Dry Cut Chop Saw

[ihojeff]

Recently I purchased a Milwaukee drycut chop saw. Got a screaming deal at $350 shipped from amazon.com. Cuts like butter without the dust and sparks with no burr to remove. I highly recommend this saw.

[Michael Mayben]

What's the cutter medium Jeff (no dust)??? Diamond wheel?

Momma needs to snake one o' them for ME! Will ya reinforce that for me?

[ihojeff]

Its a special carbide blade. I already made the mistake of cutting a thick ass piece of metal and got the blade hot when the material was laid flat. Now all it does is throw sparks . I'd still recommend the saw, just don't cut massive chunks of steel like I do here.

[reuben]

so is the only difference the blade?, the saw looks the some as reguler chop saws.

[ihojeff]

Originally Posted by reuben

so is the only difference the blade?, the saw looks the some as reguler chop saws.

The machine is different. Turns at a much slower speed than a regular chopsaw.

[Joe D.]

They make similar blades for a regular 7 1/4" circular saw. They cost about 10 times more than carburendum blades, but last about 10 times as long, and cut twice as fast. Very handy for cuts in large sheets of metal. Better keep 2 hands on the saw at all times, those kickbacks can be nasty.

[Plug Ugly]

thought I would chime in on an old topic.

I had a bunch of birthday gift cards to sears, so i purchased the evolution dry cut saw. SOOOO much nicer than that damn milwauke abrasive I had. As loud or louder, and MUCH more shrill sounding, but the cuts are nice and clean (no prep to weld aside from maybe beveling edges, etc). Also, no dust. it does produce a very fine "chip" but its much easier to clean up than all the dust. Dry cuts are awesome. Expensive, but aswesome.

[fred demmon]

I have one of these and it is awsome

YouTube - Steelmax Saw

[Michael Mayben]

Welcome to the forum Fred! About time ya showed up around here!

Regarding this chop saw subject, has anyone had any experience with a "heavy duty" variable speed control/rheostat for a "chop"-type saw?

I have a Dewalt 12" sliding compound miter say which nearly built this house! I cut a lot of light gauge aluminum extrusions/tubing/angle/sheet (up to 3/16") with it. It certainly has the reserve capacity to chop steel (up to 1/4" I think) if I could slow it down. I use the Frued highdollar blades for laminate flooring for some aluminum and works just fine, also have a couple of Frued non-ferrous blades for the heavier gauge aluminum. We have TONS of saw blade grinders up here in timber country who can custom fab any blade I need.

But I gotta slow the saw down for cutting ferrous materials, this is NOT an every day, constant use thing that will reduce the service life of this tool. But I'd like to take advantage of it's precision cutting ability in angle situations for doing metal fab more efficiently.

[Craig]

The plastic parts will suffer with that saw. Hate to see the saw that built your house get hurt

I have the same saw. When it comes to angles you have to cut a lot to get them spot on. I figured out how to get tape measure lined up and using a straight edge to figure out where the cut will go, plus the saws walks a bit on angles so you need the clamp tight. I welded a 3x6x.25 flat bar to the stock backing plate to firm it up. I scribed a line for the 30, 45 and 90 degrees so I don't have to use those crappy stamped marks. Even after all that you can still be off when making cuts, but mine are a lot closer then they used to be. I could have pick up a H. band saw for free, but no room to store it. Thats what you need to make repeatable cuts. Kick my self for not getting it now, but maybe another day.

[Michael Mayben]

I've had NO problem in making accurate cuts with this rig! It's far more accurate than I am still after more than 10 years of use. Only plastic part is the actual blade guard.

Having it semi-permanently mounted to a stand with table extensions on both sides AND roller suports allows many additional clamping options when needed. The table extensions are set true and parallel using a machined straight edge, and the tension gibs are adjusted as needed. Rigidity makes or breaks accuracy with tools such as this.

[Joe D.]

You should be able to use a speed control like they often use with routers. In my quick search I could only find a cheapo harbor freight example, Speed Control, but that might suit your needs just fine.

[Craig]

I meant to take a pic of my metal chop saw with the mods I did to it which helped it to make better cuts. I bought my brother a very nice metal chop saw that has a cast iron base and make very accurate cuts. I looked at about 10 models before buy one for him. The only feature I forgot about was weight, that cast iron base chop saw weight a F'in ton.

Those cheap speed controls just chop the A/C wave, so its like you turning the saw on and off 60 times a second to control the speed. might work, but you will burn up an inductive motor like you would see on a table saw.

A motors speed is designed in to the motor by the number "poles" most A/C motors are either 1750 rpm or 3400 rpm give or take a bit.