How to safely cut a round wooden rod with accuracy

Cutting a round wooden rod proves to be both very difficult and quite dangerous especially when you need short pieces (for example when cutting hooks for a coat rack).

The table saw may seem the safest and most accurate method. But, because the round rod will tend to roll, there is a pretty high risk that the cut piece (especially the short pieces) to be caught and thrown around by the moving blade. The jigsaw version can be excluded from the start, since you need decent accuracy.

There is yet another way of doing that, if you don’t have a miter saw. And this method involves a handheld circular saw. Because it is quite difficult to control the direction and the angle of the circular saw, if supported just by the rod you cut, I learned to make a small jig so I can safely, accurately and quickly cut a round wooden rod. I needed a board whose thickness was equal to the diameter of the bar (in this case a 14 mm thick plank to cut the beech wood round rod of 14 mm diameter).

I used the same size for the guide plank and for the beech wood round rod — The guide board and the round rod have the same size

I fixed the board on a piece of melamine particle board using two screws. Then I used a wooden square, a handmade wooden square, to create a guide that would give me the direction to pass with the circular saw. I held together the square and the melamine fibreboard using a clamp, for more safety and for a greater freedom of the hand movement, .

I used my handmade wooden square, to make a perfect perpendicular cut — The wooden square is very useful in making an accurate perpendicular cut

I made the first cut that sets the place where the circular blade will pass — This is the first cut to establish the place where the circular blade will pass

I made the first cut to establish the line where the circular blade will pass. After making this cut, I measured on the guide board the length I needed to cut from the round rod. With the rod still in the position it remained after the first cut, I drew another mark on the rod. I pulled the rod forward until the traced mark reached the cut line. Then I made another cut with the circular saw.

I continued the mark from the plank on the round wood rod and I pulled the wood rod until the sign reaches the plank cut — The mark on the plank continues on the round rod

In this way the cut piece fell on the ground, without the risk of being damaged by the circular blade. The cut was perpendicular, because I had used the square as a linear guide. By repeating the mark and moving in front of the round bar, I cut all the 7 pieces that I needed in just a few seconds, all exactly at the same length, with both ends perpendicular to the length of the beech wooden round rod.