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Sparkless Blades
Bob Wilkerson -
Friday, August 14, 2009 - 11:45am
fabrication Can anyone give me their experience and recommedation on sparkless blades for chop saws. I'm a bit frustrated with both the quality of cuts and "mess" from the standard blades. Thanks!!  sparkless blades
Stephen Fitz-Gerald -
Friday, August 14, 2009 - 10:58pm
Stephen Fitz-Gerald In the 80s I was a line welder at a trailer manufacture and eventually ran the cutting room. We tried out an amazing German cold saw for a week that used tungsten carbide circular blades that ran slow,not the high speed kind.It had a constant water soluble lubricant and hydraulic vise. It was a very cool machine but VERY expensive and was not fast enough for production work,plus no auto feed. I now have an equally amazing electric portable saw with counter rotating circular blades,but it's not really sparkless. The shards are super hot but it cuts incredibly straight and clean with no kickback.  I had to google that because
Dick C -
Saturday, August 15, 2009 - 8:14am
I had to google that because it sounded so unlikely -- not that I doubted you. Is this something like the Omni Dual Saw? Does it work as well and cut as fast as it appears to in their video? Google this: Craftsman
Stephen Fitz-Gerald -
Saturday, August 15, 2009 - 9:27pm
Stephen Fitz-Gerald Mine is a CRAFTSMAN professional twin cutter saw (sold through SEARS). But the description sounds the same. Only the Craftsman model is three times more expensive than the Omni.  The dollar figure shown for
visitor -
Sunday, August 16, 2009 - 7:05am
The dollar figure shown for the Omni was for just one of 3 easy payments -- plus $40 S&H. If you picked yours up at a local Sears you probably saved money. Thanks for the info.  I've used a Milwaukee Dry
eligius1427 -
Sunday, August 16, 2009 - 9:41am
I've used a Milwaukee Dry cut saw for about 4 years now. It creates virtually burr free cuts using a 72 tooth 14in carbide blade with can be resharpened. Expensive to get started with, saw=$450 and each blade=$140. I'd advise on getting 2-3 blades so you have one on hand while the other is getting sharpened(I always keep 5 in rotation). With smart moderate use a blade will last from 2-4 weeks, under heavy use a newer blade will last 7-10 days, an old one 4-7. Sharpening costs me $23/blade. Relatively few sparks and lots of little chips. It will cut most metals although they make special blades if you'll be cutting all stainless or aluminum. I've cut 3"x3"x1/4" sqr tube no problem. Takes some getting used to figuring out the best place to put the fence for a particular size of stock, but after that works like a dream(although it is piercingly loud). The best thing is that if your piece ended up 1/32" too long, you can shave the end with this saw and take of 1/32", REALLY handy when you want a tight fit up. Best investment I made in the shop. I have a 4"x6" swivel band saw from Grizzly as well(the kind that will cut up to 60dgrs), but have not had any luck with it. The blade is always slipping off of the wheels or breaking. I'm aware that some of this might be operator error or poor set up, but no one around here would give me advice on it since they didn't sell the brand. Might try picking Rich's brain again before I sell it, other wise I try to get a different brand that can be maintained locally, probably a JET. A bandsaw with a lubrication system will cut much slower than the Dry Cut Saw, but will cut extremely thick metals and stock nested together with ease. Jake Jake Balcom Thanks everyone...sounds
visitor -
Sunday, August 16, 2009 - 5:22pm
Thanks everyone...sounds like two different technologies with different results depending on the user...I'm sure i can come up with a new way to make both of them mis behave....but thanks for the helpful guidance.  Jake, That little Grizzly
Rich Waugh -
Monday, August 17, 2009 - 4:51am
Jake, That little Grizzly saw, once set-up correctly, works great for me. I did have to make a new blade tensioning bolt for it as the one supplied was just a fraction too short to make it easy to get blades on and off easily. That's just a bad bit of design work on that one minor piece. It did take me a couple of hours to fiddle everything into proper alignment, squaring the wheels and guides, test cuts, more fiddling, etc. That is necessary with virtually every horizontal bandsaw I've ever used, regardless of make or cost. It really pays to use Loctite on all the fasteners, too. However, with all that fiddling done, the saw makes thousands of cuts on everything from light flat bar to 3x3 square bar on the same Lenox bi-metal blade, working for weeks or months before I need to replace the blade. Until I fine tuned it, it would shed the blade in a cut or two. I just cleaned the thing up a few days ago and removed about 5# of swarf from it-that's a LOT of cutting, all on one blade with no problems at all, all the cuts square to within .005". That was after a couple of weeks of doing some production work using a lot of square bar up to 3/4". Careful set-up on these little saws really pays off, in other words. The auto shut-off switch is a POS that I finally just gave up trying to make work correctly and replaced. I replaced it with a micro switch and a DPDT center-off toggle switch so that I can have the saw operate either constant-on for repeated cuts or auto-off for single cut work. I've found that to be a good bit better arrangement for me. I think if you took a half day to really set it up right, you'd find it to be pretty good little workhorse for you. Sure is quieter than that screamin' dry saw! :-) If you want, give me a call sometime when I'm in the shop and we can go over all the details of how to set up the saw. I'd have to be standing in front of mine to remember everything I've done, as I've had it now for a couple of years. (340) 772-5833 Rich Thanks Rich I just might do
eligius1427 -
Monday, August 17, 2009 - 8:28am
Thanks Rich I just might do that here in a little bit. I haven't turned that saw on for about 3 yrs now. I had to watch it like a hawk while cutting, went through three blades in one afternoon cutting plain old mild steel tubing. Most likely poor set up from the way it sounds. Haven't gotten rid of it yet though, maybe in the back of my mind I new there was some hope for it. Sure would be nice to have a blade last a month or so, and the quiet operation sounds very appealing to me, lol. Jake Balcom Chop saw
visitor -
Sunday, August 16, 2009 - 10:53am
If you have some spare cash I would thoroughly recommend a Trenjeager cold circular saw with a 350mm dia blade. Yes they are expensive (about £2500 second hand) Having used chop saws with carborundum and HSS blades and horiz band saws this saw is better: very accurate, fast and smooth with no heat (using coolant) and it will last forever. There is a photo of it in my workshop on the website under work in progress. Andy www.andrewkaysculpture.com remarkable chop saw
Stephen Fitz-Gerald -
Monday, August 17, 2009 - 11:30am
Stephen Fitz-Gerald I'm pretty sure that's the one,described by Andy,that I used in the 80's.It's an incredible machine... |
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ArtMetal
The only blades I know that
The only blades I know that are sparkless are the carbide-tipped ones. On a real industrial cold saw they work superbly, producing a cut that is perfectly square with a finish that can be measured in microinches. The ones they sell to use on the cheap chop saws aren't likely to last long and will be a real thrill to use, I would think. I confess I haven't had the nerve to try one. I did try one of the 10" ones on my table saw and was thoroughly unimpressed with it. Perhaps a better quality one would have done a decent job, but the one I got from Bullet Industries did not. Nor did it last long at all. I would expect significantly worse results on a chop saw, since the chop saw is far less rigid than a table saw and would shake like a dog passing peach pits using a toothed blade on steel.
I, too, hate using a chop saw. I did it for a few years because it was all I could reasonably afford, but as soon as I could find a decent horizontal band saw I could afford I bought one. I've never looked back, either. The old chop saw has been relegated to duty outdoors cutting hardened stock on rare occasions. All other cut-off work is handled admirably and quietly by my Grizzly 4"x6" swivel-head band saw. The swivel head allows me to do miter cuts without having long pieces of stock waving all over the shop and the saw, once fine-tuned, cuts extremely accurately - much better than the chop saw ever did. At just under $400 it's a real bargain, in my opinion.
Note: I am not affiliated with Grizzly in any way and wasn't compensated for this testimonial, darn it. :-)
Rich