Customer Reviews

Bosch 1656 8-1/4-Inch Circular Saw

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My husband is a timberframer, so he's always looking for good tools. He found that once He put a different blade on this tool and did some standard adjustments, this tool works very well. The table could be a little beefier, but on the whole he thinks it is a nice piece of equipment. The blade that it comes with is junk. He said he would stongly suggest you have a new blade installed before the first use. Enjoy!

I tried three different 8-1/4" circular saws. Both the Dewalt and Hitachi had, in my opinion, serious functional and ergonomic flaws. My hands actually hurt after using the Hitachi for only a couple of cuts. The Dewalt was designed so that you can't see the blade as you're cutting, and the base was far out of alignment with the blade.

The Bosch is far more comfortable to use. I can see the leading edge of the blade, and the guide marks at the front of the base are quite accurate, so "cutting to the line" is pretty easy. It has plenty of power, as it now comes with a 15-amp motor. The base isn't perfectly aligned with the blade, but it's much closer than either of the other two saws. I haven't had any trouble with the base flexing, even though it's not as stiff as the Hitachi's.

All in all, it's clearly the best of the three saws. I never tried the Makita.

If you're in the market for an 8-1/4" saw, I recommend that you start with either the Bosch or Makita.

Bought this saw for the added depth in order to lap 4x6 timbers. The saw refused to track straight, so I spent the whole time fighting to keep it on line. Using a straight edge as a fence was worse 'cuz it drove the footplate into it, burning out the anti-kickback clutch. Only good thing was the strong motor. Do yourself a favor, look for something else...

My Boss bought this saw for me, it was to be used for cutting I-Beam wood floor joists.
It cut them, but there were problems...
The plate (or foot) was miss aligned so running the saw along my a giant speed square or a saw guide-(its like a speed square with an edge that hooks on the timber, only its made so the plate of the saw runs on it to keep the saw straight) resulted in angled cuts.
This was a disappointing problem for me because I wanted to use my straight edge after making ONE mark from a tape measure, instead of spending 20 seconds marking a pencil line all over the difficult to mark profile just to cut by eye. Im good at cutting by eye on a line quickly, but I wanted to use the straight edge to save time.

Another problem I encountered was that wen the saw was spinning (with no load) it would vibrate as if the ball bearings were bad, and wen cutting some times the saw would act as if the saw blade was wobbling.
I was not sure if the anti kick back was being engaged or not, but I replaced the blade and the saw still did not function well.

Either I received a bad saw or Bosch has some tweaking to do on their circular saw design.

The best thing about this saw is the wrench on the handle.