Dry cut vs Abrasive...yeah, yeah, I know......

admin

Hold your flam'in! I've looked through the forums on here and found most of you are, or at least giving examples of, cutting tubing and pipe with your dry saws. The general consensus seems to indicate that the dry saw is faster cutting through a given tube/pipe than abrasive. My question is, to those that cut it a lot, is how are they cutting solid round and square stock? I use mostly 3/16" to 3/4" solid round and the same in square stock, hot and cold roll mild steel. I also cut a lot of 1/8" flat stock. Anywhere from 1/2" to 4" wide. Quite a bit of 1/2" to 3" .063 tube too. My reason for asking is that I do a lot of repetitive cuts (sometimes 50-100 at a time) and that makes for a $hit load of dust from the metal, and the abrasive and fiberglass from the blade. The little chips produced by the dry blade would be 1000x better than inhaling the black soot. BUT....BUT I can't be slowed down. I have no issues with the speed of cut using the abrasive blade. Takes about .8 of a second to cut through a piece of 1/2" round HR, for example(pre-China Delta 14" saw, Walter or Flex-O-Vit blades). On the thicker solid, the metal does tend to cherry up and glaze the blade. So I have to give the blade a "brushing" to get it cutting again( I won't go into details as a lot of you will faint  ) . I also....make sure your sitting.... do free hand cutting with the chop saw. Trigger locked, blade up and hand holding the piece to the blade. Obviously NOT going to do this with a toothed dry blade!!! Anyhow.........after all this rambling on....... what's the experience of those of your that have cut with both? I'm building a new shop right now and am going to put in an opening in the exterior wall, right behind the chop saw. It will have a hatch door and a good size fan in it. The thought being that I can turn it on to suck out the smoke and dust right outside at the source. ( no neighbours to worry about ). But if I get a dry saw, I don't need too.Sorry about the length of this. I really appreciate any advise I can get!!!! Regards,Bert200amp Air Liquide MIG, Hypertherm Plasma, Harris torches, Optrel helmet, Makita angle grinders, Pre-China Delta chop saw and belt sander, Miller leathers, shop made jigs etc, North- welders backpack.
Reply:I have the Makita dry cut saw.I also do some production work that it works great on.Some of the stuff i cut.... 35mm solid bar, 73X5.16mm seamless tube ( 30 to 100 at a time ), 100X5mm flat ( 30 to 100 at a time ).I like the cut finish.  Little to no cleanup.  Keeps dust down.  Cut speed is good.  Faster than abrasive on most stuff.You must clamp your piece good or the teeth will pick it up and bend your blade and remove teeth.  ( trust me, i know )  It doesn't like angle cuts on angle iron if positions the wrong way.I don't have an abrasive saw, but i do use a friends from time to time and they do both have their place.
Reply:i have used a lot of dry cut saw and from my experience they do alright with solid stock if you are careful and dont push to hard and let the saw do the workthere is a wax like lube that comes in a stick that you can use and it makes the blade run cooler and last a lot longerbut the best saw for solid stock is a wet saw
Reply:Abrasives are much faster, if engineered correct.   If you have a 14" cut off blade, A36OX3S would cut most material at max speed and min. blade usage, compared to an A24T Blade.  JGSMAW,GMAW,FCAW,GTAW,SAW,PAC/PAW/OFCand Shielding Gases.  There all here. :
Reply:Thanks for the info. Don't want a wet saw. Weldgault, are those blades you mentioned Dry saw blades or abrasive? And what is the brand? I used to buy the Walter abrasive blades, but found they cut slower, glazed up more, and were quite a bit more $ than the Flex-o-vit ones I get at my LWS. Keep it coming fellas,Thanks Bert200amp Air Liquide MIG, Hypertherm Plasma, Harris torches, Optrel helmet, Makita angle grinders, Pre-China Delta chop saw and belt sander, Miller leathers, shop made jigs etc, North- welders backpack.
Reply:They are Abrasives 14X1X1/8 cutoff Blade.  Since I sold these, they are from Gulf States Abrasives (Houston Texas).  JGSMAW,GMAW,FCAW,GTAW,SAW,PAC/PAW/OFCand Shielding Gases.  There all here. :
Reply:Size for size i've never seen an abrasive saw that'd keep up with a dry cut (speed, accuracy). Capacity isn't reduced as the blade wears either. Hot, sharp swarf makes a mess but as you say no dust. Can't think of a louder way to cut metal and the blades are reletively fragile (long lived if treated with respect though)I've cut bar stock thicker than my dewalts rated solid section capacity without problems from time to time (like after breaking the lathe parting tools for example). Talking 4" 6082-T6 aluminium and steel bar in the 2-3" range. Yorkipap has posted a thread or 2 that has a few tips for improving cut speed/blade life, knocking up a couple of fixtures that let you clamp square stock like  instead of [] as the blades work far better with this orientaion. With solid bar setting the fence as far back as possible lets the blade cut down at more of angle which helps some
Reply:I have used both......and when I made the choice.........I bought a drycut saw. I love it.....it is a cheap "masterhand" from TSC and they were closing them out for $50!!!!  they don't sell them anymore though.  It has been awesome.  I also put a laser guide on it.  I have cut 4x4" square tubing (1/4" wall).  I have cut an 8 or 9" long section of 3/8" plate with it also.  I just take it slowly on a thick piece like that, but it powers through it very quickly....and very little mess.  a magnetic sweeper picks up the chips easily!  the cut edge is nce and clean...never needs any additional work.