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Using a Flush Trim Saw

The correct tool & technique + perfect results

Text & Photos by Tom Hintz

A flush trim saw makes slicing off excess dowels a simple, timesaving task. However, judging by our email, too many are unsure of what a true flush trim saw is or how to use it correctly.

Try as you may, a dovetail saw, like the one on the left will not work like the true flush trim saw on the right. Click image to enlarge

Trimming the dowel so close to the surface is a good thing because it eliminates trying to sand it flush. Trying to hold a sander perfectly level while the excess dowel is sanded away is very difficult to do. Tip it even slightly and you sand a depression into the surface.

The Real Deal

A true flush trim saw has a thin, flexible blade with no backbone reinforcement. This allows it to lie flat and cut the dowel off very close to the surface. Many try using other types of saws that may look similar but usually have a backbone reinforcement strip that makes holding the blade itself parallel to the surface nearly impossible. If that blade tilts even slightly, sawing into the surface around the dowel becomes a near certainty.

A true flush trim saw usually has rows of cutting teeth on either side of the blade, a feature that comes in handy in confined spaces and for left-handed woodworkers that are more comfortable sawing with the other side of the blade.

Use It Right

Trying to hold the blade flat to the surface while sawing (left) is all but impossible. However, add the moderate pressure of a single finger (right) to the blade and those nasty gouges are a thing of the past. Click images to enlarge

Despite being wide and flexible, holding the blade of a flush trim saw perfectly flat to the surface while sawing is somewhere between difficult and “ain’t gonna happen.” However, those same blade characteristics make helping it remain in the proper position simple.

By adding moderate pressure from a finger on your other hand to the center of the blade during sawing, slicing off dowels without damaging the surrounding wood is fast and simple. Even though the hand pulling and pushing the saw will undoubtedly try to rock the blade onto one side or the other, the flexibility of that blade allows that single finger to hold it flat though that motion.

The result is slicing the dowel away very close to the surface, leaving just a tiny amount of it to be sanded off. With so little dowel left above the surface, you can apply a sander flat on the surface, take the dowel down flush and smooth to the untouched surrounding wood.

I know this sounds very simple to some. However, to those who have had to sand away the grooves left by an errant saw, this easy to do technique will be welcome news.

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