cutting large sheets of plywood can be awkward and challenging especially if you're by yourself
so today we're going to look at one simple way to carry plywood two methods for safely supporting
them and three options for cutting them to size moving plywood sheets around by yourself can be
a challenge so the cheapest way that I found to do it is this $22.00 panel carrier this simple
tool allows you to clamp all kinds of different sheet good materials including drywall and that
allows you to lift the sheet from the top rather than bending over to lift it from the bottom this
tool is a back saver and for $22 I think it's a great option if you're going to be carrying
around plywood by yourself or with a buddy because plywood sheets are so big and oftentimes quite
heavy properly supporting them while cutting is extremely important to reduce kickback and
binding of the saw blade with that let's talk about two methods to safely support the plywood
while cutting the first method is to use scrap pieces of wood material that's at least 3/4 by
4 feet long and place them under the sheet of plywood of course you want to make sure that
the plywood is first resting on a level surface like a big table or the ground and for cross cuts
I like to use two pieces on either end and two pieces about three inches on either side of my
cut line what this does is supports the sheets while you're cutting and most importantly once
the cut is finished it stops the sheets from moving or dropping which would pinch the blade
and if you've never seen or heard what that sounds like take a look and listen at this
the last thing I want to say before moving on is to be sure to double-check the depth of your saw
blade you don't want the blade set too deep so as you end up cutting the material or the
surface that's beneath the plywood the second method to support plywood is to use a piece of
rigid insulation to do this simply lay the sheet of plywood on top of the insulation set your blade
depth through about an eighth of an inch below the plywood and at this point you can make any cut in
any direction without worrying about moving scraps of wood around to support each piece one of the
downsides to this method is that you have to store the sheet of insulation somewhere and of course it
will need replaced after it gets worn out but I think that's a small price to pay for flexibility
and added safety as a side note to make it easier to store the insulation cut it in half and then
tape it back together on one side that way you can fold it up when you're done making storing
it so much easier until the next time you need it so now that we looked at one way to carry sheets
of plywood two methods for safely supporting them while cutting let's finish this video out
by looking at three options for actually cutting them to size the first option we're going to
talk about is great for rough fast cuts stuff for like sub floors or wall sheathing or for finished
plywood when you're trying to size it down before you take it to the table saw for the finished cut
this first option starts off by simply measuring and marking two reference points at your desired
dimension on both sides of the plywood then using a straight edge connected to points by drawing a
line from there you can freehand the cut meaning that the saw is only being guided by your hand so
the better you are that the straighter your cut will be again this could be your finished cut it
just all depends on how clean you need it to be or you could easily run this over to the table
saw and make a final pass to clean things up as I've already mentioned this is a great way to
size big sheets down which also helps to eliminate the burden of trying to cross cut these big sheets
at the table saw and as a matter of fact all the options that we're going to look at the next two
are also great for sizing big sheets down that may or may not be cut again later now when it
comes to the straightedges themselves a four or six foot level works great straight long pieces
of one buy or even if you have a really long eight-foot rip cut to make you can use a thin
chalk line like this one to snap a cut line most of the time this freehand option will be used on
what I'll call rough plywood things like sheathing or flooring like I mentioned but as you can see it
can also be used to reduce down sheets of finished plywood like this the second option we're going to
look at incorporates the use of a guide guides are a powerful tool in woodworking and carpentry
because they help to keep the saw cutting straight which produces a very similar cut then to that of
a table saw the cheapest way to make a guide is to use a piece of straight wood and a few clamps so
this time instead of using the straightedge to simply draw a pencil line we're going to clamp
it down and use it as a guide this method does require two clamps and it does take a little
bit longer to set up but the cut is significantly better than the previous option in a similar way
to the first option you start by measuring and marking for your cut the next step is to find
the offset of the saw blades so that you can set the straightedge to the correct position if you
flip your saw over you can see that the blade is inbound or offset from the edge of the shoe
a lot of people like to measure that distance but it can get confusing to know which side of
the blade you should be measuring from therefore let me show you a different way without measuring
the blades offset with the sheet marked out and knowing that I want the right piece here to be
my waist or cut off and my left piece to be my finished piece line up the blade so that's just
to the right side of the pencil mark holding this off firmly in position take a pencil and Mark the
right side of the shoe that mark represents the location of the guide to get the same mark on
the other side of the sheet simply measure between those two lines and Mark that same distance at the
other end now clamp your guide to those two pencil marks line up the saw and you're cut
now there is a faster way to do this that still falls within this option and that is to use a
guide or a straightedge that has a clamp built right into it this obviously speed things up
because not dealing with two separate clamps plus you've upgraded to a metal guide which is always
straighter than a wood one the layout is the same as before the only difference is the speed
at which you can clamp this straightedge down I've use this straightedge for a very long time
and I think it works really good but recently a friend of mine came to me and said I should
look at a different option which leads us to our third option which is to use a circular salt track
there are two main parts the track or rail and the sled attachment the sled securely attaches
to almost any circular saw shoe which enables then the saw to ride perfectly within the track to make
a cut using a track measure and Mark the plywood at your desired location then simply line up the
edge of the track with your pencil lines and because the track has a non-slip bottom there's
no need to clamp the track in place once you've double-checked your measurements make the cut by
lining the grooves in the sled with the grooves on the track and push the saw through to make the cut
as you can see this option eliminates two steps that we had to previously take which
was to measure for the offset of the blade and to actually clamp the straightedge into
position Craig also makes a rip guide that uses the same sled attachment to make long
rip cuts simply slide the sled into the RIP cut jig and lock it down to make cuts up to
24 inches wide the combination of the two Craig systems and the rigid insulation for supporting
the plywood makes for a great setup for precisely cutting sheets of plywood so
those are the three options if you were at all confused about any of the information
that we went over you can drop me a comment below of course you can always email me and
if you need more basic circular saw tips and beginner guide information check out
these two videos right here thank you so much for watching I'll see everybody hopefully next week