Which slitting saw for a small hobby bench mill ?

[Gas_mantle]

Hi,

I'm contemplating buying a slitting saw set up to use on my small hobby mill (a Chester 20v) but having never used one I'm wonder what type and size to go for to carry out small general hobby work.

I realise it's difficult so say without knowing exactly what I want to cut but can anyone offer a few guidelines of what to look for or what to avoid?

At the moment I'm looking at something like these but not sure what sort of size to aim for :-

http://www.arceurotrade.co.uk/Catalogue/Cutting-Tools/Slitting-Saws-and-Arbors/MT2-Stub-Milling-Arbor-16mm

http://www.arceurotrade.co.uk/Catalogue/Cutting-Tools/Slitting-Saws-and-Arbors/HSS-Fine-Tooth-Slitting-Saws-63mm

Does a 16mm arbor with a set of 7 63 mm discs sound like a reasonable starter set up ?


Many thanks

[Chipswitheverything]

Hi G-M,  just looked at the references you included.  Wouldn't think you could go far wrong with the 16mm., 63mm set up if you fancy that.  Has the advantage that the peripheral speed won't be too high if your mill has a rather fast bottom speed.  But the max. cutting depth will be a bit limited, 15 - 16mm possibly, as against using a larger saw dia.   All depends on your likely requirement, but I'm sure it would accommodate most jobs. I find that sploshing plenty of soluble oil type coolant on the sawing job ( steel ) helps it along...    Dave

[Gas_mantle]

Thanks Dave,

At the moment I don't think I'll be needing to cut any deeper than 15mm, I've found the last few months there have been a few occasions where a slitting saw would have been useful so I think it's time I bought a basic set up.

I was wanting to make a longer handle for a boiler manual feed pump I have and slitting saw would help.

[jadge]

Slitting saws come in two basic varieties, fine tooth and coarse tooth. The fine tooth saws are really only suitable for shallow cuts like slotting screw heads. If you try and take a decent depth of cut the gullets get jammed with swarf and bang goes the cutter. If you need to cut deep then get coarse tooth saws.

Don't worry if the saw doesn't cut evenly on all teeth, they never do, however good the setup.

Andrew

[pgp001]

Peter

Don't go buying a slitting saw arbour, they only take a little while to make one yourself.
I tried one of those you have been looking at and was very disappointed with it, the trouble is the amount of room the locking nut and washer takes up in front of the saw seriously restricts how close you can get to the vice, you will find you are struggling to hold things for slitting.

I overcame that problem by making "back to front" arbours where the saw is right at the end almost, see this earlier thread on the subject.
http://www.modelenginemaker.com/index.php/topic,6313.msg128844.html#msg128844

You can make the the end to suit whatever holding method you want in the machine, but for simplicity just make a straight shank and hold it in a collet.
I will attach some drawings below to give you an idea what I did for my little Boley jig borer, but you can adjust your dimensions to suit.

Phil

[Gas_mantle]

Thanks guys that's given me some things to think about 

I like your idea Phil but think I'd have to resort to holding a parallel shank in the ER collet chuck as I don't want to start cutting a Morse taper

[steamer]

Making a straight shank saw arbor is just fine.   I have a few that are 3/8 shank so I can put them in either the Clausing, or the Aciera.

The Clausing is ER25 while the Aciera is W12.

Dave

[10KPete]

A small, poor, shop doesn't need a bunch of different types of tool shank to mess with. Keep everything with a straight shank as much as you can so the tools will fit as many places as possible.

Pete

[Jo]

Hi Phil, those drawings would be much nicer in metric measurements, nice round numbers 

Peter: Keep your eyes open at the shows I often find boxes of quality slitting saws from the likes of the second hand tool dealers for 50p each. I then if necessary I make an arbour to fit 

Jo

[Jasonb]

I had an exchange of e-mails with Ketan at ARC about slitting saws. He was going to send me the two items you link to as part of the batch of stuff to use for the magazine articles. I turned them down as the tooth count is all the same and got him to send the 22mm bore set which has different tooth counts so more suited to cutting things like big ends and bearing housings.

http://www.arceurotrade.co.uk/Catalogue/Cutting-Tools/Slitting-Saws-and-Arbors/HSS-Fine-Tooth-Slitting-Saws-80mm

I also prefer a screw arbor for slitting saws. You generally have the item to be cut held in the vice so will need to have it sticking up quite a long way if you are going to avoid the nutted type hitting the vice jaws, save the nutted ones for gear cutting.

https://www.chronos.ltd.uk/cgi-bin/sh000001.pl?WD=arbor&PN=Engineering_Menu_Slitting_Saw_Holders___Stub_Arbors_217%2ehtml#a202800

[Gas_mantle]

Thanks everyone, I hadn't thought much about the arbor restricting the cut but I now have a better idea what to look for or make 

Hi Phil, those drawings would be much nicer in metric measurements, nice round numbers 

Jo

Jo, poor old Phil still works with ¹/₆₄ of 25²/₅ mm 

[Vixen]

If you go for the MT arbor remember to always use a draw bar to stop the arbor falling loose and spinning in the spindle. A parallel shank arbor is held securely and does not have this problem

Mike

[pgp001]

Hi Phil, those drawings would be much nicer in metric measurements, nice round numbers 

Peter: Keep your eyes open at the shows I often find boxes of quality slitting saws from the likes of the second hand tool dealers for 50p each. I then if necessary I make an arbour to fit 

Jo

Jo

They are in metric dimensions, its just a really tiny slitting saw arbour   

Phil

[simplyloco]

There are a lot of teeth on the average slitting saw, meaning lots are in contact with the work and they will rub - and get blunt- unless the feed is fairly quick at the usual overspeed ME machine condition!
It takes courage to do this...
John
PS. I use 3/8" home made arbors as well.

[Jasonb]

If you go for the MT arbor remember to always use a draw bar to stop the arbor falling loose and spinning in the spindle. A parallel shank arbor is held securely and does not have this problem

Mike

But you still need to remember to use a drawbar to make sure whatever you hold the plain shank with does not come loose