How To Rip Plywood With Circular Saw [The Right Way]

A circular saw is a fantastic saw that can cut wood pretty quickly. This saw can be conveniently used to cut plywood in a short time. But, you need to know the proper technique to cut a large piece of wood; otherwise, you may damage the expensive workpiece.

Guess what? Here, I am going to talk about how to rip plywood with a circular saw. So, keep scrolling to learn this art.

How To Rip Plywood With A Circular Saw

Almost all circular saw with a right saw blade can rip plywood effortlessly. Just collect the below-mentioned things and follow the following procedure to rip plywood successfully. So, let’s begin…

Tools needed

1. A quality cordless circular saw
2. Measuring tape
3. Marker or pencil
4. Safety gears

1. Set the plywood position

An essential part of plywood cutting is setting the plywood perfectly in a vast and convenient place so that the workpiece won’t move while cutting. It directly affects the cutting accuracy and smoothness. Therefore, you can set the plywood on a sawhorse or a plane surface.  If you have a gigantic and expensive sheet, you can place it on the floor.

A significant advantage of placing the larger workpieces on the ground is that you can control the cut efficiently by riding over the sheet.  It also helps you to guide the circular saw correctly. While placing the wood piece, ensure that the best face of the wood is facing downward. It will provide a finished-looking cut.

Also, it would help if you clamped the wood firmly so that it wouldn’t move while cutting with the sharp cutter. Also, add a well-supported panel below the plywood to keep your floor or working surface unharmed.

Here you can place another piece of plywood underneath the plywood that you are going to cut. Remember, you have to put another wood perpendicular to the workpiece so that the cut edge can fall off easily.

2. Make cutting line

Now it time to draw a cutline once you placed the plywood firmly in its position. You can use a measuring tape, a pencil or a marker to make a line that you are going to follow while ripping the plywood. To draw the line perfectly without any error, you can make the cutline using a straight roller and marker.

Moreover, you can use a utility knife to make the line more visible. So, score a line with the knife and run the knife over the scored line multiple times to make the line more effortless to follow with a circular saw.

Remember, this step is super crucial, and if you make the wrong measurement and cutting line, you ruin the expensive plywood. So, carefully do this step with intensive care.

3. Choose the perfect circular saw blade

Many people ignore this blade choosing part and using the blade that comes with the saw. As a result, they suffer the consequence during cutting. It may lead to a rough cut with a chipped edge. So, you need to get a blade that performs well with plywood. The best way to find a suitable blade is to pick a blade that has a greater number of teeth.

The most popular plywood-cutting carbide blades have 40 to 140 teeth. So you have to get a blade having at least 40 teeth. However, 140-toothed circular saw blades cut exceptionally smoother, and the problem is the blades get dull pretty quickly. If you want to cut your expensive plywood really smoother, you can use a 56-tooth laminate cutting blade.

And, make sure that you have bought two saw blades before starting your cut so that you don’t have to keep the cut unfinished or finish roughly due to a dull blade.

4. Adjust the blade according to the plywood depth

Now, you have to adjust your circular saw’s blade depth by turning and loosening the depth adjustment lever, which is located on the sole of the power saw. Now, set the depth of the blade according to the plywood depth. Ensure that you keep the blade around 0.6 cm deeper than the workpiece depth. Lastly, tighten the lever again and get ready to cut the plywood.

5. Take measures to minimize splintering

Before start cutting, you can take an easily manageable step to reduce the splintering issue. Therefore, you should put tape over the cut line, and it will work like a mask. Moreover, this extra layer will help to achieve an excellent cut without any splintering issues. Use good quality tape so that you don’t have to face any dilemma while pulling them out.

6. Start cutting

Connect the circular saw to the power source and turn the saw on. No matter what brand of circular saw you are using, you must wait few seconds until the blade reaches its top speed after turning the saw on.

When the blade begins to rotate furiously, you should connect it at the edge of the cutline, and it will start ripping the wood. You have to hold the blade with both hands to operate it correctly, and your fingers should be away from the on/off trigger.

Now, if you try to cut faster and push the saw forward against its natural speed, you will make an inaccurate cut. Also, if you move too slowly, your saw’s blade will become extremely hot, which may burn the workpiece. So, you have to maintain a steady speed during cutting. It would be best if you cut with the flow of the saw and don’t stop at the middle of the cut.

After finishing the cut, just turn the circular saw off and wait until the blade standstill.

Final Words

Congratulations! Now you know how to rip plywood with a circular saw. If you never used a circular saw before, I would recommend you to read the instruction manual thoroughly and practice some cutting on unused wood sheets so that you can easily slice your plywood.

Please let us know if face any issue while cutting plywood. We will try out utmost to solve the problem.