Some years ago now I taught an adult education class on carpentry. Most of these students were brand new to any type of wood working and we had an excellent text book I inherited from the former teachers. Working in the day students workshop we had access to all of their “well loved” or abused power tools. Most all were corded. We had one 12” Dewalt sliding miter saw with an extended factory style mount. All the circular saws had bent baseplates and dull gummed up blades. We did have the largest cabinet style Saw Stop table saw.
Since the day students were learning how to build houses the material available to me and my students was pine 2 x materials and rough plywood and particle board. My project I developed was a set of folding saw horses with mitered, glued and screwed legs and a 2 x 6 top.
I was not interested in teaching anyone how to use hand tools such as hand saw, hammers, chisels etc. that is a safe easy task that students could learn on their own. I encouraged everyone to bring in their own tools to use, especially if they needed help in understanding them.
It seems that all the lumber was the cheapest available and we spent lots of time learning how to sight down a 2x 4, study the end grains comparing it to the photos in the text for least likely to bow in the future, then cutting lots of unequal length legs with two 15 degree ends parallel to each other.
I had built several ingenious wooden fixtures, allowing the students to relatively safely cut their four 15 degree miter pockets in their 2 x 6 with a circular saw. The 2x 4 legs slotted into these pockets. Two being glued and screwed and the opposite side being hinged from below typically using repurposed door hinges. It had a folding plywood shelf locking it into open position.
We had seven week, three hour sessions to build these sawhorses. Some students finished them in three weeks and some never completed them.
Now back to the OP’s question, cutting twisted structural lumber and kickbacks from his sliding miter saw. Seeing all these folks of various skill levels struggling to use this unwieldy giant 12” Dewalt saw without a soft start feature that kicks somewhat hard when pulling the trigger, then requiring brute strength to pull it out, over the top of the lumber while simultaneously having to push a long twisted board flat in two directions against the base and against the backstop. They still haven’t done the cutting part which is push the saw down then forward SLOWLY through their board.
Most couldn’t do it initially, with practice or sometimes ever. I myself own a 12” Dewalt Chop Saw. No sliding feature at all for two reasons. I don’t like using a sliding miter saw and they are much bigger to store. So, after watching several classes struggle with this saw I found I could lock out the sliding feature and turn it into a Chop Saw. Eliminating this strength challenge and motion brain challenge was very beneficial to my students. They could position their twisty boards then only have to pull the saw down slowly to cut their sawhorse legs and tops.
They discovered to cut four 2 x 4 legs of equal length it worked best to cut them all ganged together and not one at a time.
Meanwhile, some students avoided the miter saw and attempted to build the project using Only a circular saw. The logic being they didn’t own a miter or chop saw and why learn to use it. I also had devised a clamped and ganged method of cutting four equal length legs working off the many large tables in the shop. They were angling the circular saw base to 15 degrees, clamping and using a cutting guide.
So, bindings saws? Yes, I had many a situation. Mostly when cutting boards a student would suspend the board across two sawhorses, then try cutting in between the supports. It got so I intentionally showed them this phenomenon an and they were encouraged to practice cutting scrap boards while hanging off the support. Slice, slice, slice. Difficult pushing the spring loaded blade guard out of the way, keeping the shoe flat and watching videos of YouTubers doing it wrong. Many were manufacturers demonstrating their products!
Eventually I made a “shooting board”, well, that’s what I called it. It was a sacrificial board with a low stop screwed to the back. It screwed to the top of my example folding saw horse which was conveniently made the same height as the shop benches, that way a long 2 x 4 or 2 x 6 could rest on the shooting board and the bench being completely supported. A 12” quick square is held in place and the circular saw is visually lined up with your cut line. You can push really hard to cut and also easily clamp the loose end to take the twist out. If a student was particularly weak, it was easy to double hand the circular saw holding the saw guard open, then taking a slow cut on their drawn line.
I had students old and just out of high school, men and women. With physical limits and folks who worked in the trade and were teaching me new tricks.
Using a shooting board is my preferred way to cut structural lumber to size. I used it on 90 percent of the cuts when building my son’s rear deck stairs. I had my chop saw set up, but preferred a quick square and circular saw. My go to is a Metabo 7-1/2” battery saw. So great because of long battery life, powerful motor and soft start feature allowing no jerking on startup and less fatigue in wrists and arms.
I’ll try to dig up some photos to go along with this explanation. Here is an internet photo showing the crosscut shooting board fixture.
