Using a radial arm saw for metal cutting?

When it involves safety and your health or your love ones. IMHO I would not give or take said advice from the internet. If something goes wrong and causes bodily injury and quoted the internet as the reference for the cause of the injury. It sounds like a sorry day for the injured and a nightmare of legalities for the internet poster(s). It should all start with “do at your own risk”. This thread about cutting metal with a RAS IMHO is not totally safe. Why risk it, I don’t like hospitals. I like all ten of my fingers and two eyes. My three cents…Dave
 
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We cut aluminum all the time with our RAS.

SHEET STOCK and small angles.

The MUST HAVE is a "control cut" blade.

These have low tooth count with a shoulder behind the tooth so it cannot take a bite but rather just small chips.

In wood you can pull as hard as you can and the saw cuts like butter and does not stall

In aluminum one uses great care as the material is not wood but now hot chips and if it gets loose not good plus noise.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337Z using Tapatalk
 
Add 1 more to the nay sayers, radial arm saws (IMHO) are to loosely fabricated to use for metal cutting. I have used a carbide tipped blade in a skill saw to cut 3/8" aluminum however. Clamped a straight edge for guidance. Really a messy operation.
Have a good day
Ray
 
In the window industry, industrial chop saws are the standard way to cut aluminum extrusions up to 1/8" wall thickness. The saws are carbide tipped, triple chip ground with a negative rake angle. As several people have pointed out, chop saws feed against the cut, rather than with the cut as radial arm saws do. Rigid fixtures and secure mechanical hold downs are required. The cut has to throw hot, rather thick chips as these are the heat sink for the cutting friction. Operators want to slow the saw down "to improve the cut"; but thin chips can't carry away heat fast enough, and metal clogs the blade. The aggressive feed requires a powerful saw, and there is a lot of noise.
 
I’ve owned several Radial Arm saws, no way would i use one in metal, not even on a dare.
 
I was about to agree with all the no's, then just remembered that at the first machine shop I worked at, we used to use a radial arm saw on aluminum. We made thousands of extruded aluminum frames for furnace filters. We would get 3 to 4 thousand pounds of extrusions at a time, then cut notch and rivet them. I have a precision comercial tube cutting saw I bought from the shop I last worked in, for cutting aluminum and brass tubing. It has a foot operated bar that pivots the blade out to make a cut. It does not work very well for solid stock and you do have to either use mist spray or bar wax or the teeth will clog up in a few cuts.
 
cg285 said:
i like adrenaline. i chose to tempt fate. :)
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That frame of mind will hurt you some day, I just hope it doesn’t kill you.
 
Jake2465 said:
Well that's sad :confused:. That thing has been sitting in the corner of my shop for years. I was hoping to put it to use :grin:.
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Jake2465
There was (and still is) a safety recall on many the Craftsman Radial Arm Saws made from 1968 to 1995.
They will send you $100 for return of the motor and carriage. If yours is one of the models listed -that $100 would help towards the cost of a bandsaw.
It took about 6 weeks for me to receive my check.
Google "Craftsman Radial Arm Saw Recall" or here is the link.... http://radialarmsawrecall.com/

Good Luck, Jim
 
One of the problems with adding a ferrous metal cutting blade to a woodsaw/chopsaw is the RPM's are too high for cutting metals which need slower speeds.

I did quite a bit of research on replacing my abrasive cutoff wheel on my chop saw to a metal cutting blade, problem was most ferrous metal blades are only rated for 1500 RPM max. and the chops saw was around 3500RPM.
It's possible to make this work and many people use the blades without issues but I wasn't willing to risk it so after reading about these saws, I picked up one of them.

Slugger by Fein, it was about $630.00 CAD IIRC.


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https://fein.com/en_ca/sawing-and-c...saws/14-in-slugger-metal-cutting-saw-0302133/

The saw is amazing, it cuts really fast and not too loud, we have cut mild steel up to 1/2" thick, stainless 3/16" and aluminum 1/2" .

The blade just purrs when cutting through the metal, virtually no burr and the cutoff is cool to the touch.

I will still get a band saw one day but this unit is probably 3 times as fast as a band saw and can cut up to 5" by 5" approx.

David.

Edit, here's one on Amazon for a good price with free shipping and check out that first review, sums up the saw pretty well.

https://www.amazon.com/Slugger-MCCS..._rd_t=40701&psc=1&refRID=ADH2RZ2P4F3ENSF3SYME
 
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