Due to the minerals present in abrasive materials, cutting them presents a difficulty in the bandsaw industry. The material’s hardness and texture are major contributors to such issues as blade bounce or tooth stripping.
Abrasives are normally used in operations like honing, polishing, grinding, sandblasting, and other similar processes. They are classified in two ways: natural and synthetic abrasives.
Natural abrasive materials include things like industrial diamond, corundum, emery, garnet, flint, quartz, pumice, and talc. The synthetic varieties include synthetic diamond, boron nitride, boron carbide, silicon carbide, and alumina.
Most abrasive materials applications encounter situations where the materials being cut are harder than the saw blade doing the cutting. Its toughness or body strength play a significant role in its function, though. Cutting an abrasive material using a regular bi-metal bandsaw blade will result in premature dulling of teeth, stripping, and the blade not being able to cut the piece being worked.
Carbide-tipped bandsaw blades can handle and cut tough materials while the bi-metal blades cannot. Using a carbide-tip saw blade coupled with the appropriate speed and feed rates poses less threat to the cutting procedure.
Sawblade.com offers the CT1002 Qsaw Carbide Tipped bandsaw blade for cutting this type of material.
Carbide blades have an aggressive tooth geometry coupled with a triple-chip grind and positive rake angles to create a smooth finish and are capable of procuring an aggressive cutting operation.
The CT1002 bandsaw blade has micro-grained carbide for added toughness, enabling it to counter the toughness of any abrasive material.
As always, it makes sense and becomes economical to utilize the correct bandsaw blade for the work being produced: the right blade for the right material.
