tec h EXPO 2001 THE HUSKEY SAW (Angle-Cutting Panel Saw) by Tom Hackman and Nate Otto University of Virginia Safety and efficiency are major considerations in most educational scene shops. Analyzing and restructuring the shop with these things in mind has been an ongoing project in the Graduate Technical Production Program at the University of Virginia. The Huskey Saw is a direct result of our efforts to make our shop safer and more user-friendly for our inexperienced labor force. Safely cutting sheet goods, especially w″ plywood, can be a difficult task for an experienced carpenter, let alone an undergraduate lab student. Conventional panel saws can alleviate some of this problem, however, they are typically only good for 90-degree cuts. The need to safely cut a variety of angles was the driving force behind the design for our angle-cutting panel saw. Like traditional panel saws, it can do crosscuts on a 4′ x 8′ sheet of plywood and unlimited ripcuts. The uniqueness of our design is its pivoting cutter arm. The pivoting arm allows the user to cut angles ranging from 90 degrees to 30 degrees, greatly decreasing the danger for student labor handling circular saws. The Huskey Saw has many parts that were inspired by the components of a typical panel saw. The three key parts that differentiate our saw from the standard 90-degree saws are the 9′-8″ cutter arm, the guide rail, and the lower pivot (figure 1). Because of the similarities with a standard panel saw we were able to break down our design and construction process into five major steps. These steps are: 1. Frame/Support; 2. Pivot/ Cutter Arm/ Guide Rail; 3. Brake/ Saw Carriage/ Adjustment Crank; 4. Retractile Cord/ Foot Switch/ Festoon; and 5. Accuracy and Safety. We began the first step of our design by creating a frame (support structure) that will hold the cutter arm guide rail and Cutter Arm Base Cutter Arm Radius Pipe Radius Guide Wheels Sliding Saw Carriage 2 x 4 Buffer Cutter Arm Guide Tubes Material Support Rollers Foot Switch Geared Winch (Manual Hand Crank) Cutter Arm Pivot Point Figure 1 36 S U M M E R 2 0 0 1 TD & T