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Gadgets, Gizmos, and Dohickeys => Cutting, Grinding, Polishing => Topic started by: Slabbercabber on April 26, 2017, 06:07:51 AM
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Lately I've been seeing a lot of discussion about feed rate and blade dressing. I may not have the ultimate solution but I never need to dress the blade and my feed rate is generally around three times that of any fixed rate saw. First, my feed rate is based on force not time so it is always just right no matter what size or type of material I'm cutting. That is done by using a pneumatic cylinder instead of a motor-screw drive. Force can be adjusted with a simple adjustable pressure regulator. This also eliminates the possibility of forcing the blade too hard into a non cutting blade. (Alignment is still essential.) I don't know if this has any effect on heat. What does have a huge effect on condition of the cutting edge is cooling and lubricating. To this end I use a simple two bucket cascade settling system with a centrifugal pump shooting oil to both sides of the blade at the rear. The streams just touch the cutting edge. Most of the oil is directed toward the jack shaft. That mean it is being thrown off as if it were running three inches deep in oil but without the mess above. If you look at the point where the blade enters the cut you will see far more oil than a blade simply dipped in oil. Blade wear just doesn't happen. Additionally cleaning when the oil gets loaded is simply a matter of pouring off the clean oil from the top bucket and exchanging the sludge bucket for a clean one. Some waste does build up on the bottom of the saw box. For me that means about once a year I let it rest a few days then take a broadknife to it and scrape up the dry hardened clay. I hope some get help from this.
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That is what I want to do with my saw. I would like to make one other provision however. I want to be able to run the pump (without the blade running) and divert the oil to a sprayer, so I can spray the sludge off the vise, carriage and the rest of the upper saw.
My saw has a sump built into it and has a 1/2" pipe at the top of the sump. I want to use that to drain the oil into a cascade.
The pump I will need (so I can have an effective sprayer) probably needs to be in the 4-6 gpm range.
I'm thinking I'll set it up with a switch for "auto" which will start with the blade, and "spray" which will allow the pump to run without the blade and allow me to change a couple valves to use the sprayer.
Can you post a couple pictures of your cascade system? Here's a picture of my saw. You can see the sump and the 1/2" pipe. The pipe now has a valve on it.
(https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2922/32778931863_da66633684_b.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/RWyArD)Cover setting on pulleys (https://flic.kr/p/RWyArD) by Glen Ray (https://www.flickr.com/photos/137398153@N02/), on Flickr
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My camera is down at the moment. (Not a cellphone person) But it is pretty simple. Just a 1/2 gallon bucket under the drain suspended over a five gallon bucket with a pump in the bottom. You already have the first half except dumping it would be impossible unless it is removable. The nozzles are just 1/8" copper tubing left open at the end.