Blade/Tool Choice By Material
Choose the Right Blade and Tool By Material
This conversation came from Bloominglabs' Slack team in the #subspace-metalshop channel
tl/dr: Take a few minutes and make sure you are using the right tool and the right blade for the material you are cutting. Suggestions for making this easier in the space are welcome.
- Alex 1 day ago
The blade which we currently have in the chop saw in the metal room is not meant to cut aluminum. (It would be ruined if you cut much aluminum with it.)
Because aluminum (and other soft metals like brass and bronze) are so soft, most "wood" circular saw blades can cut them just fine.
- FrostByte 1 day ago
Ah! Coolcool that makes sense now. TIL
That means aluminium is an acceptable exception to wood tools being used for metal?
Just needs to be cleaned well, like no sawdust on the metal lathes?
- Alex 1 day ago
With some, but not all, wood blades.
For example, the "ripping" blade on the craftsman bandsaw stands a good chance of being damaged or broken if you cut aluminum above a certain thickness with it (and below that thickness, it would probably make a really messy cut). (edited)
The (I think 20 TPI?) wood blades I bought for the scroll saw work fine on aluminum. I think Josh cut 1/4" thick aluminum with them on that saw.
The Technically Correct answer is that saw blades are made for particular materials, and should only be used on those materials, and it should be easy for anyone using a given saw to figure out what the blade in that saw is for, and to change it for a blade that's meant to cut what they want.
So ideally, we would only cut wood in the wood shop, and we would have a variety of different-purpose blades for all of the saws in the wood shop, and robust labels/tags to accompany all of the blades. (The blades are often marked with paint, which wears off when they get used.) And, metal would only be cut in the metal shop, and we would have a complete variety of saws in the metal shop (including a vertical bandsaw, a scroll saw, and a miter saw, all of which we have in the wood shop, none of which we have in the metal shop) and a variety of different-purpose blades for each of those saws, and robust labels/tags to accompany all of the blades.
(This doesn't cover other materials. Where should someone cut plastic, fiberglass or carbon fiber, glass or ceramics, stone or concrete, rubber, or other materials, and where should blades and tools for cutting those live?)
- FrostByte 1 day ago
Could our dream be labeled saws and none left in tools, all placed in labeled bins? Labeled blades for materal and just tolerate moving the smaller saws between rooms for non-combustible (metal shop) and no sparks, combustible (woodshop)?
- Alex 1 day ago
You can start getting into the fact that many wood blades are specifically meant for cutting wood in particular directions, which makes things more complicated.
Requiring that people change the blades on saws is an interesting one, but it adds work before and after every person uses a saw, so I'm not sure how well we can make people stick to it. Also, many people would be (and have for most of Bloominglabs's existence) served fine by having the most-common blade already be in each saw.
The only saw blades that make sparks (unless very interesting things are happening) are abrasive saws being used on steel and titanium. That might be an okay rule, but I can see some people strongly disagreeing with it. (edited)
Changing the blades on some of the saws can be kinda tedious.
Edit: the Delta bandsaw in the wood shop (tedious), the Jet horizontal bandsaw in the metal shop (tedious, requires tools), and the Craftsman table saw in the wood shop (tedious, requires tools) all come to mind. (edited)
It would have the added upside of enforcing that everyone who uses power saws at Bloominglabs have more familiarity with the tools and blades they're using.
The best organization scheme I can think of right now would be to have a storage system that the saw blades can't be put into directly, but they need a tag or hook of some kind to go in. Remove the blade+tag from the storage, go to the saw, remove the blade from the tag, put the tag into a holder on the saw, install the blade, use the blade, remove the blade, reunite the blade and tag, and put the pair into the storage system. Because each blade stays with its tag, the tag could have the relevant information on what kind of blade it is. And, any time a blade is in a saw, its tag would be in the holder, also on the saw. (edited)
- FrostByte 1 day ago
You are right on all 3 points. Both on easy is nice (because I can then use tools), but also on must know tools to use (because this is safer and better for relaying safety and cleanup info), and the tag out system... if we can make it used.
