Ski Builders Forum

I am having a bitch of a time figuring out how to cut strips of sidewall material off of this larger sheet.

Straight edge and razor blade kind of works, but takes forever. Jig saw with straight edge for guide kind of works, but the blade still wanders a little bit. Skil saw with straight edge works o.k. but I can't cut any straighter than I can drive. Obviously I am stuck with using a table saw, which I don't have. It looks like I can get a nice little 10" saw with a 30" table for about 150.00. I don't plan on ripping big sheets of ply so I guess I don't need to throw down 500 bones. My question now is what kind of blade should I use. I tried a couple different blades on the skil saw. The blade with the smallest teeth supposedly designed for plastic dug deep grooves in the plastic. The carbide tipped rough rip actually did an o.k. job. It looks like table saw blades are around 50 bucks so I don't want to buy the wrong blade.

Suggestions, please?

when i used to work for my dad putting up vinyl siding we used a plywood blade that was turned backwards to cur the vinyl. that worked really good. Not sure how it would work on thicker material though.

You've probably already tried this on the circular saw, but if you haven't it's probably worth spending $10 on a rip fence for your circular saw before throwing down on a table saw and blades. I can only speak for cutting wood, but they work really well and should give you cuts that are about as straight as you'd get with a portable table saw in the $150 range that you are checking out.
Have fun.

Think about investing in a bandsaw. In my opinion, this is a must have tool, along with a router for ski building. I used to use table saws now they are used as storage areas. We rip sidewall strips with a 4 tooth per inch 1/2 inch blade. Feed material through as fast as possible, usually a two man job. This leaves a smooth enough finish for abrading with a belt sander. If you do go with a bandsaw take the time to sat up the rip fence with the proper angle. PM me if you need more info. Good luck

If the skillsaw works well except for cutting straight, get one of these:

http://www.woodcraft.com/Product/202108 ... -inch.aspx




I'm willing to bet you won't be very pleased with that $150 table saw once you start to use it a lot.

I tried with a guide and the circular saw, and my hand caused me to lose the guide. I bought a little piece of shit table saw. I am not going to use it for anything besides cutting sidewalls so hopefully it won't be too much of a beater.

doughboyshredder wrote:I tried with a guide and the circular saw, and my hand caused me to lose the guide. I bought a little piece of shit table saw. I am not going to use it for anything besides cutting sidewalls so hopefully it won't be too much of a beater.

lay off the coffee a bit maybe?

You get my e-mail? Let me know if that works out for you.

It's the damn rockstar man. Ever since I replaced whiskey with rockstar I've been a jittery mess. LOL.

Black and decker 10" table saw with an 80 tooth carbide blade seems to work fine. Not quite perfect, but I think I can manage.

I am going to mess around with urethane for a couple test boards. I think pouring a sidewall would be a lot easier than this cutting crap.

success! managing to rip good sidewalls off of the plank now.