Thread: putting a cold saw blade into a timber mitre saw?

There are special blades you can buy to use in your power saw, but if you try a cold saw blade it will over heat it in no time as they are not meant to go that fast.
If you search the forum back to about a month ago there was a thread on them.

Dave

Cold saw blade spins/designed for slow rpm, timber mitre saw high rpm.

This blade is NOT designed for high rpm!!!!!!

Yes your friend is technically correct there ARE blades that will cut steel that can spin at those speeds and I have one I've used in an angle grinder. This should not be confused with an abrasive cutting disk, but a TC blade with chip limiters to cut all metals. I haven't seen them around much and found mine became blunt quite quickly. I think this was because I was cutting welds which I suspect were somewhat hardened.

Having said all that, the chips coming off the blade are very hot, and most of the guards I've seen even on good quality saws are at least somewhat plastic. I would think the hot chips would make short work of them.

So the full answer is "yes" ... If you manage to track down a blade, it was the correct arbour size for hour saw, you confirmed the max rated speed, and didn't mind trashing your existing saw. On the other hand you could go to a well know rip-off hardware retailer and lay down 50 bucks for their house brand abrasive chop saw

Pete

very good points

ive looked fora cut off saw but even bunnings want $190 for theres then there makita is $235

I thought I'd seen a cheap ozito brand there? Not being in the market for one I could be mistaken so perhaps it was somewhere like aldi? I do recall it was around $50 as I thought at the time how cheap it was. You'll always pay a considerable premium for a brand like makita, though I have many of their tools and am happy to pay if I get better quality.

If it's a metal cutting saw you're after, many of us here have bought the metal cutting bandsaws. They'll set you back about 300 plus the cost of a few decent blades to replace the rubbish one they come with. To be perfectly honest they're an absolute POS in terms of quality, but in terms of function ther work perfectly.

Pete

Edit: sorry I meant to ask what type of "metal" are you looking to cut? I think we've all presumed steel, but if it's actually aluminum, brass, bronze, etc you will have a lot more options down the initial path you suggested. My Festool mitre saw will cut aluminum with the stock blade for example

Originally Posted by Pete F

Edit: sorry I meant to ask what type of "metal" are you looking to cut? I think we've all presumed steel, but if it's actually aluminum, brass, bronze, etc you will have a lot more options down the initial path you suggested. My Festool mitre saw will cut aluminum with the stock blade for example

Yeah I was thinking steel too. Before my bandsaw, I was cutting aluminium regularly with my dewalt 12" saw and an irwin aluminium blade. It works great except for 2 things: it sprays little chips of alumium all over the place and occassionally the blade will grab a small offcut and spit it out at about the speed of sound - so beware, it would be 10 times worse with a high speed blade cutting steel if it grabbed.

Cheers

- Mick

Mick I agree, though my saw cuts aluminium beautifully, it makes a heck of a mess and is loud. I had a piece of aluminium jam one time while trying to trim a small piece, the force was enough to bend the blade. Festool blades are not cheap, and while I got it back quite close to straight again, I'm still not impressed and don't recommend using these blades unless in dedicated saws. I think Festool do them and can recall a small TC blade steel cutting saw from Triton before they went turtle. I thought the Triton was a neat little saw if you were doing a lot of fabrication in RHS or similar. However they lack the versatility/capacity of a bandsaw, although they're normally much faster.

As Mick said the chips these types of blades send off leave the blade at high speed, are relatively large compared to an abrasive blade and if cutting steel they're hot. Not especially enjoyable as you're being showered in them.

Pete

I have a horizontal bandsaw but still much prefer to use a TS with a negative raked toothed blade to cut ally on my table saw, and have been doing so regularly for about 3 years.

The trick is to go slowly and, to avoid gumming the blade, rub the cut lines with hard wax, and also rub hard wax onto both sides of the blade. The reason these blades will sometimes grab is that users drive them too hard without wax. This then melts and sinters some hardened ally onto the tips of the teeth which can change the rake. Using wax reduces this problem. I learned this from my ally boat building BIL who used many wood working power tools (saws, planers and routers) to build boats up to 7 m long by himself for 20 years. The key is the wax (and meths for drilling).

Yes the swarf is a PITA and if I am cutting a lot of it I will wear a cloth over the back of my head (and full face shield which I wear whenever I use the TS) to stop the sward going down my neck

Some stuff I have made from Ally using the TS.


All Ally Macro camera stand, (Even the lampshades are made of Ally)


Chainsaw bar dresser