Cutting remarks: General Industry Coverage

Michael Finklea believes that there isn’t much reported on sawing in the manufacturing trade press because “it’s kind of the redheaded stepchild in the industry—an unappreciated part of the manufacturing process. In most shops, the least-skilled person is running the saw.”

Manufacturers ignore what improved saw technology can do at their peril, however. As it’s usually at the start of a shop’s manufacturing process, what happens there affects all that follows. “If you can cut your material straighter, faster and closer to tolerances, you can save money,” said Finklea, director of sales and marketing, North America, Cosen Saws USA, Charlotte, N.C.

A DoALL saw cuts round pipe. Image courtesy DoAll Sawing Products.

Industrial saw professionals reveal a technology that has changed in many ways over the years—and is still evolving.

That Old Saw

Brad Coombs, logistics and expediting manager at Clausing Industrial Inc., Kalamazoo, Mich., has been watching saw technology evolve for decades. “I remember when they were designing bandsaws by making prototype models out of wood and cardboard to make sure everything would fit before transferring their ideas to paper blueprints—a long, drawn-out process,” he said. “The last one I saw being designed like that was in the 1970s. Once CAD software came around, things started to get much easier and faster.”

CAD had a quick impact on bandsaw mass, according to Coombs.

“With the use of CAD, they were able to take out a lot of the weight of the machine,” he said. “They used to make [sawing machines] so beefy that you could never hurt them. You no longer have to have a great big chunk of cast iron. Instead, you have something functional, but much lighter.”

Finklea concurred. “More and more saws, including ours, are going with linear rails rather than the old ground column. Instead of having this big 6″ ground column, we have two 1″ linear rails that have cylinder-type bearings instead of ball bearings.”

Kurt Plechaty, executive vice president of DoALL Sawing Products, Savage, Minn., noted the addition of variable-frequency drives with easy-to-use controls gives users greater flexibility.

“Twenty years ago, your speed ratios were achieved with gears or belts,” he said. “Now, variable-frequency drives are priced such that they can economically be used in saws as well. So a lot of speed controls have evolved accordingly. Customers can really dial in to just the parameters they need.”

A user checks the angle controls on a MetalMizer vertical bandsaw. Image courtesy Wood-Mizer.

Other major improvements Plechaty noted are programmable operations and the ability to download jobs for storage and retention.

“Traditionally, a user would adjust speeds and feeds based on how the cutting sounded, how it felt, each time,” he said. “Now, when he finds the optimal parameters, he can save them and go back to them any time—rather than rely on what one operator thinks it sounds like compared to what another operator thought it sounded like.”

Coombs concurred that the ability to retain jobs electronically has been a game changer.

“In the old days, someone might be cutting something all day long, learning how to get the parameters just right, but then he’d go on to another job. Then, say 2 weeks later, he has to go back to the first job and has to remember how he did it. Now he doesn’t have to remember—he can just call up job No. 42, or whichever, and off he goes,” Coombs said.

Dave Gillaspy, MetalMizer Product Manager, Wood-Mizer LLC, Indianapolis, explained how relatively small advancements in saw design helped. “MetalMizer got its start because hands-on fabricators wished their cutoff saw would just tilt a little bit forward, cut at a 45° angle in either direction, have finite adjustments on the feed force, and could offer all this without a bunch of bells and whistles,” he said.