A cold saw is a machine that uses a circular saw blade to cut metals. The name “cold saw” comes from the cutting process they employ. This sawing machine transfers the heat generated by cutting to the chips created by the saw blade. Therefore, the blade and material being cut remain cold, unlike an abrasive saw, which abrades the metal and creates a great deal of heat in the metal and cutting blade.

Features of the Cold Saw

Cold saws use either a solid high speed steel (HSS) or tungsten carbide-tipped, resharpenable circular saw blade. They are equipped with an electric motor and a gear reduction unit to reduce the saw blade’s rotational speed while maintaining constant torque. This allows the HSS saw blade to feed at a constant rate with a very high chip load per tooth. A cold saw cut produces minimal burr, no sparks, no discoloration and no dust. The material being cut must be mechanically clamped to prevent movement during the cutting process.

Extra care should be taken to choose the appropriate number of teeth, saw blade type, cutting speed and feed rate. All of these variables are based on the type and size of material being cut. Cold saws are capable of machining most ferrous and nonferrous alloys. Cold saws are intended to be used with a flood coolant system to keep the saw blade teeth cooled and lubricated.

The efficient Cold Saw

The popularity of cold saw blades is increasing due to the technological advancements in cold saw machines. They are the sawing method of choice when high production requirements are needed. They consistently produce the lowest cost per cut among all sawing methods: hot sawing, friction sawing, bandsawing and hacksawing.

A cold saw has a cleaner and more accurate cut than a bandsaw. A cold saw does have a smaller capacity but more than makes up for it with its cut speed! Cold saws have been used more by metal fabricators in the past 10 years, due to increased accuracy and cut quality. Cold saw blades are reusable and can be sharpened up to 30 or 40 times before the blade becomes too small to cut through the maximum-diameter material.

Being able to sharpen and reuse the blade is a huge cost savings!

With cold saws, lubrication is key for efficiency and overall cutting quality and it helps keep the blade cool, making it last longer between sharpening,