Never use a circular saw to notch or cut out a stud that is in a framed wall. The saw will buck and you could end up with a 4000 RPM saw blade in your chest. Use a reciprocating saw for this procedure.

I show how to build a crowned frame table to mount on saw horses to cut lumber on and use as a work table on my Web site, but if you don’t have one, use a couple of 2x12s on the sawhorses to cut on. A frame table will pay for itself
over and over, in time and labor. Just make sure they don’t bow down. When you cut a board and it is bowed down, your saw will bind and kick back, which is very dangerous.

Always have a place to put your saw. Never set it down on the blade guard, never drop it on the ground and always lay a saw on its blade side with the side
the blade is on.

Two other procedures I discuss on my site are to install a hanger and frame hook on your saw. These two small additions should be on every saw that is sold. A lot of saw injuries are caused by the person using the saw standing on the cord. When you are cutting and then you run out of cord the saw could kick back and cut you.

Keep all of the area around where you are using a saw clean, and leave nothing that could cause you to trip and fall while carrying or using a circular saw.

Furthermore, keep the whole jobsite clean. I have been to jobsites where
there would be piles of cut off lumber, and the carpenters would have to walk over these piles (tripping and falling) to make a cut or to get material. This makes no sense. Besides that, if you keep your scrap stocked, you can use it, instead of cutting a new stud for a 24-inch block. There were over 250,000 saw injuries in 2007 that required emergency room care.

Now we are ready to make a cut. First, set the blade depth of the saw blade the thickness of the board to be cut plus one-eighth of an inch. Fill your saw cuts on your frame table with drywall mud when you get a lot of them in your table. This will keep a smooth clean surface to saw.

I marked on the back of my saws the depth of cut the plus one-eighth of an inch. One and one-half of an inch is actually one and five-eights inch depth of cut. This saw is set for a quarter-inch cut, but the actual blade depth is three-eighth of an inch.

Make sure the blade is set at 90 degrees to the base for a square cut. Place the nose (front) of saw base on the board to be cut with the blade about one-quarter of an inch from the board to be cut, align the blade with the mark as straight as you can, slide your SPEED®

Square up to the side of the base and grasp it with your hand and secure it to the board. The side of the saw base and the SPEED® Square should be exactly parallel.

Start the motor and slowly push the saw forward until it just touches the board. If you are a little off the mark, back the saw up one-eighth of an inch (while it is still running) and the vibration of the saw will let you go to the left or right and get the blade lined up with the mark.

Now you can go ahead and push the saw slowly through the board and let the saw do its job. Do not crowd the saw (push it too fast). You will feel when the saw has cut through the board because they will both move slightly but enough so you will see and feel them separate.

Now, do not move the saw. Let the motor and blade come to a complete stop. Never lift or move a saw from a cut or take it off the member while it is still running. Always let a blade stop before removing from the completed cutting position. If you will do this on every cut you make, the rest of your life, your chances of getting cut with a circular saw are almost zero. Why would anyone not use this procedure?

Go to any job, anywhere, and see how many people let their saw stop running before they lift it out of the cut. I can already tell you what you will see—hardly any.

After a few hundred cuts, you will learn to let go of the switch before the cut is complete, and the saw will be dead when the saw makes the completed cut.