How to Use a Circular Saw - Change Blades, Prevent Binding and more

Circular saw blades binding is a pretty common problem, but don't let that scare you away from using them. I'll show you how you can fix that and I'm also gonna show you a few other things that you can do with the circular saws to help you with your projects.
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What I'm talking about. As I was making this cut, see how the weight of this board is pushing up against that blade? And that's why it's binding up. It's doing that because it doesn't have any support on the side of the board. But I've got these 2x4's that I'm using. What I'm gonna do is move this board over to give it support on both sides. And I'm going to place the center of this cut right in between these two boards, and you wanna be sure and do that on both ends. Now, I've got the center of the cut right in between these two boards so it's supported on both sides and I should be able to finish this cut without any problems. To put your saw blade back in, you need to move your guard to put your blade in. And most saws have this, but this particular one has this lever so you can move your guard without actually putting your fingers so close. This has worked really well so far having support on both sides of this board. But now I have another problem. Because my sawhorses aren't wide enough to hold the whole board, when I finish this cut, probably what's going to happen, this side of the board is so heavy it's probably gonna tip right off. But that's not hard to fix either. Just take a piece of scrap wood or anything that you may have and slide it up underneath these boards. Now see I've got support for that side of the board as well. I shouldn't have any more problems. Now I've got a nice, clean cut and nothing fell apart. The way I was just cutting lengthwise on the board in between the two 2x4's is called ripping, or rip cut. Now let's say that you wanna cut across your board, which is called a cross cut. If you leave your blade sitting where it is right now, it's at about two and a half inches depth. So you'd be cutting through your 2x4's. So the easiest way not to do that is to adjust your blade and it's real important that you always unplug your power tools before you start adjusting your blade. Let me show you the easiest way to do this. Set your saw right here on the edge of the material that you're fixing to cut. This has a lock lever right here in the back, so you wanna lift that up to unlock it and then you wanna move your fence out of the way. Now you can put your thumb right here on the support plate and just lift your saw up. See how you can adjust your blade just by doing that? And where you'd wanna put your blade is just right below, it's a little low. You wanna have your teeth of the blade just right below that wood and that will assure you that you won't be cutting through your 2x4's. Once you get it adjusted go ahead and lock it right back in place and now you're ready to make your cut. So let me just move this board back and centered with these 2x4's so I get support to make this cut and I'm gonna go ahead and move this scrap piece of wood out of the way. You know, being able to adjust that blade like that really comes in handy anytime you're just barely trying to cut through something, but you don't wanna cut too deeply into whatever it is underneath. Let me show you what I'm talking about. Now that we've got our cut, let's take a look at these 2x4's. See how this saw just barely cut into these and didn't damage the structure.
And you know, the circular saw isn't just for cutting wood. You can use it to cut other things, such as tile or brick or even metal. But to do that, you're going to have to know how to change the blade. Before you change your blade remember to unplug your saw. Now most circular saws come with their own standard wrench and the way that you change the blade, go ahead and lift that fence up out of the way and you need to put pressure on top of the saw so that your blade bites down into the wood and it won't slip on you. Get that loosened just like that and you can lay it back up on its side. Now remove the washer and the blade should just lift right out. Now I've got three blades that we can use. Got one to cut metal, masonry and tile. Let's go ahead and put the metal one on. So put the new blade in place. Put the washer and bolt on and now screw it down as much as you can with your fingers to keep the washer in place. Then use the wrench to tighten it the rest of the way and you're ready to go. Anytime that you're cutting metal, I would recommend that you wear gloves and be forewarned that the metal does through off sparks. Also, you need to wear your safety goggles. Except for the sparks, cutting through the metal isn't that much different than cutting through the wood.