Evolution Power Tools EVO230 Industrial Steel Circular Saw, 230 mm, (110 V)

Excellent Machine, Quality Item Exactly as Described ;-)Cuts through heavy steel like a Hot Knife through Butter ;-)If you have never used any of the Evolution Steel Cutting Equipment, Get a demo of one, "YOU WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED" ;-)THIS SAW WOULD GET A 6 STAR IF IT WAS AN OPTION! ;-)

Treat the base plate with kid gloves, it's made of turkey foil. That's the only thing that spoils it. Easy enough to true up, but annoying. If your blade is blunt or damaged, it won't cut straight, it may even trip out. No soft start, but it's so heavy you don't need one. I have never needed the laser, but I can see it might be handy on sheet. I use mine instead of a hacksaw on 60x80x8 MS angle, with care the blade lasts for ages.

Brilliant

It’s such a shame this saw was not designed with a little more budget. Unfortunately I have given this saw at least ten different try’s of attempting to cut to the line and it cannot. The base plate is poorly made from pressed steel. The lever to clamp the height of the cut is moulded plastics onto a steel nut that has de-bonded. As far as the saw motor goes, it’s a good powerful motor. The actual saw I have has a defective button and is 85% intermittent which I have found to be quite dangerous. The current overload switch seems to trip after motor on load for approx 7 seconds, so over all not much use. The biggest problem this tool has is one, the base plate frame is of a very poor under engineered design, and trying every possible method to keep the tool cutting to the line is impossible. The main reason for this we have noticed is the saw blades are flexing under load, so blade flexing, and base plate flexing due to poor material= impossible straight cuts.We are electrical engineers by the way, not a have a play at the weekends!Well hope this constructive criticism is of use for those tempted to part with their hard earned cash. Long story short. A saw with a better base plate design and a smaller diameter blade will serve you well.

This saw is great, it literally cuts any type of material, but the problem that I have is when I'm cutting sandwich panels because of the retractable blade guard, so it gets in the way of the beginning of the cut and generates a bend on the top layer of the metal sheet. Besides this issue it's an excellent circular saw.

Very impressed. After getting advice from Evolution Support I have been able to cut 15mm aluminium sheet with ease. I dont know anything else on the market that comes close. Evolution have a winner

I really wanted to prove all the poor reviews by using this tool correctly and achieving the manufacturers blade life expectancy which is 80m for 10mm thick mild steel. Getting up to speed before cutting, going really slow, applying little pressure, clearing out the collector, supporting the material and the off cut.....following all the instructions in the manual, this thing cut through my 10mm mild steel plate like butter. It was amazing, really amazing!! 8 x 0.8m cuts, perfect, clean, cool to the touch, then on the 9th cut..... it just did 20mm and wouldn't cut any more, nothing happened, it just wouldn't cut. If I had got 15m cutting, the saw would have done the one job I needed, would be on the shelf with all my other favorite power tools and this would be a 5* review. It cuts straight, its not too heavy, not flimsy, but sadly, I can't justify the cost for the amount of cutting a single blade achieved. But it was amazing when it worked so, 2*

Took advice from manufacture about suitability of this saw before placing order. As there large wood saw had been discontinued, which I had hoped to purchase, I had inquired about when a replacement would be available. I was told it would not be imminent, but I could consider the EVOSAW230 steel circular saw as it could also be used for wood, in the absence of their wood saw. It proved very powerful and ripped down the 18' x 3" beams very satisfactorily. BUT the waste saw dust had to be physically removed as there was no satisfactory dust removal connection. This involved unscrewing the cover cleaning out a small collection area and screwing back cover. This easily doubled the time it would normally have taken to complete my job. The result was very satisfactory, but took an excessive amount of extra time and with hindsight I would not have purchased this saw for this work. Have not used it on steel cutting yet.