| Many
factors affect blade performance.
If you can increase the life and efficiency of your
blades, your productivity and profits can increase as well.
Material Factors
Tough material can tear the
teeth out of the blade because the load on each tooth can exceed
the shear strength of the tooth.
A controlled feed rate and a raker set blade will help.
Hard material will require heavy feed pressure per tooth
for penetration. A
coarse tooth blade will give better teeth performance.
For fragile materials such as cast iron, a fine tooth blade
works best.
Work hardening material requires
a very heavy feed pressure to prevent the blade from riding on
top of the material and dulling the teeth.
Again, a coarse hook tooth works the best.
Abrasive material will appear to
cut easily, but will dull the blade quickly. A blade that is too
dull to cut tough material like stainless steel may cut mild
steel satisfactorily. Proper cutting fluid for the material
being cut will substantially increase blade life.
Incorrect cutting fluid often results in crooked cuts or
damaged blades.
Blade Sharpness
It comes as no surprise
that a dull blade will cause problems.
But it is also true that a very sharp blade can be a
source of difficulty – namely vibration.
Vibration
Vibration
occurs as follows:
when a very sharp point enters the material, it
immediately begins to dig itself into the material.
At some point, it gets in too deep and “bounces” up.
The next tooth does the same thing and the result, of
course, is vibration.
Excessive vibration will greatly reduce blade life and
will also cause excessive wear on other parts of the saw.
As the blade begins to dull just slightly, the points of
the teeth stop digging in and the vibration stops.
Now the teeth must be pushed into the material by the
saw, permitting proper cutting pressure to be applied. |
