20 Best Saw For Cutting Wood (2023 Updated)

Would give it five starts, but laser is not powered by electrical cord. Laser has separate battery with on/off switch. You HAVE to remember to turn it off after every use or else you kill the battery in no time.

The battery died after one work session, because I left the switch in the on position. The circular saw blade was not perfectly perpendicular to the base plate. I took a square to verify it and it was off.

I had to make a few adjustments with a file to correct it. Worked fine in the project. The case is awesome and has storage for blades. Cord is long enough. For 65 bucks out the door it’s worth it.

Used it for a couple of small projects, the blade didn’t last long, cut a few pin nails on a used piece of lumber and the blade dulled faster than you could snap your fingers. Lol Bought a good carbide tip blade and was impressed with my saw.

Love the saw, the blade was a disappointment. Love my saw!.

I found it a bit heavy and not enough power for my needs. It struggled a bit to cut 3/8 from a door bottom. I think it would be better for less mass to cut thru. Im sure it will work for my future needs.

The price is very good and I do like the WEN products.

This is the second one of these I have bought; why would I do that? The first one showed me how very good it is to have a vacuum port, especially in remodel work. It stopped right there. My hand size is xl.

Even so, I found it almost impossible to make horizontal cuts, especially down low, because of the difficulty in depressing the safety button and the on switch at the same time. I’m sure the testing of this unit before going to market was not as rigorous as, say at Sears Test Base.

The engineers and technicians there would have rejected the tool as rubbish. One cannot safely coordinate and control those two switches except using the upright stance and grip shown in the product photos.

It is light, makes fast work cutting light materials, and has good adjustment features, if you’re standing at the work and cutting straight away from yourself. Any other positioning produces bad cuts and dangerous positioning of the hands because of the safety button.

The danger comes in attempting an awkward cut and having the safety switch prevent continuous running. This stops the blade and usually causes the blade to pinch when one is trying to negotiate the grip on the two switches; the mechanical interlock safety, and the electrical trigger.

During these pinches the saw will kick back,also dangerous. If all of the cutting to be done was standing at the work, any number of other saws would be just fine, including a worm drive. This brings up the question of handedness.

The Rockwell could be handier for lefties, but the grip around the drive components is just as cumbersome for left or right. Other tools seldom have this cumbersome grip burdened further by having to actuate, in sequence, the safety and then “on”.

The safety switches I’ve run across on the other popular brands do not present these problems. Also,using it left handed, the blade is hard to see. We used to get paid to produce these evaluations. A reasonable fix would be to have the safety and trigger directly apposed; top and bottom.

Then anyone that could grip around the neck of this saw could use it in almost any position. Better yet, have both be electrical wired in series so that the hand would have to be fully engaged in order to switch it “on”.

It’s my opinion that this product will produce more liability than it would without the safety. Interesting, because the safety is a mechanical interlock which can easily be defeated. I’m thinking all of this is probably moot as this product is becoming unpopular, and there is a noticeable uptick in Ebay and ‘clearance’ sales of the unit.

I don’t like to review tools too early in the usage cycle since I can’t really comment on durability over time since I’ve only owned it for a little while. I’ll leave that to others who have used one for years.

I think the ‘bottom line’ question for a lot of people is “should I buy one of those little handheld circular saws when I already have a big one”. Depending on the work you’re doing, the answer may be a strong yes.

This tool does not replace a chop saw or a larger circular saw and nobody is suggesting that. If you need to make a lot of production cuts or you need to cut heavier material, those tools have earned their place in the lineup.

Where this tool shines brightest is when you need to make a field cut in some kind of odd position that requires the smaller, one-handed design. In our case, our home was impacted by Hurricane Matthew and invited in the Atlantic Ocean for a couple hours.

The result was short of a total gut rehab but it was a fairly major renovation that required a lot of retrofitting, of cutting out ‘bad’ material to be replaced by new, etc, all of it in weird positions.

This was purchased later into the project, I wish I had purchased it earlier. It was very helpful, not to mention that as the project progressed, it became the handy grab-and-go saw for making quick cuts on all sorts of stuff, from plywood to trim.

I give this 4 stars of 5 because I can’t attest to its long term durability but presuming this tool holds up, it’s a 5 star unit. On a home building or major renovation project, I wouldn’t be without a chop saw, I wouldn’t be without a full size circular saw and now that I’ve used this, I wouldn’t be without one of these, either.

Rockwell’s Compact Circular Saw has its pluses & minuses. It has a nice long electrical cord; I have used it many times without using an extension cord. The depth and angle adjustment are simple and easy to use.

When holding the Compact Circular Saw, it seems heavy for its size and solidly build; that being said, when I turn off my saw, as it is spinning down, it makes loud and disturbing noises, like metal clanging or bearings flying around inside the motor.

However, it continues to work and works well. (I will keep using it until it flies apart. ) On the minus side, how cheap can Rockwell be; for a hundred dollars, they give you a cardboard box to store your Compact Circular Saw.

The thing I dislike most about the Compact Circular Saw is the safety/on-off switch. My hand is of average to large size. I have found it difficult to turn on the Compact Circular Saw on while wearing leather gloves; it is hard to grip and turn on the safety switch.

I can manage without gloves but I rather wear gloves while the saw blade is spinning. The Compact Circular Saw has its place but it is no replacement for a 7 ¼ inch saw. I own both the Rockwell Jaw Horse and the Rockwell Oscillating Multi Tool each of which I would rate five stars.

However, the Compact Circular Saw is just mediocre, deserving a three or at best a four star rating.

Best saw ever. I will never go back to a abrasive chop saw. This saw does just what it says. Very Very GOOD!

Fast delivery. Quality product. My husband is very impressed with this saw

I have been framing commercial and residential projects for 28 years, third generation framer. I have tried many different saws. worm-drives are so heavy they cannot compare to all the cutting I can do with the Makita 5007 series.

The Milwaukee saws are not balanced right , Dewalt ,saw cat, porter cable ,skil , are ok if you dont do much cutting but the best (Makita) never rest. My crew and I use them for cutting every weekday and weekends too and they become your right arm! They’re perfect in your hand and balanced extremely well.

We cut at least $20,000 of material every week. The only reason we replace them is because we use them till the triggers don’t click anymore. and we drop them off the roof from time to time. We even replace triggers too.

They’re super easy to repair. We don’t like the preset type saws. Makita saws only stop at a 45degree which I like because if the saw gets out of square they seem hard to adjust, and the Makita has a set screw under the plate which you can true it up with.

Excellent tool!.

My sister got this tool out and it was used for the first time. She set it by the guide and cut the ends off some long shelves we had. She said it did a good job and is not nearly as big, heavy and clunky as a regular size circular saw.

One of these days I’ll try it myself.

Great saw. I have already a big table saw. But I needed this saw for small projects. For example, for a birdhouse, small shelf, etc.

I am not a DYI guy, however since my purchase of this item I have done quite a few DYI projects. It’s perfect for those small jobs.

Love it ! Strong solid tool. Exactly what I needed for hard wood projects

it is very smooth on the cut and very efficient for the energy spent atleast to be Twice as that of western handsaws

I have owned the Makita 16 inch circular saw for several years and I hate it! It’s poorly balanced, under powered, has severe torque on start up, safety start button is a PIA, the blade is ridiculously expensive and as a right side blade saw, it sucks for right handed carpenters! Now, you would think I would have enough sense to never buy another Makita circular saw? I own several Makita tools and overall, I like the brand quality.

So, I figured I would give the 10 1/4 a shot? Results? Same issues as the 16 inch saw, just not nearly as heavy! I’ve been a carpenter/custom home builder for 46 years. I have 2 Skilsaws that are over 30 years old and still rock! Bottom line.

I returned the Makita and bought the Skilsaw Sasquatch!. couldn’t be happier!.

This is perfect for cutting 100mm KingSpan. It cuts straight and saves so much time from using a saw. Much bigger than i expected but easy enough to maneuver and use. Very Powerful, i got the 240v one.

No battery one available as of yet.

A lot of saw for your money. Build quality seems good but I guess time will tell. Beast of a powerful motor should see that big blade slice through big stock. Would have liked the option to have bought it with a storage box but maybe this is possible? Looking forward to adding a guide rail system to it.

Nice saw with the interchangeable set of blades. Bout it for the 52 TPI blade for superfine work. If I had a complaint I wish the kerf was a bit wider. The blades tend to bind up. Gonna have to get a stick of beeswax or maybe some “Burt’s Bees Lip Balm”.

Awesome it has had lots of work and it is very sharp really really pleased with it

Impressed with two things. The versatility of the saw and the speed of supply by G force.

As you would expect for $60, you are not going to get a high quality product, but one that will get the job done. The included blade is trash and will have serious issues for anyrhing thicker than plywood (burning, crooked cuts, etc), so replace it with a $15 Diablo 24 teeth framwrs blade (or higher count for finishing).

Paired with a Diablo, this tool worked smoothly. Cuts were clean and straight. Remember, it’s a $60 tool. You can’t expect the included to be any good.

I don’t know why there are so many bad reviews for this little saw – perhaps some of these people weren’t using it correctly. Previous reviews said the built in blade bent and didn’t cut well. I have a feeling that people were starting the blade against the edge of what they were cutting rather than starting the saw first and then moving into their lumber.

I had no issues with unusual rattling or vibration either – I am wondering if the blade wasn’t mounted properly or the nuts weren’t put in the right positions by other users. I had bought extra blades out of concern and they never came out of the package.

The default blade was more than fine to cut 2×6 beams, hardwood plywood sheets, with no issues at all! It doesn’t come with a dust guard and the little hole that acts as a dust guard ends up getting blocked as the safety guard moves over it and the saw dust speed everywhere anyway.

That is okay honestly, for $60, it’s not about bells and whistles but getting the cutting done with no issue.

The baseplate flexes so much that it’s impossible to cut square. You can’t properly apply pressure to the saw either. Worst circ saw I’ve ever been near. Usually Ryobi gives a decent product with obvious limitations due to price but they really should just not have released this.

This product has very confusing specs, Tech assured us it would cut a 60″x60″ panel. It will not. It is only for a 48″ tall/wide panel. Was told by MCS Tech person to order the extensions which do not offer the ability to cut anything taller than 48″.

The extensions are to supply the ability to cut a longer piece of panel. We ordered this based on MCS recommendations and now we are having to pay the shipping to return their mistake. Buyer Beware of this company.

They do not know anything about what they are selling and will not stand behind their people making mistakes and costing the consumer hundreds of dollar to return items their people recommend.

We’re using this saw to build crate for our playhouses. This is a good saw if you cut large quantity of plywood. We built a wood extension because the saw was too narrow to cut full sheets.

Great saw, minimal set and adjusting. Packaging/handling needs some work. Received damaged but fixable.

I’m slowly building up my power tool collection and already have a table and miter saw, but have really been wanting a circular saw. I build furniture and do other woodworking projects around my house and I loved finding one that’s safe and high quality but at such a lower price point than the other brands.

I will be using this quite often so may eventually need a heavier duty one but for now this is perfect.

I’m a big fan of Ryobi, great quality for a great price. I bought the 6-piece tool kit that comes with a 5 1/2 inch cordless circular saw, but that’s not going to hold up to bigger jobs that take longer, so I wanted a 7 1/4 corded saw.

I initially had bought the CSB125, but it doesn’t have a laser which is very useful. This CSB135 is a much better tool, and I got it cheaper here to eBay than the new 125 had been. Glad I bought it.

I really enjoy using this power saw with the laser guide light. It even keeps the line blown clean which helps keep it on the mark. A very good power tool at a reasonable price! Changed the blade to a finish blade and it handles it just great.

Thanks!.

I own a small construction company. About 5 years ago I switched from Dewalt to Milwaukee for our cordless power tools. I also own Makita and Festool cordless and corded tools where I find Milwaukee doesn’t compete or where Milwaukees tools are inferior.

I purchased the Milwaukee M-18 table saw about 2 years ago. At the time we had two Dewalt corded 10” job site table saws. The Dewalt saws were outstanding, as a matter of fact I sold both of them to men who work for our trim sub contractors and Insee them on our job sites often.

So, when I bought the Milwaukee M-18 8 1/2” saw, it had very strong competition from Dewalt in this tool. Overall, I and my workers are satisfied with this saw. It’s powerful enough to rip plywood, and 2x lumber.

I’ve also ripped LVL’s and very heavy advantech subfloor and 1 1/2” MDF sheets that were glued to gather and being wrapped in a thermoplastic labor for shop shelving. The saw is not as powerful as the corded Dewalt with a thin kerf blade nor can it cut as thick of a board.

I have 6 HD 12. 0, 6 9. 0, 2 8. 0 and a a mix of smaller cell batteries from the 3. 0 HD all batteries and we keep 3 on each van. Tonight we ripped down a bunch of non returnable 2×4’s, 2×8’s and 2×10’s that were in the trash pile from a new build custom home.

We use 1. 5” by 1. 5” boards for furring and rather than purchasing them, we take the scrap from newly framed homes and rip them down then band them together. It’s time consuming but we end up salvaging lumber that normally goes to a landfill.

We also take any longer 2x scrap and clean them up for future use. For example all our homes are framed with 2×6 exteriors, 2×12 floor joists, 2×10 rafters or if called for… anything from 2x4x16 to LVL’s… we also clean up (cut back to square or into useful storable shapes.

Last year we threw away 6 40 yard dumpsters of scrap lumber. Anyway… back to the saw…. That being said, tonight I went through 3 M-12 batteries, well, 2 full batteries and about 1/2 of another. I cut about 600’ of 2x pine and Douglas fir (spelling??).

What I like: (1) lightweight compact and incredible transportable saw (2) ease of set up on the Milwaukee table saw stand. (3) simple and accurate rip fence. (4) power (5) Ease of adjusting blade height, blade angle, fence and the removal or install of the riving knife and safety cover.

Ergonomically… it’s well thought out… but not perfect. Truly, all Milwaukee needed to do was copy most of Dewalts portable table saw and in all fairness, it appears that Milwaukee did try. So where did Milwaukee fall short? Here are my thoughts and some of the thoughts of my workers.

(1) 10” blade would be appreciated. The 10” blade is more capable especially on 45-degree angles and on thicker materials. If Milwaukee can increase power… (2) Milwaukee uses a lot of plastic gears and poorly fit parts in the rack and pinion rip fence.

Yes it locks down but it just feels cheaply made in comparison to the Dewalt competition. (3) the rip fence measure tape is just a foil tape that has poor adhesive on the back. We leave these tools in vans.

Both saws we own have had the measure tape come Loose at the ends… then saw dust keeps them from being re-attached. Warranty covered the repairs but it took 3 weeks! (4) overall ergonomics and quality of build needs improvement considering that this saw is marketed as a “premium” professional contractor tool and it is not cheap.

Conclusion. We like the saw. We don’t plan on going back to Dewalts saws. However, we miss the quality of the Dewalt fence gearing, handles, larger blade, and overall power. With $20 dollars in better materials, with a little more thoughtfulness on ergonomics and a corporate goal that pushes excellence and absolute industry leading quality… well the saw could become something we are proud to own.

3 stars because 5 is perfect and 4 is the Dewalt saw.

Having a job come up that had no on site power, I decided to buy this cordless unit. once on the job site and opening the box an getting this setup, I noticed the blade was missing from the box, being the odd size blade and not having one on site, had to drive back to town to buy a blade.

Finally getting the unit running and checking everything for square. We ran our boards through the saw. Surprisingly the unit had the power to keep up and keep pace with our work. Being battery powered we we not sure if it will do what we wanted (being that we are used to the corded dewalt portable table saw).

We used the 12ah batteries and we only went through 2 of them for that day. Now the fence is something else. After running test pieces through and checking widths. we ran our boards through. during the glue up, we found that a lot of the boards were not lining up and process of elimination lead back to the fence.

The fence being clamped down it was loose. checking and fiddling with the catch did nothing. The manual does not show anything about adjusting the tension of the fence. We tried adjusting the fastener for the fence, but that either made it only snug or made it extremely hard to glide the fence.

Im not sure if this is normal for this saw. but this is a no no in my books and does not sit with my normally praising workmanship on Milwaukee gear. (and I own a lot of their M12, M18 line up). Basically Good power, great battery life, bad precision, bad fence.

I had to purchase this table saw three times,(i purchased it from the home depot)the first time I got it the saw had a crack near where the riving knife sits which made the blade not sturdy. Making the return to the home depot was a living hell, since i bought this as a combo kit with the stand, home depot insisted i had to return it all together, eventually i convinced them it is the exact same saw on their shelf.

The second table saw i got didnt even have its battery or charger. So i had to go to home depot yet again to get another saw, and the last saw i got the throat plate was warped, so i called milwaukee and asked them to send me another one which they obliged to do.

Just to find out that i had to swap the set screws the lock lever and the black sticker over to the new throat plate. Come on milwaukee i expect better i have bought a dozen milwaukee tools and have never had an issue like this.

Pros to this saw it is very compact and light, i immediately put a diablo blade on it. Cons i feel like the saw feels under powered when ripping a 2×8 8 ft stud i hope i dont have any issues ripping plywood, osb, melamine.

This powerfull circular saw is exactly the saw I needed to do my wood work (building shelves, stools and cupboard). The size of the blade suits me well too because I’m able to go through thick pieces of wood.

This is my second Makita tool I have a router set and I needed a circular saw and this saw has good reviews I just received the saw but it is lightweight and sturdy and seems to be good quality. I have made a few test cuts and it cuts great and it’s a lot quieter than other circular saws I have used so that’s a plus and it’s easy 2 set the depth and bevel angle and blade changes is easy and the saw has on-board storage for the hex wrench for blade changes.

I would recommend this saw it’s lightweight easy 2 use great quality saw.

This saw is light weight, quiet to run, and still feels robust. I chose this saw for its lower power draw so that it does not blow the fuse. It is perfect for DIY. The base is made from plate materials in stead of cast alloy.

But then the price is right.