RAGE3 saw blades = consumables
Simon Howes
Hi folks,
When I was in last I observed at a glance that the rage3 saw blade seems to be blunt again. This was because smoke was coming off the workpiece someone was cutting. The blade still got through the wood in the end, but the load on the motor (heating and bearings) and the lower-frequency sound as it engaged the workpiece tells me we're in the process of running the machine into the ground. The saw shouldnt struggle - the whine shouldnt drop. The tool should do the work.
This is not a rage :)
It's been quite a while since I bought the last blade, and although maybe if people had done things like clamp the sliding part when cutting metal (you need the rigidity and anti-vibration that comes from this - you cannot slide cut metal) and not cut breezeblock (it's got abrasive bits in it) I'd have to say that the primary cause for the blade being blunt is.... Use.
Every time I'm in the space the saw is being used... Multiple times. An entire mini-golfcourse has propped up around me! It seems its actually doing a pretty good job. And it's doing a lot of them. We need to consider this blade a consumable.
Can we please buy a few spare blades to keep (locked up hidden) for replacing the blade when it gets blunt? Theres also some other tasks that need doing on the saw:
These are dangerous operations and should not be undertaken without knowing how (and if not for God's sake at least unplug the saw first)
.wood/plastic/metal swirlsswarf gathers around the bearing on the right hand side of the blade. You should be able to spin the blade by hand and have it remain spinning. This needs to be cleaned out once in a while.
.if you've cut aluminium it likes to fill the space between the teeth as it's malleable and soft and it packs right in there. You can remove this by gripping the center of the aluminium wedge with wire cutters and wriggling side to side. You need to lift the guard for this and rotate the blade to inspect one tooth at a time. The guard release button is next to the blade turn button. The machine must be unplugged.
Can we just do this out of the Hackspace budget? The machine seems pretty central, the blades are only 30£ and seem to need replacing every 2 to 3 months with our current usage.
Btw: wouldn't recommend cutting metal atm...
Nigel Worsley
resharpen it. There are expensive specialist tools for this eg. this one: www.ebay.co.uk/itm/260994171534
but I would have though the space has the skills and resources to hack one together based on a small
angle grinder.
Nigle
Simon Howes
It's an advanced blade design with tungsten carbide inserts and specially point-hardened rakes. Thats why it can cut metal and wood. The teeth inserts usually crack away. So theres nothing left to sharpen. You'd need to reform the entire blade, reduce the radius so that it matches the reduced height of the inserts, then reharden the rakes and for the inserts which have totally been ripped off somehow weld on new inserts... So err.... Yeah... Could we maybe 3Dprint one? /troll
I think maybe we should just buy some blades?