crrmeyer
Stainless
- Joined
- Nov 10, 2006
- Location
- Southern California
At my employer we have a reasonably equipped Engineering machine shop. It has your typical manual mills, lathes, drill presses, saws, sheet metal equipment, TIG welder and similar. This is a prototype shop used by the engineers for building and modifying and does not have a dedicated machinist.
The most used saw is a Morse CSM14MB metal cutting saw as shown below. It runs at 1300rpm with a 14" blade. Probably the worst thing they cut looks like a 304 stainless steel 2" x 2.5" C channel with a 0.1" thick wall. Even with lightly sprayed coolant, it super loud and they go thru blades every 1 to 20 cuts depending on the material. They also cut steel and aluminum with changing blade types as required.
With reorganization of the building, the shop will soon have adjacent offices that will not be appreciative of loud high-pitched screeching of semi-dull blades cutting stainless.
It seems like a cold saw might a better solution. The engineers seemed well trained on changing blades so that should not be an issue. It is low volume use so non-automation is fine. Does anyone have any recommendations on a cold saw for this type of application? Most things cut are 3" tubing or smaller. Budget is around $6-7K for a new saw. My preference would be for something that I could get replacement parts if needed.
We will soon hopefully have the vertical and horizontal band saws working again as soon as I am finished fixing them. But the superior finish of the cold saws (or equivalent) is preferred for some applications.
The most used saw is a Morse CSM14MB metal cutting saw as shown below. It runs at 1300rpm with a 14" blade. Probably the worst thing they cut looks like a 304 stainless steel 2" x 2.5" C channel with a 0.1" thick wall. Even with lightly sprayed coolant, it super loud and they go thru blades every 1 to 20 cuts depending on the material. They also cut steel and aluminum with changing blade types as required.
With reorganization of the building, the shop will soon have adjacent offices that will not be appreciative of loud high-pitched screeching of semi-dull blades cutting stainless.
It seems like a cold saw might a better solution. The engineers seemed well trained on changing blades so that should not be an issue. It is low volume use so non-automation is fine. Does anyone have any recommendations on a cold saw for this type of application? Most things cut are 3" tubing or smaller. Budget is around $6-7K for a new saw. My preference would be for something that I could get replacement parts if needed.
We will soon hopefully have the vertical and horizontal band saws working again as soon as I am finished fixing them. But the superior finish of the cold saws (or equivalent) is preferred for some applications.