Tips on Maintaining your Coldsaw Blade

Cleaning your coldsaw blade is a part of your maintenance routine to ensure the longevity and efficiency of the blade. But cleaning your blade isn’t enough, there are other maintenance routine you could do that will surely help your blade reach its potential.

1.       Cleaning

When mounting the blade, remember to clean both flanges and blade. A single chip between the blade and flanges can lead into excessive side run out. It can also reduce the stability and cutting quality of the machine.

2.       Fluids

Fluids are used for cooling, flushing away excess dirt on the blade and lubrication. Follow the manufacturer’s guide and use only the recommended fluid products. Sawing is a “hard” machining process and demands a mixture of 6-10%.

Fluids should be applied generously on both sides of the coldsaw blade during cutting. The nozzles should be directly pointing at the cutting point. The cutting process must never start without fluids. If you do, the tooth tips will burn or “pick up” may occur and will reduce the life and efficiency of your coldsaw blade.

3.       Stability

Stability is one of the factor to get good cutting results. The machine must be stable through its main bearings, column and vice. Lack of stability leads to vibration in the machine and blade. This vibration can lead into substantial loss of blade life or at worst, blade breakage.

4.       Sharpening

In order to save money, some woodworkers would go and have their blade re-sharpened as part of their maintenance procedure. Re-sharpening your blade is a lot cheaper that getting a new one. Click here to learn more.

5.       “Running In”

Always use the run in procedure for re-sharpened blades. Gradually increase the feed until the normal feed is reached. Before you used re-sharpened blades, make 6-8 cuts with normal speed but lower than normal feed. The run in procedure hones the tooth tips, removing the sharp fragile edges created during sharpening, thus lengthening the blade life. 

Sharpening Saw Blades

Saws are rarely sharpened by few woodworkers but the questions still tends to arise on how to do it. Sharpening circular saw blades has become a forgotten craft and fewer people or woodworkers can even do this. Sharpening your own saw is vital and one should not be buying a replacement when your saw becomes dull. It brings out the skill and self-confidence of a woodworker if they can sharpen their own saw. The ability to maintain the sharpness on one’s saw blade allowed saws to retain their usefulness, not matter how long the resided in the woodworker’s toolbox. With today’s mass produced, plastic handled and Teflon coated saws are poor in comparison to the quality saw for they are designed to be simply thrown away as soon as they get blunt.

Other woodworkers likes to touch up chipped teeth with a small, flat diamond hone. If you’re going to try that, maintain the original angles and surfaces and don’t round over the cutting edge. Once in a while, you’d be finding a missing teeth. If the manufacturer can replace the saw, expect that it is expensive. So unless the blade cost you a lot in the first place, you’re probably better off to toss it and buy a new one.

Jolting the Teeth

The usual method of sharpening the teeth of a non-carbide tipped circular saw blade is done like this. First, install the blade in a commercial saw-setting jig following the manufacturer’s instructions. After installing the jointing head on the jig, butting its file up against the saw teeth. Tighten the thumb until the teeth strain against the file.  Jointing the teeth so they are all the same length, clamp the jig in a bench vise and rotate the circular saw blade against the file clockwise. After each rotation, tighten the thumbscrew slightly and repeat until the tip of each tooth has been filed flat.

Sharpening the Teeth

After jolting the teeth, file them using a commercial saw-sharpening jig. First, mount the jig on the workbench and install the blade loosely on the jig so the blade turns. Rotate the triangular file in the file holder and adjust the guide arm to match the required pitch and angle of the saw teeth. Starting with a tooth that is pointing to the right, file the cutting edge by sliding the file holder along the top of the jig. After that, rotate the circular saw blade counter clockwise, skip one tooth and repeat. Sharpen all the right-pointing teeth the same way. Adjust the triangular file and the guide arm to work on the left-pointing teeth and repeat, sharpening all the teeth you skipped.