Making an abrasive wire saw?

My guess is that for an abrasive wire saw, a soft wire like brass would work better. The grit would imbed in soft wire. Not so much in tungsten.

Dan

My guess is that for an abrasive wire saw, a soft wire like brass would work better. The grit would imbed in soft wire. Not so much in tungsten.

Dan

Sort of swings and roundabouts. Soft metal, low strength for the cutting but if high strength wire will not take abrasive without spot welding or similar, then no cutting at all.

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If you are trying to cut a soft metal with this method and wire you will abrade the wire instead. Could you use .15 mm dia. copper wire?

Wolfgang

Maybe dental polyester UV-cure resin + diamond dust?

Call these guys and ask your questions:

-- Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens. -- Epictetus

Abrasive? With tungsten wire, why not EDM? Tungsten is refractory, but not noted for abrasive embedding capability. Soft iron, or brass, is a more typical wire-saw candidate. Rockhounds often use coathanger wire...

Skimming Dremmel and parting disc over a sheet of fine grade silicon carbide wet & dry, in a paper cup, gives a source of fine grit . Now how to sputter spot weld to wire, whether fine W, Cu , Al or ni-cr that I have around.

Or, just buy abrasive powder (it's available by the pound, graded by grit), and glue some onto wire. Then, electroplate a thin metal film overtop, to hold the grains firmly.

Steel wire would work fine. Why tungsten?

FWIW, abrasive-wire cutting machines were being developed in parallel with, and in competition with, wire EDM up until around 1978. I saw and reported on two of them at IMTS-78.

They used brass wire -- hard-drawn and not annealed, I think -- and diamond grit, which was wiped off and recycled as the cut progressed. These were die-cutting machines, used for cutting hardened or unhardened tool steel, typically D2 in those days.

By IMTS-80, they were on the way out. Wire EDM had progressed to a point where its cutting rate and machine cost made the abrasive-wire machines non-competitive.

Copper plating be enough ? I have a reel of W around, and no