Circular saw blues

I want to be able to butt joint T-Slot profiles, basically because it's cheap, and just requires I have some screws around to do it. Trouble is, the jigsaw table just doesn't cut the ends close enough to square.

I have a circular saw, so I could build a cross cut jig for it. When I checked the square for the circular saw, I found it wasn't very, and that the adjustment didn't work. So I started thinking about other options...

I guess a metal cut-off saw would do the perfect job, but it's rather specific, and just too big a thing to have around for such a limited purpose. Also, I have a DIY project that would benefit from mitre saw, and another one that could use a cross pull mitre saw (cutting shelves). These are also big, but at least they are more versatile. I would cut the aluminium using an aluminium specific blade.

For example the Skil 1131 costs very little and gets good reviews. Cross pull is too big really, except for the Ryobi EMS216L with it's cunning forward facing track. It's too expensive to be a no-brainer. The very expensive Festool 561400 Kapex Sliding compound mitre saw works the same way, but is a little beyond my budget. All of these are pretty big really.

A plunge saw would do very well for the shelves. The track wouldn't take up much space, and the saw is no bigger than my existing circular saw. I jig for cut-offs would be very simple, because all the moving parts are in the saw: you would just plunge through the cut rather than push. The jig would also be very small. This seems like the way forward.

But... I'm not going to get any change from £300, and I still have to build a jig. Time to work a bit harder on the circular saw. And working on it pays off...

My saw is a DW23550. It says in the instructions to adjust the stop (16). As I said above this has no effect. That's because at the other end of the saw, there's a little L-shaped bit of metal made by bending a flat iron bar to roughly 90 degrees. When the bevel is set to 0 it rests on the shoe (it is in the diagrams). You will have to remove this, and repeat the adjustment. If you put it back now you will probably find as you tighten it, it pushes down, wrecking the adjustment again. File the inside of the angle to get it square, so it doesn't do that, and then tighten it up again. It stiffens the foot noticeably when the saw is set to 0, so it's worth putting it back on.

Now I've got that sorted out, I can work on the cross cut jig.

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