Saw Safety question...: Off-topic discussion forum: Grassroots Motorsports Magazine

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Jan. 27, 2012 6:19 a.m. Hungary Bill Reader

I bought a chop saw a while back and have since been doing a lot of wood working. Instead of buying a whole saw I decided to save a penny or two and buy a wood blade for my current saw. Sounds great in theory but I bought the wrong blade.

My metal cutting blade has an id. of 25mm and my wood blade had an inside diameter of 30mm. I tried to give the unusable blade away to a Hungarian friend of mine for his wood shop (I guess he has a pretty complete shop, but I've never been there) and he brought my dang blade back to me the very next day with a ring installed:

like so:

I can only assume he used an adhesive of some sort to put that in there...

So my question: Is that even safe to use!?

I plan on cutting pine with a max thickness of 44x44mm so its not exactly "taxing" the system too much, the large mounting ring absorbs all the torque so I don't think that's an issue, and I gave it a quick "spin" and didn't feel any eccentric vibrations or anything.

What would you do?

(quick note: I've checked about 90% of the hardware stores around here, none have a wood cutting blade with an id of 25mm)
Jan. 27, 2012 6:32 a.m. Toyman01 SuperDork

Run it. There are a lot of blades on the market that use adapter rings. Once you tighten the bolt down, the ring isn't really doing anything. Kind of like centering rings on wheels.
Jan. 27, 2012 6:59 a.m. Grtechguy SuperDork

Yup.... Go ahead and run it. a lot of blades even come with adapter ring for different arbors. perfectly safe.
Jan. 27, 2012 7:06 a.m. Hungary Bill Reader

You guys just made my day.

Thanks, -Bill
Jan. 27, 2012 7:19 a.m. Grtechguy SuperDork

think adapter rings are scary? try Dado blades:

or Wobble Dado Blades Yes, it "wobbles"
Jan. 27, 2012 8:39 a.m. nocones HalfDork

Hey it's the dado blade that messed up my Tables saws bearings.

My tablesaw is a ~20 year old Craftsman and was bought at the same time as the wobble dado blade. Sears even recomended that we use it on the Table saw. It worked great... Until the bearings started to go due to the wobble. Now everytime I run it it sounds like the wobble dado is in.

I do like the wobble dado's though. They are way easier to setup then regular ones and cut nearly as good. Just have to feed a little slower.
Jan. 27, 2012 9:18 a.m. Hungary Bill Reader

that gives me the heebie-jeebies....
Jan. 27, 2012 10:03 a.m. ransom Dork

I hope it goes without saying and you've already sanity-checked the speed of the chop saw vs the rating on that blade? I would guess so given your concern over the adapter ring.

I'm just cautious...

I have a concrete cutting blade (14"?) that came with a brass ring for use on smaller arbors. Different application, but one more example...
Jan. 27, 2012 11:44 a.m. Grtechguy SuperDork

ransom wrote:

I hope it goes without saying and you've already sanity-checked the speed of the chop saw vs the rating on that blade? I would guess so given your concern over the adapter ring.

I'm just cautious...

I have a concrete cutting blade (14"?) that came with a brass ring for use on smaller arbors. Different application, but one more example...

Metal saws spin slower IIRC.