• I want to thank all the members that have upgraded your accounts. I truly appreciate your support of the site monetarily. Supporting the site keeps this site up and running as a lot of work daily goes on behind the scenes. Click to Support Signs101 ...

Saw Blades

S

SqueeGee

New Member
I need a new saw blade for our Safety Speed Cut panel saw. Last time I needed one, I just ordered it from Safety Speed Cut but I was just wondering what else might work because they are pretty spendy($150+). We cut PVC, acrylic, MDO and the occasional sheet of Dibond or Alumalite with ours.

Also, I need a blade for our chop saw to cut 1" square aluminum tubing. I found a 12" Lenox 80 tooth blade that's designed just for aluminum for about $125 but again, was wondering if anyone has any recommendations based on personal experience.

Thanks!
 
iSign

iSign

New Member
I replaced my SSC blade when it shattered some polycarbonite & shot pieces so wildly someone could have been hurt... I asked a countertop laminate supplier who also carries power tools & several substrates I purchase & uses a huge panel saw ... he sold me a blade I have been using ever since... it was about $80 & works great on everything you mention... I'm not at the shop & don't know that I could identify it, but thought maybe a similar countertop supplier in your area would be worth asking...

If you cut a lot of aluminum, an expensive blade makes sense... but if not, how about a less expensive abrasion wheel?
 
S

SqueeGee

New Member
Thanks for the tip. I have a cabinet guy that we do work for and I'll find out what he would recommend.

iSign said:
If you cut a lot of aluminum, an expensive blade makes sense... but if not, how about a less expensive abrasion wheel?
Click to expand...

We'll need to make about 100 cuts on the job I have to do and my understanding is that an abrasion wheel cut will require a significantly greater amount of clean-up(burrs) than a blade cut. I was at another sign shop recently that uses a blade and I was impressed with how clean the saw cut looked.
 
Malkin

Malkin

New Member
I'm not at the shop to check, but I know we special ordered a blade for our safety spped cut panel saw that had lots of teeth for cutting alumalite/dibond etc. I think it was about $80

The one that was supplied with the unit we used for a while, but it turns out that it was supposed to be for luon! It was really awful.
 
signage

signage

New Member
Squeegee is you chop saw a slow speed on or a high speed one? The slower speed ones use blades that look like circular saw blades and cut cleaner and smoother that the high speed ones that use the abrasion type blades. As for you CC panel saw any good carbide tipped blade with a high tooth count should work as long as the OD and arbor hole are the correct size!
 
G

GB2

Old Member
No, no, no....don't get confused here....I'm quite certain you are operating a standard wood cutting miter saw. In order to cut aluminum with that you basically use the same carbide tooth blades as you would for wood. There are blades that are made more specifically for aluminum but really any ATB (Alternating Top Bevel) or TCB (Triple Chip Grind) blade with about 60 or more teeth will do fine.

Now, for the SSC panel saw, you can find blades but due to it's unique size you have to be sure to get the correct size. A TCG (Triple Chip Grind) carbide blade with about 60 teeth is a good universal type blade for that saw. I believe that is what SSC will provide.

Here's a blade selection chart:

http://www.freudtools.com/images/PDF/SB-Sel-Chart-2008.pdf

Now, as far as the abrasive blade...rpm....discussion goes, that refers to ferrous metal cutting saws of either a slow rpm chop saw designed to cut using carbide tip blades or a high rpm chop saw designed to use abrasive blades. Those are probably something totally different than what you are looking for and they are for ferrous metal not aluminum.
 
SignManiac

SignManiac

New Member
120 triple chip is a fantastic blade and can be used on just about anything. I can't remember which one I used, but I was sold on if over twenty years ago.
 
signage

signage

New Member
SqueeGee said:
Also, I need a blade for our chop saw to cut 1" square aluminum tubing. I found a 12" Lenox 80 tooth blade that's designed just for aluminum for about $125 but again, was wondering if anyone has any recommendations based on personal experience.
Thanks!
Click to expand...

GB2 he says chop saw here that is why I posted what I did about those blades!
 
G

GB2

Old Member
I know Brian, and you might be right still! We'll just have to wait and see if he can explain exactly what he has.
 
S

SqueeGee

New Member
Sorry for the confusion in terminology. I have a DeWalt sliding compound miter saw. Around the shop, we call it "the chop saw" and I gave no thought to how that would be interpreted. Completely my mistake.

I learned from another local company that there is a guy who comes through once a week to pick up blades that need to be sharpened. I spoke to him on the phone and it just so happens that he'll be coming through tomorrow morning so I'm going to see what he can do for the blades that we already have before buying any replacements. I've been told that saw blades can be resharpened as many as 10 or 15 times and the cost to sharpen one is only about $15 so it's worth a shot.

For my aluminum job, I think I'm going to go with an 80 tooth triple chip.
 
K

Keith Rae

New Member
To cut aluminum you want a blade designed to cut it, they are built with a negative hook angle so the metal cutting don't clog the teeth. Negative hook angle is if you draw a line from the center of the center hole blade past the face of the tooth the tip of the face will be back from the heel, the face is less than right angles from the blade, the face is pointing away from the center of the blade. All wood cutting blades have a positive hook angle the face of the teeth slant toward the center. Any carbide saw will cut aluminum but with the proper blade you will get less material compacting in the blade and less of the saw grabbing the material as you cut it. Triple tip saw blades were designed for the cabinet and furniture trades to get a better cut on the bottom side of the material they're cutting, (Less chipping). Shops that had saw with scoring blades don't use them much cause the scoring blade works so much better. Scoring saws are table saws with two blades a small blade that is set to a height of 1/8" and turns in the opposite direction of the main larger blade. The small blade scores the bottom of the material cutting up into the wood giving a clean unchipped cut on the bottom, the main blade then cuts through the rest of the wood leaving both top and bottom cuts chip free.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top