Floor Chasing
Where there is a requirement to create floor chasing, tradesmen often use more powerful saws that are dedicated to this application. The extra power makes larger volumes of work easier. These units are petrol or electrically powered, some are twin bladed and others more portable.

The twin bladed units allow two parallel cuts to be made simultaneously. Once the channels have been cut, the remaining material can be removed by percussive or manual methods to minimise disruption. Using hand held or semi automated concrete saws is an economical way for chasing into concrete, masonry or asphalt, ideal for creating expansion joints.

Wall Sawing
Track mounted diamond blade saws can be used to produce vertical and horizontal cuts in concrete, even on steep inclined surfaces where a slab saw could not safely be used. Wall sawing  techniques provide a cheap efficient method for cutting openings for ventilation units, doorways and windows, plus bevel cutting and other specialised applications such as finishing roughed walls. The edges created by wall sawing are straight and smooth and sized within a good tolerance creating fixture ready openings.

Wall Chasing
Wall chasing is a method often used when working on structures that are occupied. An industrial vacuum is used to collect dust before it contaminates the surrounding area. Reinforced concrete walls and brickwork can have neat channels with depths of 40 mm cut into them fairly quickly. Ideal for many retail, industrial and commercial applications such as factories, offices, surgeries, hospitals, retail premises, hotels and anywhere else where cabling or piping installation is required.

Diamond Tools
Diamond Cutting Tools are used to cut through many non-ferrous materials. The blades of these powerful cutting machines have diamond crystal segments bonded to a powdered metal base material. This gives them the strength to perform their task without the constant need to replace the cutting tool’s blades.

This bond is one of the prime factors to be considered when selecting which cutting tool to use for a particular material. The hardness of the target material along with the abrasiveness and the bond of the cutting tool’s blade will determine how quickly the metallic powder will wear down.

As the powder wears, more diamond crystal segments are exposed on the surface to ensure the cutting edge remains sharp. Iron and steel are not suitable for cutting with diamond tipped cutters as the carbon would be dissolved into the surface of the object being cut leading to hardening causing excessive tool wear. There are alternatives for cutting Iron and Steel based surfaces; these are generally hard metal compounds such as Aluminium Oxide, Silicon Nitride and  Cubic Boron Nitride.

Diamond tools are designed to cut highly abrasive materials such as ceramics. When sawing or grinding though hard materials a diamond blade with a soft bond is required. The diamonds themselves are either natural industrial diamonds or may have been synthetically manufactured.

The diamonds themselves are classified by various shapes and grain sizes. During cutting, the metal powders bonded within the cutting blade’s teeth wear down. Thus exposing newer diamond crystals and maintaining an efficient cutting edge. If you are cutting a softer abrasive material e.g. freshly poured concrete or asphalt, a diamond blade with a harder bond would be selected as it’s segments do not wear down as quickly, making this the preferred economical choice.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 10th, 2009 at 11:06 am and is filed under Concrete Cutters, Glossary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.