Abrasive cutoff saw for aluminum?

I recently bought a 14" Milwaukee abrasive cutoff saw, primarily for use with steel.

I understand that grinding aluminum with abrasives previously used for steel is not a good practice, I recall some kind of safety problem.

If I buy a new blade, and only use it on aluminum, will that work OK? I am not talking about a lot of cutting, and mostly thinner pieces, less than 1/8" (3 mm).

The other alternatives I have available are a hacksaw or a reciprocating saw (Super sawsall, variable speed). Those will not tend to make as square a cut, hence requiring grinding to square them up.

Richard Ferguson

Reply to
Richard Ferguson
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No. What happens is aluminum very quickly clogs the abrasive blade, you push harder to try to make it cut, the blade gets *extremely* hot, and shatters. Your wife visits you in the hospital.

Buy or make yourself a miter box, wood will do. Now using the miter box to guide the blade, either the hacksaw or the sawsall can be used to cut the aluminum pieces. Or do what most of us have done, spring for the $169 Harbor Freight horizontal bandsaw. Works great for all metals.

Gary

Reply to
Gary Coffman

Reply to
Danny

Any good wood working blade and tool will cut aluminum. If you have a circle saw with a carbide blade and a speed square, you might give it a try.

I use my DeWalt miter saw quite often. I do not bother to change the blade from woodwork to aluminum.

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Reply to
DanG

I've watched people cut aluminum in wood miter saws many times before, though I haven't done it myself. Yet. (Hacksawed a lot of aluminum angle by hand for years, now that I have a nice DeWalt DW-708, I haven't needed to.)

But you want to use a good quality fine-tooth carbide blade, clamp the material securely so it doesn't try to escape (usually through soft parts of your body...), and feed the blade through the material slow and easy. If you force it, you'll destroy the blade.

There are specialized soft metal cutting blades available for miter saws, but you still have to be fairly conservative with the feed rate.

Real "Cold Saws" made for cutting aluminum work better - especially if you're going to do it at production levels - but they turn a lot slower, and cost a whole lot more.

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Reply to
Bruce L. Bergman

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