Saw options

[Shelster]

Am about to embark on a garden project of putting in some new softwood sleepers (100 x 200 x 2400) to make an L-shaped raised bed area and am wondering what would be the best option for doing the cuts?

In total am looking at approximately a dozen cuts and want them to be as good as can be, as these will be facing outwards in places.

Do not want to go down the chainsaw route as am rather attached to my legs and other extremities so can see three options

1 - Handsaw it with the effort involved and also buying a few saws too so as the ensure am using a nice sharp one
2 - Circular saw with a flip of the sleeper as can’t seem to find one that does 100mm deep
3 - Reciprocating saw with suitable wood blades

Cons of 1 are the effort involved and also making sure the cut is true all the way through, but -positive is it is the cheapest option. Am sort of leaning to the power tool option being a lazy hit and also not that hot with cutting straight. Just have to decide on circular or reciprocating, which is why I have come to ask the great knowledge and advice source that is OcUK.

Given the choice, what option would you go for and why?

 

[Sin_Chase]

The circular saw and flip will be the quickest but probably leave a pretty nasty finish if you freehand/eyeball it. For the most accurate cut I would probably clamp a guide batten either side of the sleeper on the wide faces and then run the circular saw against them (Make sure to run the plate the right way around so the cuts match up from side to side!)

I'd be tempted to say the recip saw option would offer the best compromise between speed and accuracy but ultimately you might be best off using a decent handsaw. A recip. is very much a demolition/1st fix tool and a blade of that length is going to flex/wander a fair amount. You could consider a jigsaw which accepts a extra long blade but it will have the same flex/wander issue that the recip. saw would.

Out of the options, assuming you did not want to hand tool it, I would circular saw it making sure to spend extra time lining everything up and using guides.

 

[200sols]

These softwood sleepers are easy to cut but none of the option you list will give you a perfect finish. Why not have the cuts hiddden?

 

[divuk83]

Reciprocating saw: More of a tool of destruction and something that you would never get neat results with.
Chain Saw: Expensive, you should really get the PPE to go with it and you are not going to that neat a cut anyway.
Circular Saw: Probably the best bet. Depends on your budget, but a fairly inexpensive one will require cuts from both sides. Which if marked up accurately and you use a guide or a roofing square to keep the saw straight should look decent enough. You could hire one but generally its hard to find much bigger than a 235mm saw that will cut to just shy of 90mm. That will still leave you with having to either finish with a hand saw on flip it over. If you do you use a hand saw to finish it the different kerf of the blade will leave a step that will need a bit of trimming. A belt sander of a block plane should do that.

Are all the sides of the planter on view or is it up against a wall or something? If it has a back that isn't visible then with a bit of planning you should be able to have all the sleepers orientated so that the factory cut ends face out and any you have cut yourself are facing inwards or backwards. I did this raised bed a few years ago (hopefully the picture works!)

Dave

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

Hire one?
When I did my decking I hired (for negligable but thats cos other half works there) a massive saw, think it was 300mm or something blade, it went through 9x3 like butter.

HSS/Speedy Hire

Something like this, will do 100mm deep

https://www.speedyservices.com/15_0528-h-milwaukee-ms305db-heavy-duty-double-compound-mitre-saw

 

[Terminal_Boy]

Circular saw.

While a correctly used chainsaw with a sharp chain can make a straight cut, it’ll never be as neat as a circular or table saw.

 

[divuk83]

I'm not sure I would go mitre saw. Trying to get 2.4m long sleepers onto it and then keeping them supported isn't going to be that easy.

Dave

 

[adwol48]

I would have said a mitre/chop saw would be the best option and to handle the 2.4m lengths a mitre saw stand would handle that length easily i just picked up a cheap aldi workzone one for my mitre saw it was like 39 quid for the stand. you would still have to do two cuts with a 210mm mitre saw as the max cut depth is 65mm for most i think but it would be more easily repeatable if you had a stand or a stop block set up.

 

[sovietspybob]

I've got an Evolution Rage2 chop saw which i think is 355mm so will do around 150mm deep stuff, something like that could work.

I've used it to cut up some 4.8m 2x6 and it gave nice clean cuts on that, i mainly use it for chopping down logs as our log burner is really small so i have to cut quite a lot in half. This seemed the easiest way to do that without cutting my legs of with a chainsaw.

 

[Abyss]

I used a compound mitre saw (the evolution rage one). Fitted fine on the mitre saw stand or alternatively use it on the floor with a few blocks of wood to support the sleeper.

I used this method to make a coffee table and achieved really clean cuts. A couple of the cuts weren't perfectly aligned when doing the second cut but this was easily tidied up with an electric plane.

I'll post some photos when I get home tonight

 

[ttaskmaster]

NVM

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

I used a compound mitre saw (the evolution rage one). Fitted fine on the mitre saw stand or alternatively use it on the floor with a few blocks of wood to support the sleeper.

Exactly what I did when cutting all the cuts for my decking frame. Takes a few mins to find a few bits of wood to act as levellers and job done.

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

Handsaw the lot.
Clamp on a block of wood with a square face to saw against, and alternate sawing arms to avoid one ending up bigger than the other. Should only need to buy one decent saw for the whole job. Maybe get one you can resharpen and keep for other jobs later on?

Unless your used to cutting then it seems a risky move, especially when you can get power tools that will make it so much easier.

 

[ttaskmaster]

NVM

 

[sovietspybob]

Tbf if they're softwood they would cut easily by hand, i do like doing cuts by hand quite often.

Slightly different but when i modified a trailer i cut most of the steel by hand with a hacksaw with a good quality blade as i found it easier to be more precise without having to spend loads on expensive cutting equipment.

 

[200sols]

Not at all - I'm really **** at cutting straight with a handsaw. That's why I use the block - Straight and square cuts much cheaper than power tools and without having to faff around with guides and things or wear dust masks.
Power tools just make it a lot easier to screw up worse and at much faster speeds. The only power tools I use nowadays are a drill-driver and a bandsaw.

How would it be possible to screw it up using the mitre saw? Line up the laser and plunge = perfect cut every time. Of course getting one with a big enough blade to go through in one cut is the issue. Hand tools are fine for small projects and certain types of intricate work but power tools just make life easy.

 

[ttaskmaster]

NVM

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

How would it be possible to screw it up using the mitre saw? Line up the laser and plunge = perfect cut every time. Of course getting one with a big enough blade to go through in one cut is the issue. Hand tools are fine for small projects and certain types of intricate work but power tools just make life easy.

This, i completely agree.
Ok so I have access to some pretty top end stuff due to other half working at Speedy, so its not diy level (although I do have my own £100 mitre)

However thats beside the point.
As I said i did my deck with a really good saw. It took a while to line up, but went through the wood like butter.
A year later we removed one of the bits of deck and replaced with a cabin. As such I thought i would modify the base using a hand saw (very good one brand new), now I am pretty good with hand tools but it wasnt in any way as good as the machine cut.
Bloody hard work as well, the wood was well seasoned by this point.

The right tool for the job, and to me when cutting thick timber thats a power saw

 

[Abyss]

Cuts I achieved with the mitre saw and some light sanding to the face and heavy sanding to the edges. These are new oak sleepers.

I misaligned one of the cuts and had to plane it down afterwards.

 

[darreny]

Straight cuts with a handsaw aren't that difficult. Mark a line and check the reflection of the wood in the sawblade . If it's straight the reflection should look like the timber carries on thru. Probably a video on YouTube somewhere if I've not explained it very well