: I have been contemplating using a circular saw on my next project, I had
: thought of building a table to cut strips of plywood with a fence the same
: height as the boards I am cutting, a second adjustable fence on top of the
: first would serve as a guide for the saw.

Let's start with the table top first. A few ideas for you. First, substitute cheaper particle board or OSB for the plywood. You are going to cut it up, so why waste money cutting up the more expensive stuff. If you can get a 4x8 sheet of OSB and rip it lengthwise you'll end up with 2 sheets which are 2x8. Some lumberstores will do a rough rip cut like thise for free, or for a very nominal charge. Anything within 1/2 inch is good enough, and it is easier to get the narrower panels home. Set those end to end and you'll have a 16 foot table top which you can mangle a bit while cutting your strips. Then you can flip the panels over and use them as your strongback, or as a long work table.

I make 2 bases of 2x4s, each one is 8 feet long and 2 feet wide. I cut 7 pieces of 2x4, to be 21 inches long, and sandwich them between two 8-foot-long 2x4s. One of the 21 inch pieces is at each end, One is in the middle, and the other 4 are spaced about 16 inches apart in between. With the OSB on top they are work tables, but they are stiff enough to serve as external strongbacks.

Since I want to eventually flip the OSB, I only secure it with 4 screws. It doesn't take much to hold it in place. I can use nuts and bolts to hold them together end to end. 30 inch pieces of 2x4 serve as legs. I use 4 legs per table. I've used nails, long screws, and bolts to hold on the legs. They all work, but if you use bolts you can remove the legs to store the tables. Besides boatbuilding, these tables are great for summer BBQ buffets at parties. Paint them if you are going to leave them outside.

: The circular saw would be set to
: cut just below the depth of the lumber, and in time the plywood table
: surface may have to be replaced. This way I would also be able to cut the
: gunwales on the same setup. I believe the table would not have to be more
: than 12 feet long as this would support 2/3 of a 18 foot peice of lumber.

Two of the above mentioned 8 foot tables would be 16 feet long and give even more support. If you are ripping an 18 foot piece of lumber then you would have times when you had the entire length on one side or the other of the saw. That means you'd need 36 feet to work in. Easy enough to do outside, but might be to great a problem if you are working indoors.

Look at the picture I posted a bit earlier in this thread. It shows how a sabresaw is mounted to a piece of plywood to make a tabletop jigsaw. You can do the same thing with a circular saw, and mount it under the OSB on one of the 8 foot tables. Put it about a foot from one end. You'll have at least 6 feet of infeed table, and a bit over a foot of outfeed space. Set your second table a couple feet away and it will give you another 8 feet of outfeed support. Use screws to mount a long fence directly to the OSB. A block of wood (or better. plexiglass) secured to the top of the fence and covering the blade will give you a little protection from accidental contact and kickback. You are overriding some of the built-in protection on the circular saw, so be careful. Saws are dangerous. While open blades such as this were the norm for many years, current safety standards frown on this kind of thing.

: Anything has to be better than ripping on the Shopsmith I used on my first
: project.

I can feel your pain. I have a Shopsmith and a radial arm saw. I prefer ripping strips on the radial arm saw. The table on the Shopsmith is a bit small. However, it has a very powerful motor, and you can bolt on a piece of 3/4 inch plywood, or plastic covered (melamine?) particleboard to make a nice slippery, extra large table which you cna use just for ripping strips. The quill feed on the Shopsmith makes for fine adjsutment of the strip thickness, but be sure to lock it down, 'cause if it slips your strips will not be the same thickness. People who don't have Shopsmiths don't have a clue about what I'm saying when I talk about quill feeds. I have the bandsaw attachment for my Shopsmith, and if I had to use that tool for ripping strips I'd raise the saw table and the arm at the end to provide a nice long outfeed. Then all I'd need would be a separate infeed roller to support the lumber, and it should handle very long stock.

Hope this helps.

PGJ