Kreg KMA2685 Rip-Cut Circular Saw Guide for Precise Cutting

Does the job and replaces a table saw. It is finicky to get the set screws correct and to told the saw in place in the guide as you use it. But use it slowly and carefully and it works.

Mounting points

Take your time and set it up right and it will cut right, but it scares me with all the plastic, so I treat it like egg shells. I use it for ripping plywood.

Presumably you're considering this guide either because you don't have a table saw or because you sometimes do wood-working "in the field." I fall into the first category--I don't have a proper space for an indoor workshop, so no table saw, and I do most of my work on my patio. (Which is now covered in sawdust!) You're probably hoping this guide can help your circular saw do three things: cut straight, cut reproducibility, and cut accurately. The common alternative is to just use a straight piece of wood as a fence, and guide your circular saw along that. So in this review, I'm going to focus on how it compares to using a fence for each of the three goals. CUTTTING STRAIGHT: When using a circular saw with a fence, I find it very hard not to have the last several inches of the cut deviate from a straight line. That's because the stress of the wood as it's about to separate tends to pull or push and change the cut. For me, it typically makes the last few inches of the cut a bit wider (i.e. further from the fence) than the rest, and sometimes miters the end of the cut a bit. Maybe if you're really good at figuring out how to support and clamp the pieces, you don't have that problem, but no matter how I arrange supports it comes up for me a lot. So is the Kreg guide better in this respect? No--it suffers from the same problem. In fact, it's maybe a bit harder to avoid, because the long ruler part makes it more difficult to locate clamps appropriately. Still, it's just the last few inches, so if you're ripping a four foot long piece, it's not a big deal: you can either cross-cut the last few inches, or block plane it back into alignment if you need the whole length. CUTTING REPRODUCIBLY: Say you want a bunch of pieces ripped to exactly the same width. With a fence, that's a bit tricky, because you have to make sure the fence and the piece are positioned exactly the same way each time. With the Kreg guide, it's effortless; just leave it set in the same position and use it on one piece after the next, and each will be exactly the same width (except maybe for the wonky part at the end of the cut discussed above). So for this purpose, the Kreg wins over a regular fence. CUTTING ACCURATELY: This is where the Kreg really shines! Say you need a piece ripped to exactly 6 7/16" wide--no more and no less. (That might well be the case if you're doing cabinet work or something like that.) With the Kreg, just take a piece of scrap wood and make a cut, measure the width of the result, and set the cursor to match. You can then set the Kreg to any width you want, and that is exactly the width you'll get (again, with a possibly wonky bit at the end of the cut). It's much harder to do that with a traditional fence; you need to think about kerf, and sled width, and the pencil width, if you measured and marked with a pencil, etc.. Note: This guide is described as for rip-cuts, and that's what it's good for (well, long cross-cuts are fine too). It's not going to work well for, say, a cross-cut across a piece of wood that's only 3" wide. But if you've got something a couple of feet or more long that you need to rip to a precise width, it's great.

So far so good. Easy set up and easy to use

I really like this saw guide. I've used it on 1/2" and 3/4" plywood with no issues. As other have said, be careful near the end of the cut, or the guide may not run true against the edge, causing a poor finish to the cut. And be careful with the plastic position lock - it's a bit flimsy for how important it is for proper functioning of the guide. With those two cautions, I highly recommend this product.

The Kreg Rip-Cut Circular Saw Guide works perfect and a great addition to any DIY carpenter. Easy to use and great quality product from Kreg, as always

I wish I would have bought this sooner. Reviews I read were iffy, but I should have know better. Kreg makes the best stuff. No, it is not bullet proof, yes, its plastic and can break if you don't take care of your tools, but sturdy, accurate and makes panel work a snap.