-
would an hss blade be ok for cutting foamex board?
i have been donated a 10" clarke table saw 4800 rpm with 254 mm hss blade would it be ok for cutting foamex board up into pieces not being a joiner type would it need special blade etc
any advice
cheers dex -
3 Replies
-
hi dex
I, far from clued up on such machinery but other than fancy bits and bobs generally do the same thing.
As far as blades are concerned.. We have 2 types. Without going into it all, one has teeth about .8 inches wide with a space of about .2 inch.
The other has teeth about .4 inches wide and a space of about .2 inch.
Basically the one with the large teeth is for cutting wood, MDF etc & the one with the small teeth is for cutting plastics and aluminium.
Unless you have a large bench either side of the table running a large sheet of material through it can be very tricky to keep straight. I would advise some sort of home made guide.
What I did a couple of years ago was to buy a plastic blade for my hand held rip saw. Same as table saw sorta thing but hand held. I find it easier to rip up Perspex and the like with it, and not jamming like the table saw. Having said that.. Table saws are very handy especially if they can be flipped over and used as a chop saw for mitring panatrim. -
Hi Dex,
As Rob said, you can cut sheet plastics on that sort of saw no problem but… I would invest in a decent quality TCT blade rather than a cheaper HSS one, especially for cutting acrylics. The more teeth the better on a saw which has this type of speed, about 80 teeth as a guide. I have found that negative rake aluminium blades work pretty good with plastics too, check out something like this http://www.screwfix.com/app/sfd/cat/pro … 3&id=11204
to give you some ideas.
I had a similar table saw for a few years and spent a while making up a large sheet “feed” area with a slider mechanism, which is essential for sign panel cutting really. It was a lot of work and never really worked too well to be honest, so I tend to buy in my sheets pre-cut now unless it’s foam which is easy enough to cut with a stanley knife.
I guess what I’m saying is that the saw will be fine with a decent blade (also make sure you set the blade depth correctly as this has a huge effect on the quality of the cut) but the method of feeding the sheet is critical so you don’t end up with wonky edges that arn’t at right angles to eachother.Good luck anyway !
Nigel
-
thanks guys i have a freind who works at lord tool hire who is going to sort me out some blades to try
i will stick the saw in the shed and have a trial run with some bits and pieces
cheers
dex
Log in to reply.