PKS 55 A

Product Information

On the plus side, the guide fence supplied with this saw is excellent. It’s got measurements marked along its length and the guide rail is the longest of the ones I tested. This made it feel extra stable when performing a rip cut. The only problem I found is that when you tighten down the adjustment knob, it makes circular marks in the metal. After a while this could obscure the measurements. The CutControl feature makes it easier to follow a cut line than any of the other saws on my list. It could do with a work light to make things a bit brighter, but for a budget saw it does enough. For the home DIYer who doesn’t want to overspend on a reliable tool, it’s one of the best circular saws you can get. Small, compact yet powerful, the Bosch 0 603 500 070 160mm circular saw delivers precise cutting and exceptional manageability in a range of situations

bevel cuts proved a little more taxing on the motor, but there wasn’t much slowdown I’m pleased to report. The 160 mm diameter blade is on the small side and will only cut a maximum depth of 38 mm on a 45° bevel. The first thing I did with this Bosch PKS 55 Circular Saw is take it out of the box. I’ve always liked Bosch boxes; they’re covered in useful information. But what I really liked was on the inside. In the place of piles of polystyrene was a clever moulded cardboard insert. Not only is it better for the environment, but it held the saw tightly in the box. A good start! However, we then like to go a little deeper to explore more detail about the product by looking at products in the same category as Bosch PKS 55 1200W Circular Saw. That then tells us that there are 1232 products in the Ready to Drink category at Robert Dyas. Don’t be put off though, because Bosch have used their more than a century of experience to create a reliable budget level circular saw. The rear grip has a nice, rubberised texture that makes it easy to hang on to with or without gloves on, and the front handle is a large “T” shape that keeps everything very stable. It’s a good thing too that it was stable, because I was forced to push the saw quite hard when ripping through softwood. I’ll put this down to the blade size, as the 1,200 Watt motor should be powerful enough for these sorts of jobs.There’s something hiding in the baseplate that will upgrade this saw from a freehand tool to a precision tool. There’s a trench running the length of the shoe that corresponds to Bosch’s guide rail system. It’s an optional extra, but a lot more affordable than a standalone rail saw. Next up was a test to push the saw to its limit. Rip cuts are much harder to make in timber as they follow the grain. It was also an excuse to see whether the included rip fence was any good.

The problem with cutting CLS was the amount of tear out and the rather ragged finish the blade left on the end of the timber. There were lots of shaggy fibres left on the edges that would be fine for rough framing work, but unacceptable for anything else. Comparing this finish to what’s left by saws like the Makita DHS680Z is noticeable.CutControl is an incredibly simple but rather clever way to make sure you’re staying on the cutline. Instead of relying on a single notch, you can line up the notch and two arrows for a much more accurate view. Using this system to follow a pencil line is so much easier than on any of the other circular saws I’ve tried.

I was also please to see a chunky double sided safety switch. I’m right handed, but if you’re a lefty then working a single button safety can be difficult and sometimes dangerous. It’s little design touches like this that stop left handers from needing to perform hand acrobatics just to get the saw blade spinning. Bosch hardly needs an introduction when it comes to power tools. One of the biggest names around and loved by DIYers all over the place, their range of tools is incredible. Sitting firmly in their “green” line of affordable DIY level tools, the Bosch PKS 55 Circular Saw is a capable corded circular saw that feature a few of Bosch’s premium features like their CutControl guide and ultra-comfortable grip. It’s not the list powerful corded circular saw on the market, but for the DIYer there’s enough grunt for almost any task around the home or garden. I’ve tested out how this saw performs when cutting through different types of timberCompared with the other circular saws on my list, the PKS 55 has a small diameter blade. I noticed this quite a lot when making cross cuts as it was the saw that wanted to wander the most. The bigger the blade is, the straighter the cut. The maximum cut depth at 0° is just 55 mm, which is something the bear in mind if you want to cut things like fence posts.

After using the Bosch PKS 55 Circular Saw for several weeks on a variety of projects, I’ve grown to like it more than I thought I would. It might not have the biggest or most powerful motor, but it boasts clever features that I wish the more expensive saws on my list had. Weighing in at just 3.9 kg, I’ve got no complaints about the weight of this saw. Aimed at DIYers, it doesn’t need to be the beefiest heavy duty saw, but it’s not so light that it feels like a flimsy toy. Sure, the bevel adjustment handle is plastic, but it doesn’t slop compared with the levers on the Evolution saw. Our first average we look at for Bosch PKS 55 1200W Circular Saw is to judge it against other products from the same brand, in this case it’s Bosch. This tells us that there are a total of 835 Bosch products at Robert Dyas. To make a fair comparison between the best circular saws available right now, I tested them all against the same pieces of timber. Starting with some standard constructional timber, I made a series of cross cuts at 0°. I then performed a series of cuts at 45° to test the motor strength and how easy it was to adjust the bevel. Moving on from the standard CLS that you’d use to frame a structure, I performed the same tests on some English oak I had milled up a couple of years ago. Much harder than constructional timber, it would prove to be a bigger test for a circular saw.