Thread: combination circular saw blade for saw mill (lucas mill)

TC

I expect you are refering to the demolition style blades available for the handheld circular saws, but I have seen nothing for a swingmill size blade. I used to have a spare couple of blades in case I hit something.

There was one occasion when the blade suddenly stopped dead. When I checked the tips they had all come off. One tooth had contacted a foreign object. The tooth jammed itself into the cut and the other four teeth destroyed themselves on that tooth.

Regards
Paul

My experience on using a contractor blade in a table saw to resaw old decking joists was not a spectacular success. The rusted in decking screws shattered the carbide teeth. Might have worked OK on bright steel nails, but harder foreign objects were a problem.

Thanks fellas for the comments. still haven't been able to find anything. If there's any engineers out there looking for something to do. Here's a challenge and it must be a challenge 'cause no-ones done it yet! It will probably be lots of teeth with kickers close behind to make sure the teeth don't bite off too much. I still reckon it will slow the milling down a lot but just might be worth it for some of the logs found in the suburbs which are renowned for foreign objects. Praps I'm just a dreamer? I just cant get it out of my head that such a blade could be made. Or maybe it needs some kind of censer through the blade that can detect steel (Via a small electric current like that saw blade that american bloke invented?) and give warning.
I might have to get a metal detecter and be done with. Any one recommend where I could get a good one?
Thanks again, Tim

TC

This is the detector I have (about $70 from memory) but bear in mind they only reach to about 20mm -25mm beneath the surface. So they are really good for planing/sanding operation, but slightly less so for cutting and deep cutting in particular.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7X86vqDMgg

Regards
Paul

Tim, the way I understand it, a metal cutting blade would be too inefficient to rip timber all day. if you say that in all the cuts in a log maybe two passes in whole log that would hit nails, the rest of the time you are pushing so slow as to make it an all day affair to cut 1 mid-sized log - which ordinarily might be sliced up in less than an hour. As I charge by how much log I slice, if I spend all day slicing one log, versus doing a blade (charging customer for the re-tip) and slice 4 more logs then I'm 4x better off - who needs a metal saw???

Lets say you see trash in the log so you change the normal blade and swap it out for the metal cutting blade - you've still taken the same amount of time you would have taken if you hit the metal with a normal blade and swapped for a new one, but now milling the log has taken much longer...

More often than not I'd say the loss of teeth versus the option of a metal cutting blade saves more time than you think. Also for me my saw doctor is $75 for re-tipping so it isn't a huge issue and re-tipping is tax deductible so it's not much of an issue.

Then imagine if the current blade is $350 now, how much would it cost for this kind of metal cutting blade at least twice as much due to it's ability to handle trash in the log - probably even more than that....


The bonus gets fast outweighed by negatives...maybe why it hasn't been done

hey fellas new here but it scares me to even consider putting a saw into something that could , even remotely,have a foreign object in it.not being familiar with tipped saws do they just lose their points or can you totally ruin the saw also damaging the machine and possibly the operator.

1thumb - second log I've got to mill today has 3 batten screws and 5 4" nails I have been able to find, sure it ain't all that is in there....

a bit of chisel work and I'll have that stuff out, but may just put it to the back and use it if I absolutely have to...

The mills are designed well, not much chance of operator issues, yes the blade could end up in a bad way, but it's part of the territory, I haven't experienced or heard of this kind of thing killing a machine, so no fear there either

Al

I'm with you on checking the log out first and taking your chances. I think TC was referring to a saw blade that would cope with foreign bodies (mainly metal) rather than a metal-cutting blade. Something like this perhaps:

Diablo Demo Demon Saw Blades

The demonstration occurs just after the one minute mark and is both impressive and far more extreme than you would normally encounter, but I agree with Al that it will not be the most effecient tooth design for cutting timber. It is also only 184mm .

Regards
Paul

Hey Paul, yer I was just calling it a metal saw out of laziness lolz.

Turns out not just the 'second' log this morning had trash in it opening cut took a run at two nails... Ah well pics later tonight....

Hi Guys. Paul that's the type of blade i mean, Combo rip and metal then it's just a multiplication problem to almost 2' diameter for my lucus. This demo was a rip and far more aassulting than most of what we come across. It was a bit slower than is desired but still better than expected. I smell a little spark of hope.
Allen, sorry to see you got more metal
Looking forward to pics, Allen.

I would rather hit the metal with the saw and be up for retipping rather than strike it again later with a planer or even worse, the spindle moulder.
As Sigidi said, much cheaper just to retip than come up with a metal cutting super blade. A good quality metal detector would make a better investment, but they're not perfect either. The worst things to hit are farriers tools that have been left in the fork of a tie up tree from last century and the tree has grown over it. The rasps are as hard as a bull's forehead and don't cut well at all.

Originally Posted by rustynail

The worst things to hit are farriers tools that have been left in the fork of a tie up tree from last century and the tree has grown over it. The rasps are as hard as a bull's forehead and don't cut well at all.

Whooops! Sounds like the voice of outrageous experience !

Regards
Paul

sounds like tc saws will handle more than old steel saws,badly damaged a saw in my brest bench a while back by hitting of all things a bullet

Originally Posted by 1thumb

sounds like tc saws will handle more than old steel saws,badly damaged a saw in my brest bench a while back by hitting of all things a bullet

Bullets don't bother the Lucas at all, sliced through a bunch of them - probably not any special kind of armour piercing type of ammo, but the Lucas goes through bullets fine.

Well as I said, appears it wasn't only the second log of the day with metal...

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this is what it was hiding under...

WP_000705.jpg

This is what I spotted in the second log, when the logs where on the skids...

WP_000704.jpg

pulled them out and got on with the job of cutting...Opening cut on first log struck two nails, small only about 2mm thick...

and managed to spot two others by the familiar black stain starting to show colour, got the second pair out without hitting them. Decided there was no point changing the blade as I had the 'main' trash log coming up next. So I left the blade on, at this stage it had lost 3 corners off two teeth and one other tooth had lost the top third of the tct, but there was still a good amount of tungsten left covering the pocket, so I started the second log.

Hit a further two smallish nails in the second log, but managed to steer clear of the tips from the 3 broken off batten screws, so was very happy about that. Total metal haul for the day...

WP_000715.jpg

hit 4 smallish 2mm nails on this blade but ended up slicing 50 5m 125x38, 5m 10x2" step tread, 6 5m 8x2", 1 3m 8x2" and 2 2.4m 8x2" and in the morning I'll swap out the blade now I'm onto fresh logs. I only have one 'new' blade at the moment, this one now needs a re-tip and will be sent off to saw doc with another one that is worn out and I lent my fourth to Carl when he was having some trouble and needed to get some orders out - reminds me I gotta get it back from him.

Also took a series of video I'll post sometime (after I edit it together) on how I get best/fastest recovery on a tapered log with pipe/crap in the middle/heart and how I try cut to prevent the log falling over when doing deep vertical cuts through the middle.