On Mon, 22 Apr 2013 16:00:01 -0500, Ignoramus12350
wrote:

On 2013-04-22, Existential Angst wrote:

Ed was right on on the alloy thing. Ig, by now, you should be alloy-savvy,
no?
4140, even unhardened, is tough stuff.

4140, if unhardened, is extremely easy to cut on a band saw. Cuts as
fast as any other steel.

So is hypereutectic aluminum -- until it tears the crap out of your
blade, which will happen before you can get a cup of coffee.

Ease of cutting may not tell you anything about blade life, Iggy,
although it usually does. Just be aware that alloys are not "mild
steel." Mild steel is a non-technical nickname for plain carbon
steels, usually below 20 points of carbon. IOW, 1020 or below.


8620 is a lot harder to cut! It takes forever, in comparison.

When I make ships by the bucket, new problems and questions appear, I
had to redo the coolant nozzle so that the blade stays wetter, etc.

But here's what you are actually in a position to do, since you are counting
buckets of chips.
Buy a bunch of blades from different mfrs, keep a log of hours, materials,
etc, and post back with some quantitative results on blade performance/life
You should keep some kind of "standard" material for an occasional test cut
(under "standard saw settings"), to assess blade performance over time.
That would prove very useful for everyone cutting metal, and you could at
least start to pay down the debt of, oh, about 10 years worth of free
bidniss advice/technical consultations.

Yep, I agree.

i