Quote:
Originally Posted by Road Fan
...I also have not been able to find a rotary metal cutting saw blade made of steel. I have a package of cutoff wheels, but I don't like the fact that they wear away as they are used.
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I seem to recall that the metal saw blade was removed from the market because of safety concerns, something about the disc breaking free from it's mounting on the arbor due to fatigue in the disc itself.
But they were plenty dangerous as well for their ability to grab the work if the blade so much as tilted slightly in the slot it is cutting, exactly what happened to me when it suddenly grabbed the piece of plastic I was holding.
It takes two firm hands on the tool to prevent any tilt from becoming instantly self-energizing, resulting in the dreaded violent grab with the tool then likely twisting out of one's hand with the sharp saw blade still spinning.
The stone wafer discs are deemed safe because of their relative inability to generate grabbing force without shattering, which is why they come in like a 25-pack. They force the operator to use the sort of delicate control that people should have been using with the metal blades(!), but aren't quite a replacement for all of the uses one might have had for the metal blade.