- Location
- Rainy side of Washington
Something to think about when using a chopsaw - material placement. You want the blade to be cutting as thin a cross section at a time so you can minimize the force you have to apply to it to make it cut, which will extend blade life, make it cut faster, and keep the cut straighter too. For instance put a piece of 2x4 box tubing vertical in the saw, not horizontal.
I have a Ridgid and it does pretty much everything OK, but did almost nothing to a piece of 6" wide 1/2" plate I tried to cut horizontally (no surprise there) and took quite a while to get started on some 2x6 box tubing.
At work we got the cheaper ($230 or so) Harbor Freight portaband. I was against it since most HF tools are crap, but it actually is a pretty decent piece, if you properly set it up and orient your material in it it will cut quite nicely. For instance it cuts 2" by 6" structural (heavy wall) C-channel like butter if you make sure to put the flat side up. It doesn't have a very good tension/cut rate adjuster, it runs out of tension at the bottom of the swing if you adjust it loose enough to get a good cut rate at the top of a piece of material, so I just hang my 3lb hand sledge from the end of the arm with a piece of bell wire and it cuts nicely.
I have a Ridgid and it does pretty much everything OK, but did almost nothing to a piece of 6" wide 1/2" plate I tried to cut horizontally (no surprise there) and took quite a while to get started on some 2x6 box tubing.
At work we got the cheaper ($230 or so) Harbor Freight portaband. I was against it since most HF tools are crap, but it actually is a pretty decent piece, if you properly set it up and orient your material in it it will cut quite nicely. For instance it cuts 2" by 6" structural (heavy wall) C-channel like butter if you make sure to put the flat side up. It doesn't have a very good tension/cut rate adjuster, it runs out of tension at the bottom of the swing if you adjust it loose enough to get a good cut rate at the top of a piece of material, so I just hang my 3lb hand sledge from the end of the arm with a piece of bell wire and it cuts nicely.
