Welcome back everyone, my name is Kent.
In a previous video, we looked at the DeWalt DW872 metal cutting saw.
Joe Lotuaco, a viewer, commented that the cuts would improve if lubricant was used.
Joe, thank you for the suggestion, I want to try your advice and sorry if I mispronounced
your name.
We'll test the effect of using air to clear chips and of using lubricant while cutting
1/2" pieces of 1x4" 6061 aluminum stock.
While doing our best to maintain consistent handle pressure, we'll record cut time.
After all cuts are made, we'll rank the cut quality.
To clear chips we'll use an air gun, blown at the side of the blade near the cut entry
or into the rear of the blade shroud.
Doing this, we're testing if chips are being carried back to the work piece, and if clearing
the chips improves the surface.
The first lubricant is band saw lubricant or blade wax, which is like a big crayon.
The second lubricant is WD/40 The lubricants are applied to both sides of
the blade for their respective tests.
The wax remains on the blade longer than the WD/40 so additional cuts were made to clean
the blade after the wax tests and before the WD/40 tests.
Here are all eight tests being performed, aligned to the start of each cut.
As each cut is completed, the corresponding video fades.
I struggled to find the proper camera method to capture the appearance of each cut.
I tried different lights, lenses, angles, and polarizers.
Nothing worked well.
Also, part of the assessment is the feel of the surface.
The best I may be able to do is subjectively compare and rank the surfaces.
The distinctions are pretty clear.
Chip clearing seemed to have no effect.
This may be expected given the air flow that already occurs while the blade turns.
Lubricant definitely had an effect on the cut time and surface finish.
After using the saw for a while a feel is developed for when the handle is being pressed
too hard through the vibration of the saw.
I did my best to keep the tests consistent.
If cutting too fast, surface finish degrades, but despite the faster cuts, with lubricate,
the surface finish also improved.
While not mentioned in the original video, the best surface finishes I had obtained from
the saw were when the blade was new.
I now wonder if the better surface finish then was because of residual oil on the saw
blade from manufacturing.
Between blade wax and WD/40, WD/40 is the quickest to apply for a single cut.
Blade wax may be preferred if making several cuts because the wax clings to the blade and
the effects last through several cuts.
Both blade wax and WD/40 do have one problem in my
basement shop...