Crosscut Jig for Your Circular Saw

I have an affinity for the circular saw. Perhaps it comes from building the back deck at my parents’ house with my father when I was a kid (my earliest memory of really getting to build anything). Perhaps it’s from the summers I spent remodeling houses and building fences to help pay for college. There are so many uses for the circular saw, but it does have one glaring deficiency: there is no fence.

Sure, you can buy attachments to help cut accurately. But why buy attachments when you can build a jig from scraps in your shop?

For a project in our “I Can Do That” web series, host Chad Stanton built an awesome crosscut jig to get 90 degree cuts every time he uses his circular saw. We decided to make it a video “extra” so our viewers could access it any time.

When I first saw this video, I kicked myself for not having thought of building one before. I had immediate flashbacks of all the cabinet installs and fence-building jobs where this jig would have been an incredible time-saver.

I personally think the circular saw sometimes gets a bad rap in the woodworking world. It’s like the block plane of power tools in that sense. It’s a simple tool that gives you a lot of room to make mistakes. And I am very good at making mistakes.

So take about eight minutes out of your day and watch this cool video on how to build a crosscut jig for a circular saw. If you decide to build one, and modify it, shoot me an email so we can write about your modifications in the PWM shop blog. After all, we only get better from practice and learning from other woodworkers.

— Jon Russelburg

Editors note: If you like this video, check out past episodes of “I Can Do That” at shopwoodworking.com…