Customer Reviews

Prazi USA PR2000 Beam Cutter for 7-1/4-Inch Direct Drive Saws

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

The Prazi beam cutter is not a miracle tool. It won't give you ideal results without any effort or skill on the part of the operator but it is a valuable piece of equipment that can cut a beam easier and better than most alternative ways to go about the job.

I bought the Prazi beam cutter to attach to my old Milwaukee worm drive saw. It arrived complete and took about 25 minutes to install. If the instructions had been easier to interpret, the installation would have gone smoother. Never the less, if you are the type of person who is at the point of carefully cutting large beams in your building career, you will be able to figure out how to install this tool onto your worm drive saw, no sweat. The only major problem I had was the fact that the older Milwaukee saws do not come equipped with a blade lock button. In order to tighten the beam cutter properly, you have to be able to lock your motor shaft down. I ended up opening my oil filler hole in the gear housing and jamming a hardened steel pin into the drive gear. This worked well but I felt that I could have sheared off the pin with just a bit more torque.

Starting the saw surprised me because I expected an out-of-control chain saw feel to it but instead I was pleased with the speed and overall stability. I typically have been cutting 8 inch spruce beams. I always nail or clamp a fence to the beam to guide the saw. This allows me to concentrate on pushing the saw without worrying where it is going. Crosscuts (6 to 7 seconds per inch on my 8" beams) seem to take less effort than rips as I will often find myself pushing the saw hard on a long rip to keep things moving. The cuts are sometimes hard work -but a breeze compared to any work with a handsaw on the same piece of wood. Again, the Prazi beam cutter is not a miracle tool: you still have to keep it sharp and oiled, you have to make sure your saw's plate is at 90 degrees to the blade. I draw a line where I anticipate the blade will enter the wood and then, after a few moments cutting, verify that the blade entered the wood at the angle I desired. You may have to shim under your plate to achieve the desired results but I find that at the bottom of an 8 inch beam, the blade usually enters the wood within an eighth of an inch of my target. When I am careful I can get the far end of the blade within a sixteenth. Once the cut is underway, the blade hold fairly true to a plane and does not wander from the top to the bottom of a cut as is typical of a reciprocating saw in a deep cut.

The resulting cut is chain-saw smooth. That is to say that it is a bit bumpy and yet consistent. My blade creates ridges and valleys about a sixteenth of an inch high and wide across the cut. It can easily be smoothed with a few passes of either a power plane or a block plane which will produce a very respectable finish. There is no way to get as good a cut with a regular chain saw. It just jumps around too much and the cutting angle is usually inconsistent. I know this first hand.

By and large, when I need to cut a beam I use the Prazi beam cutter. I will not go back to any of the hand tools I used or even the "cut both sides half way with a circular saw" method because the results I get with the beam cutter are better. Not perfect, and not effortless but better and faster. Bottom line: if you need to cut beams, buy it. The price is right. So it may not be a miracle tool but it is somewhat of a God send.

Other notes: You must remember that your converted saw is no longer the safe worm drive circular saw it once was. There is no blade guard that automatically sweeps down every time you finish a cut. The saw is long and can easily slice through a saw horse, work boot or thigh should one get in its path. Cuts must be planned more carefully and the setup should be stable and accessible. This is a different tool. Take some time to evaluate your safety before using it. Secondly, after you install the beam cutter, you'll be thinking about getting a new worm drive saw so you can leave the beam cutter on your old saw. Finally, when you pull this puppy out of your tool box be prepared because a lot of people on the job site are going to jump back and say "Whoa, what is that thing?"

Tom Sadowski
sadowski@tidewater.net
11/23/2002

I got it in record time with cheap shipping and the price was great too.

I bolted it to a new Skil mag 7 1/4 wormdrive saw. The mag is not light by any means and it shook badly. After dismantling and reassembling no less than 10 times I determined the part that bolts on where the blade usually is was .010 loose. Fortunately, I had my vernier caliper stuck in there with the socket set, allen wrenches and a set of feeler guages now minus the .005 which is cut and wrapped around the bolt to take up the slop. Ah, smooth running, hardly.

The camillion chain starts to change color and begin smoking like the "Dice Man" unless you stop and oil the thing every couple minutes, some type of "rigged" oil feed is necessary. It is also necessary to frequently check the chain tension to avoid it's falling off. The chain tension issue is caused by the chain adjuster/tensioner being useless, not a screw like a real chain saw.

The vibration of the chain through the chain drive sproket produces volumous vibration and chatter certain to remove unwanted fillings from your teeth. It is impossible to keep the work area free of wood chips, I found the need to sift through chips to find bolts that continued to fall out even after they had been secured with thread locking compound.

Far be it from me to follow the safety instructions. I removed the safety bar for the plunge cut I was doing. When holding the saw in front of you the imbalance of the saw sends the 12 inch chainsaw blade toward your leg where a momentary lapse of attention could really impare/and or/improve your love life. Use extreme caution.

Time is money. A slightly better tool would be twice as fast. I rough cut 10x10 PT into tapered columns with square tops and bottoms. Power planing, belt sanding, routed flutes, wire wheeled and sandblasted to finish, the Beam Cutter's slow production and rough finish just part of the labor intensive process.

Boys gotta have toys. This is more toy than tool, consider an electric chain saw.

Prazi would do well building an electric chainsaw fitted with a plate similar to a circular saw. Who am I to say, I'm no expert, I've only been doing this for 30 years.

Anybody want to buy a Prazi Beam Cutter... cheap?

I purchased the PRAZI PR2000 Beam Cutter for the expressed purpose of ripping 8' x 8" x 8" western red cedar beams down to 7" x 7" and for saddle notching the top of the beams to accept a 4" x 6" lintel. I found the PR2000 did a fine job on cross cuts but was not suitable for the end grain rip cuts. The tool became very difficult to control and hold on line and the tear-out is completely unacceptable. I am sure there are applications where this tool shines but for my saddle cuts and ripping applications in this particular material (Western Red Cedar) it receives a failing grade from me.

this saw really stands up to the wear and tare my shop puts it thru. though i did have some problems with certain types of wood (chestnut, teak) in terms of loosing teeth, i would strongly recommend it for softer wood cutting needs.

I was skeptical when I ordered this saw from Amazon a few weeks ago. BTW, Amazon has the best price on this, and appears to be the only way you can buy the PR2000 on the West Coast, lumberyards only seem to carry the worm saw version.
OK, the blade looks strong, its heavy and appears to be good quality. We have been using this to cut stair stringers out of 2x PT and it works great. By setting up guides, we accurately cut 6 - 2x12's at a time and they all come out the same in about the same time it takes to cut one. It saves a lot of time. The downside is that it makes a rough cut, very comparable to what a chain saw would do -- cause this is a chain saw for your circular saw. Therefore, you can not use this for open stairs or any finish work.
The saw is fairly accurate and easy to control, though as another reviewer said, you should use extra caution with this blade cause it could do some damage.
Overall, we have been very impressed, it is certainly worth the money.

This is a great tool for any real carpenter it is a little shaky to start but, it works great with a jig for cutting stair stringers 3 at a time. Framers you can easily cut three tgis at time. my only complaint is that if you have a new skill saw you have to remove the guard

i purchased the Prazi pr2000 to cut 6x6 treaded beams as well as 4x6 treaded beams and it worked great, I did compound end cuts at different angles for braces and it cut with ease. it takes a little getting used to because the guide on the saw does not line up in the same place as with a blade.I had no problem installing the beam cutter on my saw once I understood that you must raise the saw all the way up on the depth gauge.I did wait too long to lube the chain and it got hard to turn and tightened up, once lubed it was good to go, the chain also required tightening a couple of time.

I use these reviews,so feel obligated to comment. I bought one of these to cut tenon joints for timber framing. I might as well have just used a chainsaw. NOT accurate at all. As another review noted, makes a chainsaw cut. That would be fine, IF it could cut straight. saw guide is just too flimsy, it flexes. I know it sounds like a good, inexpensive way to cut timber, and it does cut like a chainsaw, just doesnt cut straight like you most likely want. It can cut fast though!

I bought this tool for cutting some heavy timbers for some roof trusses and was very disappointed with it. It is impossible to get a good square cut with it. Although you can follow a straight line on the cutting surface, the blade tends to wander as it cuts through the lower half of the material. We ended up using a Skilsaw to cut around 4 sides and finishing the center with a Sawzall. The Prazi is NOT worth the money for precision work.

We saw the Prazi beam cutter on tv & ordered one. My builder used it to cut 8x8 pressure treated pine beams on our porch. It cut them like butter. We were quite impressed. The only drawback is that we had to buy a new saw & since we live in a remote area we had trouble finding one that would work.