Changing a Circular Saw Blade for Dummies

Circular saw

A decade or so ago even a semiliterate fool could make money writing for content farms (and more than one of them did). All you needed, they pretended, was a laptop and an internet connection, and you could pull in a few bucks writing about any topic on earth. Well, sure you could -- but the reason that model doesn't work any more is at least  in part because so much of what people posted was utter bull; posts about stuff they'd never even thought of before. Take Andrew Stickel, found writing under the nom de plume Andrew Todd at eHow.com, who posted "How to Change the Blade on a Craftsman Circular Saw" (since moved to Hunker.com by Leaf Group).¹

Stickel, as eHowians were wont to, started with an introduction to circular saws and why you might need to change a blade:

"Craftsman circular saws are portable, hand-held power tools, powered by either a battery pack or power cord. The saws have a round replaceable blade with several sharp teeth that rotates quickly to cut materials such as wood and plastic. As the saw is used, the material cut by the saw will slowly break-down the blade, causing it to dull."

We found problems with that "information": first, a power cord doesn't power a tool; it merely connects it to a power source. Second, circular saw blades have more than "several teeth." And third, even though Andrew probably doesn't know this, you might change a saw blade even if it isn't dull if you plan to change the material you're cutting. Since Andrew's probably never used such a saw, though, he wouldn't know these facts.

When it comes to his instructions, Stickel merely reworded the instructions for a specific cordless circular saw: that specificity pretty much destroys any credibility hi might have had left after that introduction. His instructions?

1. Turn off the saw
2. Place the saw on the side of your work bench so that the guard is lifted.
3. Press the 'Spindle Lock' button
4. Insert the blade wrench into the center bolt on the blade, then turn clockwise.

Our comments on that rot? You don't need to "turn off the saw": it only runs when you're pressing the  trigger! You would, however, be wise to remove the battery pack or unplug the cord, whichever applies. Some, though not all, circular saws have a guard lock. The only one Andrew researched doesn't... First, not all saws have a spindle lock. Second, pressing it doesn't lock the blade: you have to turn the blade until the lock engages with the arbor. Only a few cordless saws use hex wrenches, most use open-end. Also, the bolt isn't on the blade, it's on the end of the spindle, which you'll have to keep locked with one hand while loosening the bolt with the other. And last but not least, you tighten the spindle bolt opposite the blade's rotation direction, which is not necessarily "clockwise."

Stickel obviously knows nothing about circular saws. He claims that "On most Craftsman saws, the blade wrench is stored on the saw itself," which is true only for some cordless models; and warns his readers not to "forget to unlock the blade once you've replaced it"; more utter bullshit since the lock is spring loaded and must be held down to lock the spindle.


Not only that, in his DMS-mandated warnings Andrew never mentions that there is more than one size of blade (probably because he doesn't know that), or that you shouldn't replace a blade with one that is a different size. So we ask you: should we trust Stickel's advice for a potentially dangerous power tool? No -- instead we should give him the Dumbass of the Day award, right?

¹ The original has been deleted by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was   ehow.com/how_7762953_change-blade-craftsman-circular-saw.html

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