UP TO 75% MORE POWER: The compact circular saw has a brushless motor that lasts a long time and gives it more power.
LED lights up the cutting line and the work surface of the cordless circular saw.
56 degrees is the maximum angle. There are positive stops at 22.5 and 45 degrees where the angle gets better.
STRENGTH: The upper metal guard is more durable.
The battery and charger are sold separately.
In this style, the circular saw doesn’t use any brushes (Tool Only.
Get the best possible performance with up to 75% more power**. The V20* 7-1/4-inch Cordless Circular Saw has a brushless motor that can run at 4,700 rpm and keep up with the load. It has a shoe made of stamped aluminum and a metal guard on the top. This makes it more durable. It has a 7-1/4-inch blade with a 2-9/16-inch cutting depth and a bevel range of 56 degrees. It has an LED light with a big window so you can see the cut line. This is a great tool for cutting.
As of February 12, 2019, there have been some changes.
Because I thought I could get a better-aligned saw, I returned the original V20 cordless saw and bought a new one. That’s not good. The replacement was much worse than the first one. Two pictures are shown below. The first picture shows that the vertical alignment of the blade was off. Not only did the blade not line up with the notch, but it was not parallel to the base of the shoe. This shows that the vertical alignment of the blade was not correct. Shows what went wrong: The saw body is held in place by two angles that were bent. I returned the saw right away. A L**es big box store was next, so I went there to buy a 3rd. I hoped it would be good luck. Because it had the same problems as the second, I had to send it back, too. It looks like the Craftsman brand isn’t the same as it was in the old days. The star rating and the title of this review have changed as a result, so I changed them as well.
I bought the V20 Craftsman 6-1/2 saw (the tool only) as a cheap saw that I could use anywhere. Let me write down the good and bad things I see.
Pros.
1) It’s not very heavy, but you have to try it with a 4.0 Ah battery attached. In this case, it’s not light enough. It will start to make your wrist or arm tired very quickly.
2) The electric brake is the fastest I’ve ever seen. It stops the spinning blade with no load in less than a second.
Factory-set alignment of blade against base plate at zero degrees, when checked with a precision steel square, worked out great.
In this case, I could not find any wobble or bearing play in the blade or the bearing. This means something. When I used to own a Skilsaw 7-1/4 Southpaw, there was a lot of play in the bearings and the bushings. This made cutting against a pencil line a guessing game.
None of the above.
6) Cheap at the price when compared to other well-known brands (tool only).
Con.
1) A metal base plate that isn’t very thick. Too much flex is shown when you tighten the plunge depth lever by leaning against the base plate. The back right corner bends too much.
2) It’s hard to switch blades. This is true even when the blade nut and washer are removed. The end of the bearing/axle protrudes so far that the new blade has to be shoved under the plastic retractable blade guard, which could scratch it and break the plastic. A blade change should be easy to do.
When the blade didn’t line up with a cut notch on the base plate, this was an issue. A set of calipers would have helped me figure out if the blade was aligned from front to back. I don’t have one.
4) The safety switch/trigger is a little weird. It has to be pushed to the front, not to the side, to work. I like a safety trigger that has to be pushed to the side so that the saw can always be held against a rip fence. A little bit of movement was caused when I pushed the safety trigger with my thumb toward the front of the saw. This caused damage to my homemade track saw jig for the saw because the blade cut through it with no clearance.
In general, the saw moves too much. Either the base plate moves too much, or there are too many connections to the base plate that move too much. The zero clearance cut line of my homemade track saw jig for this saw started generating a lip of a fractional millimeter after only a few cuts.
I can’t say how long it would run on a single 4.0 Ah battery because I only cut a few pieces of 0.5 and 0.7 inch plywood. I dropped one of the battery bars (out of three that were lit at first) but this saw isn’t an all-day cordless saw.
The included blade was changed to a DeWalt 40T. This made the plywood cuts much smoother and there was less tearout, so it was a good choice.
Some of you may think I’m being too picky about some of the cons. But for me, being correct is important because mistakes can add up over a long time. Cons #2 and #3 were not good for me. I sent the saw back and got a new one. No, I don’t think it’ll be enough to solve the problem with #2. I’ll let you know how the replacement saw works after I try it. Basically, you get what you pay for with this saw. If #2 was fixed, this would be a good cordless saw for some small jobs around the house. Not if you are a professional or a DIYer and you need to cut things the same way over and over again: this saw is not for you!
