Makita BSS610 18volt cordless circular saw

[Job and Knock]

What use is a cordless circular saw? I used to ask myself the same question until I got one. This little beastie comes with a 165mm ultra thin blade which allows it to rip to a depth of about 65mm. So far it has cut almost anything I've thrown at it - OK, so it's mainly Formica-covered 18mm MDF, 25mm plywood and softwood (up to 4 x 2s) - but it does cut well. providing the battery is fresh-ish. When the battery starts to go it can bog down and stall. That's when you know it's time to swap batteries with the drill! Accuracy is reasonable with mitre angles of 0° to 45° (standard) and by flipping a stop up to 50°. The base plate has nice straight edges which align well with the blade so sawing with a batten guide is easy. The position notches at the front of the base plate, combined with the light which illuminates the cutting area and blade mean that sawing to a line is dead easy. Just as well, really, because the rip fence is a bit on the flimsy side and isn't really up to the rest of the tool. It's the only thing which lets the saw down. One of the odd features is that the saw is left-handed, i.e. the blade is on the opposite side to that normally found on a corded saw. What difference does that make? A lot. It means that crosscutting on framing timbbers can be accomplished by simply marking your cut point, dropping a Speed Square onto the far side of the timber and sliding it left (so the base plate notch aligns with the pencil line), then making your cross cut running the side of the baseplate against the Speed Square. Framing without the need for power cables or a mitre saw. Now that's really handy.

Overall this is a small, compact and reasonably accurate rip saw more than capable of handling many sawing tasks. It's no Festool, but with a good blade (e.g. Dart 165mm 40t ATB) and a fresh battery it will do reasonably well on even MFC or MF-MDF. The battery consumption is a bit heavy, but then again it is doing the work of much larger corded tools. Only thing which is "just adequate" is the rip fence. Otherwise superb

[Job and Knock]

Just a small note to add to the above. The BSS611 comes with an LED "headlight" as standard. This is turned ona and off when the trigger is pulled or released. I find it to be a handy feature, then againI tend to be working in places with only so-so lighting for at least half of my life!

I mention the Dart fine tooth blades above. Picked up another of these today for £12 which makes them excellent value. For rough cutting I still use the standard Makita 12 tooth rip blade which is rough (on cross cuts, rip cuts are a lot better, not best on MDF) but very fast. Also puts less strain on the battery. These cordless saws all require extra thin kerf blades (about 2 to 2.2mm), so they won't use the blades off a corded saw unless you like changing batteries every 10 minutes.

Finally, for those who don't like the idea of a left handed saw, Makita has just introduced (September 2011) a more conventional right handed version of this saw, the BHS630

[royaloakcarpentry]

Bss611 with a light...............I thought that was one difference between this model and the bss610 was that the 610 has the light, a blade brake and comes with a different blade?

Must admit I used one of our plumbers the other day. he got one off ebay for £80, bare. handy bit of kit and will be getting one myself. Very handy if you need to cut stuff by the van, no transformer and leads to be running about.

[Job and Knock]

Mea culpa! I looked at the saw today and as RoyalOak says it's the BSS610 I'm referring to, not the BSS611. Could the mods please change the title and edit the text to correct this, please?

[moderator2]

Yep.