metal chop saw?

Can I buy a cheap 14" chop saw and put one of the expensive blades on it?

GWE

Yes. That's what I've done. While it may not be optimal (I guess it beats the cheaper direct drive saws up), it does work well. I put a Morse blade on a Craftsman miter saw and it's very fast on tubing, needs little if any deburring and the tubing doesn't get hot. It's much faster than the abrasive blade I had on the same saw. To do what you want, I'd use this setup or a horizontal band saw with the tubing clamped or bundled so that you could cut a bunch at a time.

Peter

Hmm. Better clarify some things here. You're talking about a wood miter saw. They make blades for skill saws and I'm sure that some are sized for the miter saws as well.

Grant's talking about a 14" metal cutting abrasive chop saw. No you don't want to put the carbide blades in one of those. If you'll look at the rating the speed is different for the dry cut blade saw compared to the abrasive saw.

Wayne Cook Shamrock, TX

Lots of variables there. If treated carefully they can last a real long time. In fact I've heard that they can outlast the same cost in abrasive blades. However if mistreated they don't last long at all. I've not got the chop saw variation but I do have the 9" hand held "skilsaw" type. It's rated for 1/2" plate and it'll cut it in a heart beat with a new blade. However I don't get the kind of blade life some talk about. It's probably because my most common use for it is cutting

10ga - 14ga sheet metal. Doing this tends to cause chatter, pinching, and other things that's detrimental to the blade life.

Some day I plan on getting one of those blades for my chop saw. Yes it's a abrasive chop saw and I stated in the other post that you can't use these blades in those. However my chop saw is a little different. I built mine and it's more like a Brilliant or similar brand chop saw. In other words it's got a 3HP 3phase motor belt driving the spindle and it'll take 16" blades (and believe me a 16" Norton 1/8" thick blade makes those cheap 14" blades look like toys when you've got enough power behind it). It'll chop a piece of 1" x 0.074" wall square tubing in about 1 second .125 wall takes about 2 seconds if you don't push it to hard. The 2" x .125" wall another poster was talking about would take about 5-8 seconds on it. The secret is enough power to not bog down. I've used a few different portable chop saws on occasion and I must say that I'm always disappointed in them. They start bogging down before you get enough pressure to make the blade really cut. Then if the work piece if very heavy you end up burning the blade making it dull and all cutting comes to a stop.

I've but some pretty thick stuff on mine with only minor problems. It did fail to cut through a oversized section of rail one time (like rail road track but this stuff was about 8" tall). It ended up overheating and then the blade bound in the cut.

But I prefer to reserve it for the thin and small stuff where it really shines in the speed department. The thin walled stuff tends to try and strip the teeth out of my bandsaw blades is another reason I use it for that (yes I know I could get finer blades but it takes time to change them which I rarely have).

I also use it on hard stock. I cut a section out of a truck axle the other day with it. It was about 1 3/4" dia and I didn't have any problems with cutting it. Now turning it down proved a problem. That was one of the hardest axles I've ever run across. It took me about 4 hours to turn down a 10" long section to 1.569". I had to go really slow on both speed and feed to keep it from eating my tool. But I was needing a real tough piece of material for the part I was making which is why I used the axle to make it. Mild steel just won't cut it in a track tensioner shaft on a dozer.

Wayne Cook Shamrock, TX

oxy/acetylene torch,

Well the absolute fastest way would be to wrap them with det cord and pull the pin on the detonator. BUT that way can be a bit NOISY..

Probably the next fastest would be to bundle cut them in the band saw. Or set up the ironworker with a V die and a stop.

One summer job I had involved cutting a huge number (several thousand) short pieces of bar. The bar was about 5 mm x 30 mm. The boss showed me how cut the bar with this cold saw and told me the blades cost £90 each, or something like that. It was a really nice machine - only a few seconds to cut each piece and almost silent. After about a day's work the blade was dull and I was scared to tell the boss in case I'd done something wrong. So I told his son, who said it was normal. Phew!

Chris

Triton make a *very* neat one. It's about 2-3 x the cost of an abrasive chopsaw, but I have seen a demo, it's just as fast, much cleaner, quieter and gives a much nicer cut. But, I think it's limited to about 45 x 45 mm, and you cannot feed any bigger stock into it, as a safety guard/clamp comes down over the metal, before the blade starts to cut.

Barry Lennox

Wayne, that was very interesting. Maybe, one day, I will build something like that. Sounds like a great saw. Thank you.

i

And it tends to swage the ends of the tubing quite badly.

Gunner

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire. Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us) off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the shit out of you for torturing the cat." Gunner

You could, but the blade would wear pre-maturely. An abrasive chop saw turns at about 3800RPM, vs. about 1300RPM for the dry-cut saw.

Grant, You've had lots of responses here and I'm sure you will have found the solution you want. If you go with bundled stock on a bandsaw it can work very well. Just make sure that the bundle is tight, as was mentioned. This is important because the vibration can wear the blade pretty fast. If you go with a chop saw then a very fast method of clamping is to use air operated clamps. You can use either a switch and solenoid valve or just a valve that is the same form as a limit switch. MSC sells these. And lots of other places of course. Set it up to keep fingers out of the way, make sure the clamp does not open up far enough to trap a finger. And make sure that if there is no stock in the clamp it can't close down far enough to squeeze a finger(s). I have a switch setup that I put on the quill stop on the bridgeport to open and close various clamping devices. It saves tons of time. ERS

Is that the one with the "15 amp/4.0 HP" motor :)

Laurie Forbes

In addition to the speed differential, the abrasive chop saw motors are usually smaller and would likely be underpowered. You'd burn it up under load.

John P.

No, not "Cold Saw", What he is describing is called a "Dry-Cut Saw".

A cold saw uses a high speed steel blade, flood coolant, and costs at least $2500.

Dry-cut saws use a carbide tipped saw blade that uses C-6 carbide teeth to cut steel and anything else, and they cost under $500.

This is the exact one that I own:

This is the one I would buy today, knowing what I know now: The reason I'd go with the DeWalt is that it has the Quick-lock vise and 45° tool-free pivoting fence.

John P.

The metal blades should last 10x as long as the abrasive discs. But they'll cost that much more as well. Where you save money is in completing your cuts 4-5 times faster and then not needing any grinding or finish work.

John P.

Thanks! It is out of my price range, but I would like to know how long would a carbide blade last under normal conditions.

i

Interesting. So a blade with that many teeth (seems not extremely fine) will cut through thin verticals like the square tubing without getting upset?

Yep - when I'm not using it, it's sending all that free excess energy back into the electrical grid, and I get credits :)