Rage chop saw blades

[Scholsey]

Anybody replaced their rage evo blade with something less terrible/expensive?

is the worst thing on the farm, noisy, really nasty sparks, not a nice cut, slow, expensive blades and easy to knackered the tips. anybody just put 12” grinder discs in them?

 

[335d]

What blade do you currently have, the multi material or the steel cutting blade?
The steel only one is quite good I thought.
I doubt it would be much use with an abrasive blade. Wouldn’t be running fast enough

 

[335d]

I use this one

Evolution Evolution M355TCT-66CS 355mm x 25.4mm x 66T Metal Steel Circular Saw Blade | ffx

Buy Evolution Evolution M355TCT-66CS 355mm x 25.4mm x 66T Metal Steel Circular Saw Blade online at ffx. Next day delivery available.

www.ffx.co.uk

 

[Scholsey]

It’s the orange label blade so guess that’s multi material which is maybe the problem, guess you can’t be a jack of all trades when it comes to cutting stuff. Will replace it with a dedicated metal blade and try that.

 

[TechWise]

As above, the saws intended for tungsten carbide blades turn slower so it will be next to useless with abrasives in it. A local tight-fisted fabricator near here bought one and knackered the blade then stuck some abrasives in it and was forever moaning about how useless it was.

Quite surprised that you find it slow and a poor cut. I find it very fast and a cleaner cut than the abrasive saw that went before it. I think we've put about 3 blades on ours since buying it and it's done a serious amount of work. One of those was because I loaned it to a ham fisted friend who was rough with it but paid for the new blade. I've had a surprising amount of success doing a crude resharpening with the cordless grinder. Just grind the teeth back parallel to the flat face until the rounded edge is gone then a light dressing on the outer face of the tooth to make sure the leading edge makes contact first. They don't come out quite as well as a new blade but I've been able to double the lifespan of two discs this way. One thing that will knacker the blades in short order is if the chips can't clear as it's going round, ie if you're cutting a piece of flat bar with the wide side facing up. Make sure you put flat bars vertically and even grip heavy box sections at 45 degrees with a corner pointing up so that the blade isn't clogging going through the top and bottom faces. My Evo saw came with a little holder to do this.

Is it noisy - yes, horrendously so. However, an abrasive saw is more than loud enough to damage your hearing anyway so I put ear defenders on for both and don't find the noise an issue. People wear safety specs to protect from something that might go in their eyes, yet they don't wear ear defenders for something that is damaging their ears every second that it's running. Not a dig at you personally @Scholsey, just an observation from a number of fabricators' workshops I've been in where they wear specs and welding masks but not a set of ear defenders in sight.

 

[clbarclay]

A decent quality ear defender is well worth it.

Single pivot chop saws are not great for cutting thick stuff, even a high speed one with abrasive discs. I've had trouble with them when the blade just doesn't have enough contact pressure and the abrasive particles seem to just dull, rather than get knocked off to expose fresh sharp particles. Tried increasing the down force, only to over load the disc and break it. I've managed to do the same with a 9" angle grinder cutting thorough 20mm flat. The blades were lasting forever compared to cutting up sheets of tin, but it would get to a point where they aren't cutting much at all. At least with the angle grinder though, it is easy to just move to cutting on an edge of the slot for a bit so you can increase the contact pressure a lot without having to apply any more force.

I got a evo 355 for cutting 7x4" RSJ. Unfortunately, to cut through it in a single go meant the disc ended up cutting through over 3" of web at one point, which took the edge of the first blade very quickly. I changed clamping the RSJ through 90 degrees, cutting half way through from one side and flipping it over to finish cutting through from the other.

I have wondered whether the cut of saws where the cutting head pivots and slides might be more effective for cutting through thick pieces of steel, as you could keep changing the angle its cutting from. Those style saws only ever seem to be sold for cutting lumber or stone though.

 

[Pistonbroke]

I might be wrong but there shouldn't be sparks if it's sharp. Am I the only one who can't get it to cut 100% square though? Tried all sorts and never right

 

[TechWise]

I might be wrong but there shouldn't be sparks if it's sharp. Am I the only one who can't get it to cut 100% square though? Tried all sorts and never right

I abandoned our band saw for the same reason. Tried a couple of new blades and wasted hours tinkering with the rollers that guide the blade yet it would never cut square from above or stay plumb while working it's way down through something.