Looking for a cordless circular saw? Have a look at our review of the Ryobi Circular Saw that we purchased to help in the building of our DIY Built In Desk much easier. It also meant it was cheaper to purchase the Ryobi R18CS-0 ONE+ 18V Cordless circular saw as it meant we could use larger pieces of MDF and cut them down rather than smaller more expensive pieces. Also, a cordless circular saw is always a handy tool to have in the shed for our DIY projects!

Ryobi R18CS-0 ONE+ 18 V Cordless Circular Saw Review

What Is In The Box Of The Ryobi Circular Saw

Instructions
Ryobi Circular Saw body
Attachment for vacuum
165mm 24-Tooth TCT Blade

The Ryobi R18CS-0 Circular Saw is part of Ryobi’s ‘One+’ range of cordless power tools and comes with all the accessories mentioned above. Obviously, the main body of the saw which goes without saying. Also included are the obligatory instructions (a must to read), a vacuum attachment to help with dust extraction and a 24-tooth tungsten carbide tipped blade to get you started straight away.

The blade alone makes the Ryobi Circular Saw much better value (the blade currently retails at £20.99 on the Ryobi website!) and offsets one of the minor sticking points with the One+ range if you’re new to the range and this is the first time you’ve dipped your toes into the range. That sticking point is the battery! Or rather the lack of one.

Most Ryobi One+ products do not come with a battery included so if this is your first Ryobi product you’ll need to purchase a battery and charger, as well as the circular saw, before you can use it as there is no option to power this product via mains power.

A decent capacity battery for this (I’d recommend at least a 4.0AH one) will set you back around the £50 mark so it’s something that you need to factor in prior to your purchase. But bear in mind the same battery will power any of the 150+ products in the Ryobi One+ range so if you’re going all in on the One+ ecosystem (like me!) then that battery becomes much better value. Now if you’re on the other side of the fence and already have some Ryobi One+ products in your toolbox then you’ll already be sorted and be up and running in no time.

Video Of The Ryobi Circular Saw In Action

Adjustments

If you’re purchasing a Circular Saw then you would expect it to come with all the usual adjustments that you would expect to allow you to make a variety of cuts at various angles and depths and the Ryobi Circular Saw is not different in that respect. It has an incredibly easy tool-less adjustment that allows you to change the angle of the blade and the depth at which the blade cuts into the wood.

All that is required is to simply unlock and tilt the unit from side to side to change the angle or unlock and move the saw bed up and down to adjust the cutting depth. I found this approach incredibly quick and easy and allowed me to spend more time simply getting on with the job at hand rather than fiddling around with locking and unlocking my tool.

Angles can be adjusted to any angle from 90° all the way to 56° and the cutting depth is 52mm. Now bear in mind that the angle of cut will affect how deep you can cut, the bigger the angle the shallower the maximum cut can be so if you are cutting at the maximum angle of 56° then the maximum cutting depth is reduced from 52mm down to 28mm.

Blade

As I mentioned earlier The Ryobi R18CS-0 Circular Saw comes with a 165mm 24-tooth TCT (Tungsten Carbide Tipped) blade which is a more than capable performer for any and all of your woodworking projects. It made light work of the 18mm MDF sheets that I first used it on and provided a clean cut every time. Safety features are very good with the Ryobi and there is a retractable clear guard that covers the blade when not in use and retracts back as you start to cut your wood meaning that only the smallest amount of the blade is exposed at any one time.

Using The Ryobi Circular Saw

As with all circular saws safety should be of paramount concern for anyone using one. These are high-powered saws and as such should be treated with the respect they deserve. Therefore safety goggles and a facemask are a must for your own protection as well as to keep all that dust away from your eyes and mouth/nose (I’ll talk more about that later). One of the big plus sides of the Ryobi is the fact that it’s cordless and therefore you now don’t have to worry about tripping over its power cable or accidentally cutting through if it’s dangling underneath.

Secondly, make sure the wood you are cutting is securely supported and take into account what will happen to that wood after its cut! You don’t want the wood falling away from you just as you are about to finish a cut. This is especially true when cutting larger sheets of wood and if you have access to an extra pair of hands then make use of them!

When it comes to actually cutting wood then I’ve found that smooth and steady wins the day. Take your time and be confident in where you’re cutting and commit. When you start the Ryobi up make sure the cutting blade is clear from the edge of the wood you are about to cut otherwise the Ryobi can kick up quite violently, especially if you’re not expecting it. Also, don’t put your spare hand anywhere in front of the Ryobi while you are cutting! I know this probably sounds obvious to most people but it can be easily done if the saw was to slip…

Dust Issues

Now as I mentioned earlier, let’s talk about dust! Or should I say LOTS of dust! I’ve never used a circular saw prior to the Ryobi but I have used quite a few power tools that create dust so I thought a circular saw would be on par with those… I think it’s safe to say I was mistaken as the Ryobi Circular Saw creates a LOT of dust!!

Maybe it’s due to the fact that, unlike some other power tools that have some form of dust collection attachment the Ryobi only has a single dust port that kicks everything out and behind the unit (which means it goes all over me!).

Ryobi provides an angled attachment to the dust port that allows you to direct the dust flow or connect it up to a vacuum to take all that dust away. However, in practice, I found that the angled attachment was quite loose and would fall out easily during use and I couldn’t see a way to connect it to the vacuum I have at home. Perhaps I missed something but it’s a small annoying thing that I wished I could have overcome (if nothing else to keep my work area a lot more dust-free).

Using Workhorse Bench

As I touched upon earlier in this review, one of the reasons I purchased the Ryobi Circular Saw was to allow me to use larger sheets of wood which means among other things a reduced material cost for my projects. Now large sheets are good but they can be a bit of a handful when it comes to supporting them while cutting and handling. So with this in mind, I decided to purchase a set of Saw Horses to help with this. After some research, I decided on the Toughbuilt C550 Sawhorse.

All I can say is what a difference they have made! They are incredibly strong and sturdy, with each sawhorse being able to support up to 500kg so that’s nearly 1000kg in total. They have quick-release legs when opening and also have easy folding support pegs on them to allow sheets to be stored upright. This meant that the initial cutting of larger sheets became a whole lot easier and safer allowing me to use both sawhorses to support them upright while I was cutting.

Batteries and One+ Range

I love how Ryobi has the One+ range of tools, it means I can just purchase the body of each of the different tools so that we can change the batteries over and not multiple battery packs, charging packs and everything can be cordless. You can pick from over 150 tools, that all use the same battery packs so if you, like me, are happy to buy into the Ryobi ONE+ ecosystem of products then it’s a brilliant system that I can’t fault.

Overall Thoughts For The Ryobi Circular Saw

After using it to build our DIY built in desk, it saved us a lot of money being able to purchase large sheets of MDF and cut them down and also made the job so much easier. So it was worth spending the extra money on this tool and great to use for future DIY projects.

Overall I can say that my first experience of using a circular saw has been a positive one. I’m sure that this is, in part, due to the fact that the saw was from Ryobi and as I’m already part of their ONE+ ecosystem it negated a certain amount of additional cost that would be incurred if you are new to cordless power tools. With all that being said though, actual day-to-day use of the Ryobi circular saw has been easy, straightforward and pain-free. It is simple to use and simple to adjust and has enough range of adjustments to make it a truly useful product.

Battery life using the ONE+ 4.0ah battery has been brilliant as I can easily use it all day without having to charge it so I couldn’t as for anymore and the results speak for themselves.