Thread: Metal Cutting

Hi,
I have just joined as a member but have been reading this forum for some time getting some handy tips and tricks from everyone.
I have just had my trusty GMC cut off saw drowned in our last flooding episode and am looking at replacing it. I would like something that cuts neat 45 deg angles. The GMC was cutting nicely on one side of the RHS but would be out by about 3mm on the reverse side. I assume it was blade flexing that caused this as straight cuts were normally ok meaning the setup was pretty square.
I am thinking about buying another abrasive machine but have been looking at the cold cut drop saws (tradetools, evolution, makita etc) or have been thinking about getting something less noisy such as bandsaw. I am only a backyard welder and do not weld a great deal hence I am looking at the abrasive saws again for the price alone. Any thoughts?

Hi Diz and welcome to the mob,
Bad luck with your friction saw.I too have the same model but the floods missed it when they came to our place as it was on a frame.

We use a Makita friction saw in our school engineering shed. It is a couple of years old and the kids have not been able to kill it as yet,so I would recommend it on that basis alone.

Cheers
Grahame

I too have a Mikita cut off saw that I bought about 20 odd years ago. Just recently it started to get a bit sluggish, but a new set of carbon brushes and it's good as new. Yes they are noisy but always wear hearing and eye protection and especially a respirator. That black stuff that gets up your nose can't be good for you.

have a Maktek at work. Flogged it heaps, still doing fine.

Looked at cold cut saws. Ditched that idea real fast when I came across a small bandsaw (garrick) that fits easily on the workbench. Only real downside to it is I cant use it in the vertical position. That is until I made up a custom table that also holds the blade assy upright.

Into milling now so cutting thick hunks of steel plate are no problem as long as I dont push it too hard.

If your not doing a lot of cutting and welding, I would recommend a drop bandsaw, I had used a friction saw for years at least 15, and then I used a drop bandsaw, havent picked up the friction saw now for almost 7 years

The beauty is, its quiet, you put the piece of steel in and walk away and conitune jigging or weld in the piece that was just cut. It turns itself off after finishing the cut, its not smelly, you dont get black gunge into your lungs, the positive list is endless.

Highly recommended

Those drop bandsaws look like the real deal. Would they take much more to maintain compared to a cold drop saw?

Cheers

UglyDan

Cold saw----- I have only used the industrial types (Brobo) with coolant etc... I know with those ones the blades can be quite expensive, have heard prices around the $100 mark, but havent personnaly researched that.

Bandsaw --- if u want to u can make your own. Buy the blade as a roll, cut and join. Cheapest way to go. There are a few posts on to do this on this and other forums. To have one made custom, was quoted around $30.

Only prob I have found with mine is when cutting very thin material, say something like metal downpipe. Have to be careful. As for anything else its great. Ally, plastics and occasionally pine all go thru without fuss.

thanks for the reply everyone. I had been leaning towards a cold cut saw from trade tools in Brisbane as I believe they cut really neat 45 angles which I do a fair bit off when I am welding. From everyones replies and having researched a few other threads it sounds like the bandsaws do a pretty neat job as well. They are both about the same price so it will just be personal preference i guess. The portability of the cold cut saw appeals as well.
Cheers,
Diz

From what I hear the light cold cutting saws are great on material that suits them like medium RHS... but not flash i=on realy light stuff or realy heavy stuff.

The realy good thing about the abrasive wheel, is that it does not care much..and you can cut just about anything with it...if you stuff up the blade ........no biggie.

I've recently baught a tradetools abrasive fdrop saw & it isnt bad.

two things make inaccurate miters every time.....
pushing too hard...the blade will mistrack and flex....let the blade take it's own sweet time and the cut will be straighter

not setting the job firmly on the baseplate, with the clamp sungged up nice.

So may of us don't have out metal drop saws permanenty set up so we don't have the material properly supported either side...so the mitre gets dodgy.

I have to say If I had the spare ca$h and the space I would have a drop band saw.....very civilised and clean cut..and huge capacity.

cheers

We had a lot of cutting coming up and I bought a bandsaw for about $1500 with a really good vice setup. Compared to the price of a Brobo it won hands down. We have had some problems with shoddy workmanship, bolts not tightened and things not quite machined right, but that is what you expect out of china I guess.

I really wanted to buy the Brobo because I have a thing about trying to support australian manufacturing, but their stuff is in another league - $5k plus. even second hand Brobos go for up to $2500.

The bandsaw is quiet, makes very nice cuts and as previous people said, you can cut much bigger sections without even having to watch. Just set and forget.

Hi,
I have settled on a cut off machine. Needed a machine to cut some 50x50 gal posts for the new fence I putting up. Went to the local hardware and they had a WORX 355mm cut off machine for $230. Talked to the owner of the shop who I know personally and he said the WORX brand have been really good and have replacement warranty. Machine works well but don't like the cover that hides the bolt to change the disc.
I have been emailing a few tool and saw blade companies about steel blades for the cut off machine similar to the TCT blades on the cold cut saws (i.e. makita, dewalt, rage, etc). Abrasive saws run to fast for the TCT blades so I am looking for something to run at high RPM's. I was told today that the blade i need costs about $350. I have seen some old threads regarding this topic and am sure there was something available at about a third of this price. Does anyone have any knowledge of blades that can be run in an abrasive drop saw?

DIZ mate forget trying to run anything else in an abrasive wheel drop saw than an abrasive wheel.....don't even waste your time thinking about it.

I heard stories of people trying all sorts of things.....and all of them are either inappropraite or very dangerous.

Abrasive wheels are cheap... be happy with that.

cheers

Hi Diz,

The big "must do" is to match the maximum rpm displayed on the information badge of your saw machine to maximum rpm displayed on on the info badge / label of your selected metal cutting saw blade.

As with all saws the tooth configuration needs to match the type of metal intended for cutting .

Please use extreme caution as these are 2400 watt machines. My GMC (yeah,yeah -I know its a crap machine --its 10years old and going strong) revs to 3,800 and match the blades to this figure.

The thought of a 14" solid blade doing this rpm is a touch scary.

It may be helpful to chase the specs on the Makita metal cutting saw and find out what it revs to.


What people don't do is cost the per cut sums -your $350 blade cuts will actually likely be cheaper.SWMBOs' boss has done the sums for the Makita model and tells me its a heap cheaper.

Cheers
Grahame

For sure the abrasive wheel cutters will be more expensive per cut over a long term....... but in the short term they are cheap as chips...and for those of us who aren't in a heavy use situation..we will probaly never reach the break even point.

Consider also none of the "real blade tecnologies" like dirty material......cut a lump of rusty RHS with a bit of dirt or and ants nest up the guts and you have just wrecked your expensive blade.......with an abrasive wheel...who cares.

ALSO
The light weight cold cut saws spin the the hundress of RPM not thousands.

The other thing is the guard shape and material...the guards on abrasive machines are designed arround fine particals and sparks....not chips and the odd errant tungsten carbide tooth.

the gear train also is designed arround a friction cut....

and all of these friction saws have quite a bit of end float in the arbour shaft......that would not be good for a carbide tipped blade.


The message is buy the appropriate tool and use the tooling that belongs in it......there is no free lunch

cheers