My homemade track saw

[jackal]

After some responses to my earlier post on cutting slab sawn timber I have been using the method suggested of tacking a strip along the edge to create a straight edge to run along the saw fence. Although this has been effective it is a little slow when preparing a batch. Some members suggested a tracksaw which I could not afford. The upshot is that I come up with an solution that seems to work very well. After looking at my ally straight edge I thougt that I could easily creat a sledge for my 230mm that could run along it. In france these simple box section straight edges are available at most bricos at only 18e for a 4M so a cheap solution. My original idea was to clamp the straight edge to the timber and run the saw in its sledge to cut the timber. This worked well but was slow due to the moving of the tools to the next piece. I still wanted to cut in this was for awkward to move lumber but needed a quicker solution for 3m long boards. As an experiment I supported and clamped the straight edge to to stand ups and made two horses just low enough to rest the timber on below the straight edge and Voila it was much faster and in principle very good.

The small piece of ply on the straight edge is a cut line guide to aid the alightment of the wood to be cut. I thought I  would need to clamp the lumber down but so far not a problem after 50 plus boards

My only stumble now is how do I make it quick to set up and dedicated yet portable

Any ideas please

image link as I can,t remember how to insert images

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BwORWqBmiGe_UHowNlA2aXZEQjQ/edit?usp=sharing

 

[jackal]

does anyone have any ideas on how to improve my attemp saw other than buying an expensive commercial version that can cut 4m long wayney edge. The main concern is making it more convenient yet portable as it is fairly accurate for me.

I've added a pic

 

[xy mosian]

That is a well thought out solution jackal. I'm sorry I can't come up with answers to your questions. At the very least you will always need fairly stout support platforms for your timber and the framework for your saw arrangement needs to be rigid, at least when assembled. You know all this of course but it does show I'm considering the questions.
xy

 

[JakeS]

I don't know about portable, and maybe I'm missing something, but there are two things about that design that I would worry about:

- Hard to align cut as the blade comes out some distance to the right of the bar
- Nothing down against the surface of the wood means you'll probably get tearing along the cut

I'd suggest getting a relatively thin board - 9mm or so - and attaching it to the underside of the bar, protruding just a little bit past the cut line to the right. Then you can run the saw down the bar on the sled to trim that board to fit snugly against the blade.

Like that, you can just line the edge of that board up against the line you want to cut and be fairly sure it'll work, and at the same time the board being above the cut edge will help mitigate tearing a bit. If you can add another runner under your sled which sits nearly up against the blade, that will help hold the board down.

Of course, this adds to the height the saw base rides above the workpiece, which limits your depth of cut more. It may also be prudent to replace the board the saw sits on atop the sled with a thinner board - that doesn't need to be thick at all, you could probably get away with 3mm hardboard if you needed to!