Accuright Circle Jig For Bandsaws

I have an inexpensive Skil band saw and could not use the left-hand clamp that was include because it came right against the body of the saw. . Substituted a mini C-clamp in place of that, cut a couple of test circles and then cut a 10-1/4 inch circle. It worked great. At the final cut the blade kicked out a little, which was the fault of the band saw but not the circle cutter. I've cut several circles since and each time they come out better and it's easier to use. Set-up can be a little confusing at first, but if you take your time and look at the parts it's all very logical. It really helped to watch the video on the Carter website. One of the best purchases I've ever made for the money, if not THE best.

My purchase arrived packed well in its original shipping box and there were no signs of damage and all the contents appeared to be correct.

The directions could be a little clearer. I had to keep rereading them to see what to do. I had to take it apart to put the curved part on. Would of been nice if the curved part was added in the original set up. Also I had a 1/2" resaw blade on the saw whenI first installed the jig. Wouldn't cut a 10" circle. I had to change to a 3/8" blade. Where was this in the directions ? Once set up it worked as directed. A 3/16" hole for the pivot pin keeps the wood from rocking.

Just made 5 fine circles on my Laguna 1412. The back of the table doesn't have enough clearance but I clamped a block to lock the bar in place. Works great. Easy to understand. Manual maybe tries to be too detailed. Very nice product.

Carter Products are well made if pricy. This product isn't cheap to buy; however, it is made out of aircraft aluminum. All the parts are well made. For years I had used a shop made jig that worked pretty well, but I came across a project that I wanted to do that demanded several exactly cut circles. I thought my shop made jig would be out of its league for the job so I bought the AccuRight Circle Jig. I don't know if I made the right choice. Probably not. Setting the jig up is somewhat complex. The instructions are poor, in my opinion, and are only saved by the excellent pictures. It was AFTER I had the jig put together on the bandsaw that I began to see how it worked. It clamps down to the bandsaw table so a person doesn't have to reposition it every time the jig is used for a new job. This is good, even if the instruction were vague on what was going on. I took a lot of care setting up the jig and made a series of test cuts that did not come out well. The circles did not hold the same size and were somewhat oblong. I decided the problem was the position of the pin and I moved that to better align with the blade. The instructions were not clear about what part of the blade you are supposed to align the pin with - the outside of the tooth or the gullet. Nevertheless, I made a change and the results were better, but not pristine. I tried to make two circles the same size and couldn't do it. No matter what I did one turned out slightly larger (or smaller) than the previous circle. These were being cut out of ¾ inch plywood. The blade was ½ inch. I tightened the jig and I worked slowly, holding the material against the jig and carefully turning it into the blade. No luck. I had to spend over an hour sanding the plywood circles down to the same size with yet another jig I had to make for my disk sander. As usual, the bandsaw leaves the edges very rough so some sanding was going to be required anyway. The pin used by the jig allows the material to wobble somewhat and shift around inappropriately, so that may be a key part of the sizing issue. Anyway, I can't recommend this product at this price. It can cut the circles close to the same size, but being ¼ to ½ inch off is common. It is possible to cut very large circles with it and that may be the best benefit. If you only need one "good enough" circle this can do it. If you need several accurate circles, forget it.

I've only used this jig for a day and have only cut what is shown in the pictures. The initial setup took a bit to figure out. The manual is really good and I watched a few videos online. I first tried using this jig when I had a 5/8" resaw blade on my saw and the blade was fighting the turns. I switched to a 1/4" blade and it is now a breeze cutting circles with this jig. Be careful backing out the circle and the cutoff piece. Twice now, I have accidentally pulled my blade off the wheels.

I don't know if this works or not because I could not clamp the cross bar to the table. The bar lays across the the back of the blade and must be within one inch of it. With my table the closest I could come to it was 2 and a half inches, which make it unusable. You have to be able to clamp each end to the underside of the table and there is no space for it on my Laguna BX. As others have said the instructions on assemble and use are not the best. They spend lots of time and pictures of stuff that is obvious and do not tell you about things like this one inch adjustment. I had to go to U-Tube to get the idea. It is a well made product and I am disappointed that I could not use it.

It is a bit difficult to set up the first time, but it is very easy to use. The scale on the jig works in radius, not diameter. Be sure to match the width of your band saw blade to the size of the circle being cut.