Evolution Rage Circular Saw Review

What comes to mind  when you think of a circular saw?  Well, most of us think of power, speed and a great power tool for cutting up some wood. Now times are changing and Evolution power tools are leading the way.  Who?  Evolution power tools.  That’s right.  Evolution is not as well known as some of the other major brands around, but it should be.  I am sure at this point you are asking why.  To sum it up, the Rage Circular Saw
is an incredible circular saw that does everything you want and more.  Yes, it cuts wood, but it also cuts steel, aluminum, plastic and more.  An with the Evolution Diamond blade, you can cut concrete and stone.  Oh yeah, you don’t even need coolant.  Simply amazing.

We first saw Evolution power tools at the Home Builder’s show in Las Vegas.  After talking with them, we had to get our hands on one of these saws and try it for ourselves to see if it really was as good as they claim.  When I first saw the Rage, I was a little skeptical because the motor sits on the left of the saw; therefore, I thought the saw would be heavy.  I also thought it would be hard to control as the weight appeared to be placed on the left of the saw.  Well, I can tell you right now, I was wrong.  Actually, this saw only weighs 14.3 lbs. while most worm drives weigh more.  Plus, this saw does 10X more than any other saw out.

When I first showed Bill and Warren the Rage, they had the same ideas as myself.  Once they picked up the saw, they were very surprised, because in their time they have seen a lot of tools.   Before we actually tested the saw, we tried to cut some different materials and everything we threw at the saw, it just ate up with ease.  But before we get into what the Rage laughed at, let’s talk a little about the saw itself.

The Rage comes with a nice hard case, obviously the saw, Rage blade (one blade cuts wood, steel, aluminum, plastic), safety goggles, hearing protection, DVD, and owners manual.  Best of all, this saw only cost about $150.  This is a lot less than most worm drives and other circular saws.  As we noted, this saw only weights 14.3 lbs.  and packs a high torque motor with a speed of 3500 RPM.  The max depth cut at a 90 degree angle is 2-1/8″ and at a 45 degree angle is 1-3/8″.  As extras, you can also buy the Evolution Diamond blade to cut concrete and stone.

After leaving Bill’s shop, we took the saw back to my house to create a short video.  As I was showing Mike the saw and showing him how it cuts, it was a nice day so we were outside, as couple of neighbors stopped by.  Well one thing turned into another and we just started cutting everything we could find.  Before we knew it we cut up all the material we were going to use in the video.  So in our video we still cut up all steel, aluminum, wood, brick and plastic, but we are also going to add another video that shows the Rage  cutting even more.

Enough babbling, lets get into the review.  If you don’t all ready know, the name says it all.  This is definitely an evolution in circular saws and the Rage is one incredible circular saw.  The first items we cut through were some 2×4, 4×4, plywood, Oak 2×4 and some other stock material.  Obviously, this saw cut through all the wood with no problems.  The finished cut was very nice and ready to use.  The next item was some plastic.  We cut through some plastic bathroom Vinyl sheets to see what the finished cuts looked like.  Again, the saw left the edges smooth, no melting, and ready to use.  We also cut through some PVC, 1/2″ – 3″ pipes.  The saw ripped through these with no problem.  The most surprising was the finished edge.  We thought for sure there would be some burrs or tiny plastic pieces that would need to be cleaned off the pipe, but the end cut was very smooth and again it was ready for use.

The next item we wanted to run the saw through was some metal.  For this we used a metal stud because we thought for sure we would get the cut to spark and leave a rough edge, after all this is a review, and we had to find some con’s to the saw.  Again, to our surprise when we were cutting, no sparks of any kind.  As you can see by the video, no rough edges what so ever.  Looks like a nice pair of shears cut through the stud, and not a circular saw.

Well if the metal didn’t spark or leave rough edges, for sure thicker steel would.  At Bill’s shop we cut up some 1/4″ steel plates, black pipe and some other steel items he had.  While the steel did spark a little, and we mean a little, it was very impressive.  Again, the finished cut on all the steel was very smooth, and we cut up a lot of steel with this one blade.  One of the most impressive features of this saw was we did all this cutting with one blade, except for the concrete, we used a diamond blade.   Oh, before we forget, the steel was cool enough to the touch that we could pick it up and work with it right away, pretty amazing.

Now we all know that the blade is what does the cutting, but the saw itself also has a lot to do with making the blade work the way it should.  The Evolution Rage has a high torque motor that has an RPM of 3500, which is a great set up to help the TCT blade produce such great cuts.  Now even though it is a TCT blade, it is very strong.  Most Carbide is brittle and you break the tips very easy.  The way Evolution designed their blades, they are protected and even after all the cutting we did, the blade was sharp.

Bill brought home some concrete that had rebar embedded in it so we could test the rage  cutting through some heavy material.  To cut through this we had to put the Diamond blade on.  Changing the blade on this saw is very easy to do.  On the side of the saw, there are two thumb screws that take the face plate off.  Then you can lock the blade and make the change.  Not that you will be changing the blade that often because Evolution uses a high grade TCT blade that does all most everything.  Cutting through the concrete and rebar was a snap and the one thing we noticed other than the clean cut was the dust.  While there was some dust, the dust was a lot less than we expected.  At this point we noticed the internal collection system.  While it is designed to collect wood and metal shaving, it actually collected a lot of the dust and let us see our work a lot better while making the cuts.

As you can see from the video, we cut a brick, not that it’s that impressive, but we wanted to show something.  First, a brick is small and cutting it with a 14lb saw should take a little work for the user,  because there is not much to hold onto.  As you can see, it cut through the brick no problem and it also finished the cut, so at the end, the brick didn’t break, it cut through the whole brick.  Second, I could easily hold the saw and a small brick to make the cut, yet still have control over the saw.  Now this saw is meant to be used with both hands, but with most of our cuts we could use one hand and have compete control over the saw.

Well I could go on and on about this saw, but if your like me and have a short tension span,  better  to sum up everything now.

Over all this is one incredible saw.  Everything that Evolution claims is true.  One blade cuts through wood, plastic, aluminum and steel, plus with a diamond blade you can cut stone.  The finished cuts are perfect.  With steel you can work with the material right after the cut, and during the cut, few sparks are produced.  This is one awesome saw that we think everyone should own.

If any one has any experience with this saw, or have questions or comments, we would like to hear your thoughts.

A MUST OWN BY ANYONE.