drycut saw recommendations?

Grant, sorry for a dumb question, but I thought that you had a very nice 7.5 HP 16 inch saw? What happened to it? Am I confused about who had what?

I can't offer anything on the drycut saw specifically, but I have three different Hitachi electric tools and the quality on each has been very good.

Good Luck, Bob

I can say the same about DeWALT.

I do. It cuts fine. It can cut at 90° or 45° which to me is a significant limitation. I believe with all the work I've put into it, I can sell it and buy any of the 14" drycut saws I choose. Those all have mitering capability.

I still sort of wish I had a real cold saw. Those have real swivel heads like tool & cutter grinders, probably have degrees and minutes with a vernier like my old Cincinatti #2 T&C grinder clone did.

But these are thousands of dollars cheaper. And like the man said, if it doesn't work out, I can always sell it and go buy a cold saw.

Grant

I see.

Those are very nice, I am sure that you can find a good one for a grand if you look.

Same applies to real cold saws (if bought used).

Consider buying one of the dry cut saws, a small 6" import rotary table and a decent vise. Rework the whole thing to replace the original table and wimpy vise with the decent vise mounted on the rotary table. Once aligned it should be very easy to set an accurate angle quickly without having to get a protractor in. Put the whole saw/RT/vise assy. on top of a basic turntable bearing so you can rotate the whole mess to position the stock in line with your extension table wings and work stops. Sounds klunky describing it, but I think it would work very well and be inexpensive.

Pete C.

Grant I only have experience with the DeWalt 872, which we are using at work. It works well in our application, which is cuttign 1-1/8 18ga tubing. We use fixtures to hold the tubing to cut it to length for the muffler headers we make. We get 6-800 cuts per blade, before we send them out to get resharpened and then 5-600 cuts the second time around. The most important thing it to make sure your parts are firmly clamped, loose parts are death to the blade. I make jigs with dowel pins to locate the parts and toggle clamps to hold them, doing it by hand will not suffice. You also have to be carefull with the offcut end, if it is long enough it should be supported and if possible clamped. You have to be carefull of short offcuts as they can be grabbed by the blade and flung across the room. Gloves and a face shield are mandatory, and I would not recommend short sleeve shirts, the chips can be hot and stick :-) I also don't recommend wearing artic fleece jackets as the chips melt into the fabric and are a real pain to get out :-) As you mentioned the blades are not cheap, The 90 tooth SS blade can set you back $250 cnd. We also use a cold saw but it is not adaptable to the use we put the Dewalt to. The DeWalt it also very fast.

James Crombie Design Engineer Silent Exhaust

I buy my blades from Tenryu (who invented this technology).

Avoid the 90 tooth blades from Porter Cable.

You always want at least 1 spare blade so you can have one getting sharpened while the other is in use.

I do NOT recommend East Side Saw for sharpening. Too unpredictable.

Emerald Tool in Georgetown is the best by far. Costs about $30 - $35 depending on how many teeth have to be replaced.

That is way cheap. Normally I trust Hitachi, but they may be like the Dewalt blades, utter crap. I bought a Dewalt blade once out of desperation, and it blew teeth like crazy.

Yes they are. You can also use the cheaper 12" blades.

Avoid the Dewalt. The Evolution saws are made in England and get rebadged all the time by other companies.

If I was going to buy a second saw for portable use it would be the Makita 12" saw. More torque, cheaper blades and longer blade life.

In general avoid cutting thin wall stainless tube with the stock blade. I switch to an abrasive blade for that task.