Evolution Cold saw

[engnerdan]

There is another company out there that is selling dry cut saws called Steel Max, one of my LWS carries them but I have not used them yet. I am a user of the Milwaukee dry cut with a diablo metal cutting blade from ebay.



-Dan

[Desertrider33]

My local Airgas has the Steelmax saw on display. I looked at it and saw the 'made in china' label and lost all interest in it.

[SavageSunJeep]

Has anyone tried that circular saw that has the 2 blades on it from craftsman supposably marketed to cut metal?


By the way dewalt is cheaply made in my opinion. We burn up more 4" angle grinders and drills on a daily basis at the shipyards. I used to like dewalt, because everyone else told me they were a good brand, but I know better now. Its not only in the shipyard, Ive burned up two dewalt angle grinders, 1 milwaukee, 1 ryobi, and 1 northern tool brand angle grinders at my house. Now I only use Hilti, which is still going strong after all the abuse I dish out. Very expensive grinder, but well worth the money.

I bought one of the Sears dual blades and have only used it a couple of times, but like a knife thru butter. I like it. In fact I have a write up on it that I posted on here.

I have a DeWalt chap saw and it seems good enough for what I do and as often as I use it.

That said and in no order: Hypertherm Plasma cutter, DeWalt Chop, 8 Harbor Fright 4 1/2 angle grinders, 1 DeWalt 4 1/2 angle grinder, Sears dual blade.

Harbor Fright angle grinders Vs DeWalt: DeWalt is variable speed, HF is just on/off, both work fine. BUT the cord on my DeWalt is worn out, torn, outer skin peeling off and none of my HF have done that. But I have had 2 HF bite the dust in the past 3 + years. But then they only cost $16.99 on sale.

NOTE: The DeWalt gets the least use. The angle grinders have an array of flap sanders, steel wire and the DeWalt has a cutting wheel.

What I do: Not high-tech precision work. I fab bumpers and other heavy duty reinforcement components for Jeeps and other off road rigs.

Question: Can I get a good quality metal cutting 14" blade for my DeWalt and just chug on down the road?

[Jack Olsen]

Question: Can I get a good quality metal cutting 14" blade for my DeWalt and just chug on down the road?

Unfortunately, no. You need a low-rpm motor for the metal-cutting blades -- like 1400 rpm. At normal chop saw speeds, the blades just overheat and lose their edge.

[SavageSunJeep]

Unfortunately, no. You need a low-rpm motor for the metal-cutting blades -- like 1400 rpm. At normal chop saw speeds, the blades just overheat and lose their edge.

Jack, answered like a true professional...You gave me a Yes or No answer and then told me why or why not.

THANK YOU...

[Jack Olsen]

That's because -- like a true amateur -- I tried running cold-cut blades on my 10-inch miter saw, and wasted an expensive blade pretty quickly.

But hopefully others can benefit from my mistakes.

After that, I found a Milwaukee 6190-20 14" cold saw on ebay for $279 (with no blade) and have been using the (~$40) Freud Diablo blades with it since then.

Many hundreds of cuts, and I'm still on my first blade.

[crawdaddy]

Besides the fact of destroying a blade when used in a chopsaw designed for wood cutting, Putting a cold saw blade on a regular saw could be a potential safety hazard, For instance if the blade bound on a miter cut you might be on the recieving end of some high velocity fragments.Mike

[Blondie_486]

I called Evolution today to see if there were any dealers in my area who might be stocking the Rage2 saw. Unfortunately while there are several dealers in my area including Airgas none stock the saws. I also asked the rep where the saws were made and he told me that they are made overseas. I asked him overseas as in Europe or Asian countries? He said they are mostly made in China.

Kind of burst my bubble as I was looking for a non China produced product. Perhaps it's time to look to my industrial surplus dealer and buy a used band saw and give up my floor space rather than give the Chinese my hard earned money. I know Dake makes a cold saw that will operate on single phase power but again where are they built and I'm sure it's going to be well over a grand and most likely approaching two grand.

[SavageSunJeep]

Regardless of your stand on buy American, let me just say a few things about Chinese made goods.

They like most products in life come in lousy, good, better and great.

The outcome depends upon (in this case) the stateside company that contracted to have the products made. Nowhere does the old axiom scream louder than dealing with the Chinese...'trash in - trash out'.

Don't spec CHRMO then expect cast iron, fail to spec T-6 then don't be surprised when it made out of alum beer cans, don't spec tolerances to .0001 and chances are it will be closer to 1000.

The Chinese can and do excellent high quality work but the onus is on the company here to spec it and even MORE importantly INSPECT, INSPECT, INSPECT.

Any company that calls up some Chinese broker and orders up 10,000 widgets for .10 cents each and then tells the boss that he just saved $10.00 bucks on each widget will get EXACTLY what they pay for.

Sure $ can be saved but expect to go on a hiring binge to fill your engineering QC ranks and spend a lot of bucks for folks to travel to China to insure product = American made and customer expectations.

This leads us the the second axiom...'cheap don't come good and good don't come cheap'...


I was in a fab shop several years ago to get some work done. There was a rather large sign posted that said:

To our customers. You can have it:

CHEAP

FAST

GOOD

Please pick any 2 and let me know, thanks, David, Manger, FabWerks.

[jimmy_pop]

i just google'd Dake cold saws, drool !!!