself, mine is 3 1/2” thick by 7’ long and very heavy, not to mention awkward if working alone. Anyway, that was my solution, hope it helps

Chris

-- So Much Wood - So Little Time! --

You could make a jig to slide over the end and then use your router, somewhat the way you would plane rough lumber with the router as shown in some other threads here except doing it on the end.

I know, another silly little picture :)

How about renting a large circular saw?

-- Ellen on Cape Cod

KnotHead has it. I use this method to do quick resawing sometimes-
cut a kerf in either edge of a board on the table saw and then
push it right on through the bandsaw – needs no featherboards
or fussy fence settings because the band goes in the kerf
and doesn’t want to leave.

If I used the router bit method it would be only for final trimming
and squaring. I’ve found it unwise to trust routers to do this
sort of heavy cut well… and I’m assuming you don’t want to
screw it up.

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If you’ve got a few bucks burning a hole in your pocket, you could get one of these: http://www.praziusa.com/beamcutter.html