Thread: Sourcing solid TC saw blades

Firstly..... WHY?

Secondly the most common use is industrial cutting of aluminium ( and probaly steel) so any serious saw doctor or supplier of industrial metal cutting equipment.

cheers

Make sure you take your checkbook

Originally Posted by soundman

Firstly..... WHY?

OK - you asked so here it is.

We are in the business of short term backwards time travel. We travel back through time by cutting up and analysing polar ice cores.

The first thing we do is rip or mill successive 5-10 mm outer layers off 200mm long sections of ice cores. Then we slice up the inner part of the core which is the least contaminated section bit and analyse this to find out what the earth was like up to several hundred thousand years ago.

IN the past the decontamination has been done by hand with SS chisels which are very clean but very slow.

For Arctic or Greenland ice we have been using custom made stainless steel blades because it is much cleaner than HSS, but the stainless steel is proving too dirty for the very clean Antarctic ice.

All the cutting is done in a laboratory 10 times cleaner than an operating theatre and at -15oC. The ice core is held in a custom made stainless and polycarbonate lathe like jig. The blade is connected by a flexishaft to a low speed hand drill mounted in a sealed plastic box under the lan bench, and mounted on on a pneumatically driven cross feed jig.

We have the cleanest lab in the world doing this type of research - what we now need are clean blades. The SS blades are cleaned by leaching them in dilute nitric acid for months before they are ready to use. We are hoping the TC can also be cleaned up in a similar manner.

So, not woodwork but icework.

Holy crap - someone actually does real work around here!!

Laser not an option I guess.

Try contacting Carb-i-tool in Melbourne - they may be able to custom make a blade to your specs.

Originally Posted by Stuart.

Holy crap - someone actually does real work around here!!

Laser not an option I guess.

Try contacting Carb-i-tool in Melbourne - they may be able to custom make a blade to your specs.

Thanks Stu.

RE: Lasers, maybe for the inner slicing (we are working on it), but for the outer layer decontamination we don't want anything that melts any significant amount of the ice since that transfers the crap in the ice inwards towards the pure centre of the core. For example we have tried washing the outer layers off using running hot pure water and that does not work.

I'll give Carbi a call.

Bob i would try to source the companies that manufacture blades for the medical mob with their sugery. I would imagin the blades that they use to cut bone would be ideal for you. The Fein Multimaster is used in the Medical world so i bet you could get blades somewhere for that amazing tool

Here is the multimaster http://www.feinus.com/multimaster/index.html

I doubt you will get a solid blade that big, unless it's specially made and then, at least 4 figures per blade.

What about some other materials? Titanium perhaps? Ceramic? There has to be something that is not only feasible, but affordable and hence, available.

I dread to think who else would want a 6" solid tungsten carbide saw blade...

Bob,

Would it not be possible to cut the ice core with an electrically heated wire, like a cheese cutter? Presumably you could get a wire made from some conductive, but chemically inert metal that could do the job.

Alternatively, what about one of those machines that uses an ultra-high-pressure fine water jet for cutting? Presumably you could use purified water in it to avoid contamination.

Rocker

Originally Posted by BobL

I am trying to locate any Australian suppliers of 6 to 8" diameter solid TC saw blades.

Thanks

Hi Bob, not an Australian distributor, but perhaps they can put you on to one.

I buy solid TC cutters, including blades from these people at times. They only go to 6" but assume they can help you if you do need to go to 8".

http://www.discount-tools.com/CATALOG.htm

I linked to the 6" diameter page. Avg this size $250 US. Great quality.

Take care, Mike

Thanks everyone for all the input.

RE Fein : We have looked closely at the Fein but it would need to be completely remade for our purposes. We cannot have an electrical motor anywhere near the ice because it makes too much contamination. We would need to have the cutting head on the end of a "something". 10,000+ rpm driven by a mechanical flexishaft was not recommended. We have though of a compressed air driven system like a dental drill and use a longish TC cuttter to shave the ice core but we would have to use super clean air or a closed hydraulic system. This is still a possibility but we have gone for a simpler option first.

RE Electrically heated wire. This has been tried using ultra pure platinum wire and doesn't work. Its the same as using clean hot water rinsing. As soon as the dirty ice in the outer layers of the core is melted it creates dirty water which contaminates the inner layers.

RE: Ceramic and titanium blades. Ceramic has been tried by other research labs and found to be too dirty although I don't believe they were able to clean the blades up as well as we are able to. We'd probably give Ti a go if we could get them.

All good ideas though, keep em coming.

If the outer layer is contamination, can it not be removed before cutting the inner core. I'm picturing some sort of lathe-like device which allows the outer layer to by cut away clean, and then one of the melting or water cutting techniques utilised.

Actually, if the core were stabilised on 2 rollers, either side of the cut, and then a glancing 'cut' with a water cutter to remove the outside (and to a bit either side of the sample point (while spinning), and once down to to the pure core, the watercutter then changes the angle of cutting so it then produces a clean slice.

Does the core rotate in its jig while being milled and cut? If so could you use a diamond to mill the outside off (ala the diamond grinder dresser) and then cut off the sections?

Cheers
Michael

Once again thanks for all the input. It may sound like I am knocking everything on offer but your thoughts are still much appreciated.

Originally Posted by Stuart.

If the outer layer is contamination, can it not be removed before cutting the inner core. I'm picturing some sort of lathe-like device which allows the outer layer to by cut away clean, and then one of the melting or water cutting techniques utilised.

That is precisely what we do. The outside of the core is dirty mainly from the pressurized kerosene used to stop the outside of the drill pipe from sticking to the outside ice. These drill go down kms into the ice. The problem is the decontamination has to be done very carefully so as not to transfer the kero and bits of metal from the drill pipe to the inner layers. What has been done in the past by us and all the top ice core research labs around the world is to shave away these outer layers away by hand using stainless steel chisels. This is a well established practice, for eg we know precisely how much Lead containmination is added with every stroke of a stainless chisel (it's 0.000 000 000 000 01 g). Antarctic ice contains 0.000 000 000 000 2 grams of Lead per gram of ice so 20 chisel shavings is as much Lead as in 1 gram of ice.

Actually, if the core were stabilised on 2 rollers, either side of the cut, and then a glancing 'cut' with a water cutter to remove the outside (and to a bit either side of the sample point (while spinning), and once down to to the pure core, the watercutter then changes the angle of cutting so it then produces a clean slice.

Yes we stabilise the core in a special lathe/jig/holder but remember we have to do all this at -15oC with almost a gale of ultrapure clean -15oC air sweeping down over the core and sweeping away any particles that the researchers generate in its vicinity. It's freezing cold so we have to wear seriously padded ski suits underneath tyvek lab overalls,.
Using water in these conditions is a big problem.
- a water cutter requires using a pump, pumps (even full teflon internal) are very dirty things.
- spraying liquid water around under these conditions is not really an option. Some of the spray freezes when it hits the ice and lathe and lab and it does not drain properly. Within 30 minutes the lab turns into an ice cave complete with stalegtites and stalegmites, the air filters and chillers block up and lab loses temperature control.

Diamond is an option we have not fully explored. It is of course glued on with something and one tiny little fleck of the glue could ruin an important section of core. It appears that we need a cutting or chipping action than minimizes rubbing of blades or metal parts onto the ice.

Ahhh weird stuff, great

The carbideis one option, have you thaught of ceramic?

if you are talking clean I recon that is about as clean as it gets.

cheers