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Post by 1dave on Oct 30, 2018 1:46:14 GMT -5
A couple parting thoughts...be sure to get something to dress the blade with. Some use a red brick, some have used grinding wheels, and others (like me) use an abrasive stone that can be found in tile departments. It's typically used to soften cut edges on tiles. Would you mind expanding on this thought? I have not been doing this (to my understanding of your point) and I'm curious if you can elaborate? What do you mean "dress the blade with"? Thanks, Grant Dress The Blade.Over time the blade metal will pull over and bury the diamonds. Not politically correct, but we actually "undress" the blade by cutting something - brick, old carborundum grinding wheel - that will wear away the metal and re-expose the diamonds.
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Post by grumpybill on Oct 30, 2018 5:49:40 GMT -5
How often - and if - you need to dress a blade depends on the quality of the blade, how hard/fast you push the material through, and whether the blade gets enough coolant. Glazing is usually caused by the matrix metal melting slightly and filling the area between the diamond chips and/or releasing the chips.
The early dry-cut masonry blades were notorious for glazing...especially when cutting hard burnt brick. That's when I learned that a few cuts into sandstone or Indiana limestone would clean them up. With a wet saw, I've found that the blade cleans up quicker if you turn the water pump off. (I use an overhead saw. With a typical 7" tile saw, where the blade dips into the water, you can dump the water out.)
I've never found a need to swedge a blade, but I'm going to look into it now that I'm tearing my saw down and packing it away for the winter.
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Post by woodman on Oct 30, 2018 9:34:07 GMT -5
How often - and if - you need to dress a blade depends on the quality of the blade, how hard/fast you push the material through, and whether the blade gets enough coolant. Glazing is usually caused by the matrix metal melting slightly and filling the area between the diamond chips and/or releasing the chips. The early dry-cut masonry blades were notorious for glazing...especially when cutting hard burnt brick. That's when I learned that a few cuts into sandstone or Indiana limestone would clean them up. With a wet saw, I've found that the blade cleans up quicker if you turn the water pump off. (I use an overhead saw. With a typical 7" tile saw, where the blade dips into the water, you can dump the water out.) I've never found a need to swedge a blade, but I'm going to look into it now that I'm tearing my saw down and packing it away for the winter. I got a tile saw that I bought to lay tile in the basement and have never used it on rocks, don't need to, but all that said , when I first started running my drag saw I was using water, the diamond inserts would glaze over in no time and I was having to dress them way too often. I switched to using diesel and hardly ever need to dress the blades. I have dressed my 18 inch a few times but not real often. Just rambling on this morning trying to wake up! Rain finally here in Oregon, it has been a real dry fall.
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Post by aDave on Oct 30, 2018 13:13:46 GMT -5
How often - and if - you need to dress a blade depends on the quality of the blade, how hard/fast you push the material through, and whether the blade gets enough coolant. Glazing is usually caused by the matrix metal melting slightly and filling the area between the diamond chips and/or releasing the chips. The early dry-cut masonry blades were notorious for glazing...especially when cutting hard burnt brick. That's when I learned that a few cuts into sandstone or Indiana limestone would clean them up. With a wet saw, I've found that the blade cleans up quicker if you turn the water pump off. (I use an overhead saw. With a typical 7" tile saw, where the blade dips into the water, you can dump the water out.) I've never found a need to swedge a blade, but I'm going to look into it now that I'm tearing my saw down and packing it away for the winter. Thanks for this insight, Bill. Since my blade runs through the water tank, I've only dressed my blade while wet. I"ll have to try it dry since you mentioned it seems to be more efficient. Unfortunately, it will be a minor inconvenience to dump the water, as I usually decide to dress the blade during the middle of a cutting session when cutting starts to bog down a bit. Maybe I'll look to dress the blade before I start sawing. I think the necessity to swage a blade is directly related to the same factors that you mentioned about dressing - though mainly cumulative over time. I certainly don't do this as often as I use a dressing stone on my blades, and I don't have a real good threshold for when I do it. I guess I look to do this if a dressing doesn't seem to cause that much of an improvement in cutting performance and the edge is excessively rounded. Don't ask me to define "excessively rounded," as i won't be able to offer you anything. I just look at the blade and say to myself, "hey, that looks pretty rounded." And, when I do swage, I don't think I've ever tried to get the edge back to being totally flat. Don't know if that's possible. I just look to take some of the roundness off.
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