Depends on what kind of saw you happen to have.

An electic circular saw can follow a curved line because the blade only
has to be set very shallow. Use a thin kerf blade with lots of teeth. I've
used a blade with 40 teeth. They make a special plywood blade with many
more teeth but I haven't found it to be any better. The only problem with
a circular saw is they tend to be heavy so the plywood should be well
supported and you have to go slow. I've found the thin blade of a jig saw
(sabre saw) can wander off the line pretty easy to you have to be careful.
You can also try sawing through masking tape to reduce tearing along the
edge. The jig saw and circular saw blades cut on the upstroke so the tape
has to be on the top side.

Brian ) writes:
Does anyone have any tips on the best ways to cut marine ply (6, 9 and
12mm)? In particular I want to cut curved 8' boards for a dinghy. So I
guessing that a band saw is a good bet but I don't have one. Are there
any other methods that can produce good results?

Thanks


--
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
William R Watt National Capital FreeNet Ottawa's free community network
homepage: www.ncf.ca/~ag384/top.htm
warning: non-FreeNet email must have "notspam" in subject or it's returned

You are right about the weight of the circular saw. I don't think the
beast I have would work very well. Using masking tape is an interesting
idea but it would of course require that the lines be drawn on the tape.

I have been looking at circular saw blades but have not found anything
specially of ply. I will look for something thin with lots of teeth though.

Thanks

William R. Watt wrote:

Depends on what kind of saw you happen to have.

An electic circular saw can follow a curved line because the blade only
has to be set very shallow. Use a thin kerf blade with lots of teeth. I've
used a blade with 40 teeth. They make a special plywood blade with many
more teeth but I haven't found it to be any better. The only problem with
a circular saw is they tend to be heavy so the plywood should be well
supported and you have to go slow. I've found the thin blade of a jig saw
(sabre saw) can wander off the line pretty easy to you have to be careful.
You can also try sawing through masking tape to reduce tearing along the
edge. The jig saw and circular saw blades cut on the upstroke so the tape
has to be on the top side.

Brian ) writes:

Does anyone have any tips on the best ways to cut marine ply (6, 9 and
12mm)? In particular I want to cut curved 8' boards for a dinghy. So I
guessing that a band saw is a good bet but I don't have one. Are there
any other methods that can produce good results?

Thanks



--
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
William R Watt National Capital FreeNet Ottawa's free community network
homepage: www.ncf.ca/~ag384/top.htm
warning: non-FreeNet email must have "notspam" in subject or it's returned