I have a fair amount of experience cutting metal with chop saws using carborundum wheels, and also using carborundum wheels on circular saws. It's noisy and smoky and a pain. I recently bought a Diablo "Steel Demon" 7 1/4" x 48 tooth saw blade to use in my ordinary circular saw. I first tried it on expanded metal, which turns out to be a bad application for this blade. It catches the strands of metal and bends them all over the place.
The blade says it will cut a maximum of 1/4" thick steel. So today I made some cuts in a piece of 1/4" plate that I bought to make a "crucifix" for welding practice. I'm impressed. The cuts were easy and smooth, much easier than using a carborundum blade. The edges of the cuts are clean and don't have the flash that you have to grind off when you use a chop saw. I did discover that it's a good idea to wear a jacket and gloves due to the hot metal chips flying around. A full-face mask would probably be better than just safety glasses as well.
As I said, I'm impressed. It was easy to cut straight, and it was no harder than cutting a 2x4, maybe a little slower.
The blade says it will cut a maximum of 1/4" thick steel. So today I made some cuts in a piece of 1/4" plate that I bought to make a "crucifix" for welding practice. I'm impressed. The cuts were easy and smooth, much easier than using a carborundum blade. The edges of the cuts are clean and don't have the flash that you have to grind off when you use a chop saw. I did discover that it's a good idea to wear a jacket and gloves due to the hot metal chips flying around. A full-face mask would probably be better than just safety glasses as well.
As I said, I'm impressed. It was easy to cut straight, and it was no harder than cutting a 2x4, maybe a little slower.
