Metal Cutting Circular Saw

[Tupers]

Any experience with metal cutting circular saw blades here?

I’ve got 3 full sheets of 5mm aluminium that I need to cut up for a project and I’m thinking of grabbing a carbide tipped blade for my circular saw.

I would take them around to my local fabrication place and have them chopped on their guillotine but I probably wouldn’t get anything back this side of Christmas.

 

[fizzy]

Any experience with metal cutting circular saw blades here?

I’ve got 3 full sheets of 5mm aluminium that I need to cut up for a project and I’m thinking of grabbing a carbide tipped blade for my circular saw.

I would take them around to my local fabrication place and have them chopped on their guillotine but I probably wouldn’t get anything back this side of Christmas.

I have just had some long cuts to do in 3mm ali. I used a little worx saw with it's standard blade and it coped ok.
Didnt try my proper circular saw though. Why not buy one of those rage type blades for it? Should be fine.
I found WD40 made a great lube for doing it.
I used lots of wooden battens under the 8x4 sheet for support.

 

[Tupers]

Unfortunately the smallest rage blade is 185mm and I’m reasonably sure my saw is 165mm although I’ll check again when I’m back in the workshop tomorrow.

 

[frank horton]

u can't use the RAGE type metal cutting blades in a norm circ saw.......the standard wood circ saw runs to FAST.....
most normal carbide wood tooling will cut ALLY but sometimes it melts and sticks to the cutting tips.........
I'm sure that the big Rage chop saw's have a special blade for ally just for that reason......

 

[piman]

Hello Tupers,

I'v ehad no problem cutting aluminium with a normaltipped blade wood saw, as mentioned earlier, lubricate from time to time with WD40.
Lots of chips though so wear eye protection.

Alec

 

[Steelspray38]

I agree with Piman, the key is to lubricate often !! to prevent clogging/alum sticking to the carbide. Try clean white spirit with engine oil added to have a very thin film of oil retained on the blade. Remember to mix to about 3 in one type oil .Hope this helps

 

[Hood]

I have an Evolution saw that I use Rage blades on for chopping Alu, I have also used a normal wood cutting circular saw (Elu I think it is ) to good effect. The grade of the Alu will make all the difference, a Magnesium based Alu such as 5083 will be easy, a silicon based one will be harder as it will clog and a pure 99% Alu will be the worst for clogging. As has been said, lubricating will help with the normal saw blade.

 

[Tupers]

That’s great, thanks for the help everyone.

 

[Matrixx]

what about scoring, bending and shearing? I found it works on smaller sheets OK

 

[Agrismith]

I have one of the rage saws have used it on 6mm steel and it flew so ali should be fine
You can put the evo blades in a normal circular saw or atleast some of them the rage b actually has a marginally higher speed than some makita models