Cold Saw Question

A miracle. Very unlikely place, you'd be more likely to find one at 7-11. :-)

GWE

Steve, Google "dry cut saw" and "cold saw" on the internet. This might give you some of the information you are looking for.

You are NOT going to find a cold saw at a pawn shop. First they weigh 500 to 1000 lbs. Second they are too damn big.

I have one at work that we got from Boeing Surplus.

Got the saw as a charitable donation, then spent $1200 to get the motor fixed.

("FREE" is a 4 letter word beginning with "F")

Cold saws are big and heavy. They do show up at industrial auctions, just be careful about how beat up they are.

A COLD saw uses a flood coolant to keep a very slow moving, solid high speed steel blade cool. They slowly chew through steel.

A more likely tool to find at a pawn shop is a DRY-CUT saw. These use a saw body similar to an abrasive chop saw, but stronger and lower RPM, and a carbide tipped saw blade using special C-6 carbide teeth. Much more portable. I have a Porter Cable 1410 Dry Cut saw at home. Great saw. New they run around $400.

You could jerry-rig a 14" dry-cut saw blade onto a wood cutting miter saw, but you would rip the teeth off the blade, burn out the saw motor and melt the blade guard with hot steel chips.

Ernie,

I notice that the manual for these things says that they are for non-ferrous metals only. In your experience can they used with aluminum if one uses a different blade? Is this non-ferrous rule one that should be adhered to?

This looks like it would be a Good Thing for me, but I need to be able to cut aluminum.

Peter

aluminum is non-ferrous

Ferrous means iron or steel alloys They will be OK for Alumininimimimium.

Whoops.. I meant to say they are for ferrous metals, not non-ferrous )shouldn't post so early in the morning). Still interested if these things can work with aluminim.

Peter

Whoops.. I meant to say they are for ferrous metals, not non-ferrous (shouldn't post so early in the morning). Still interested if these things can work with aluminum.

Peter

They will cut soft steel, aluminum, plastic, wood, brass, copper and almost anything else as long as it is not hardened steel.

If you have to cut hardened steel you can swap in an abrasive blade. The Porter Cable 1410 is an excellent saw. You can buy the blades from mytoolstore,com for a lot less than anywhere else.

Freud makes several blades for cutting Aluminium in regular woodworking miter saws. Run you about $90 for the blade. Clamp the stock tightly, and let the blade stop before you lift it out of the cut to avoid tossing small offcuts across the shop. DAMHIKT. In a top quality power miter saw these give excellent results.

Stuart