Chop Saw questions

skippy

skippy

Pretend Fabricator
Location
Tooele
Well my Old Ridgid chop saw finally kicked the bucket this last week and I am in the market for a new one. I am looking for a nice saw, I dont mind paying good money as long as the saw is worth it. So what are you guys using and what do you recommend????


P.S. 90 percent of the cutting is just normal .120 wall tube if it matters
 
I use a dewalt chop saw that's been in service for me for over 10 years now. I've heard good things about Makita chop saws as well. Hoping to someday pickup a band saw.
 
I have two dewalt chop saws for metal, one with an abrasive blade, one with a toothed blade.
 
I have a Makita that has been abused for over 13 years... spent a lot of its time cutting bricks.. eek
 
I have both an abrasive and a toothed chop saw as well. I also have a porta-band that gets used 99.9% of the time. Cuts fast, quiet, less mess, and its a much more versatile tool IMO.

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dewalt here as well. I like that the blade doesn't wobble as much as some of the other I have used.
 
what about the evolution cold cut chop saws they can be had for about 200 bucks....Are there any disadvantages to a cold cut saw???
 
I looked long and hard at those evolution saws. They seemed pretty decent for their intended use.

I have a rigid as well. It's done me well so far. Mine's about a year old.
 
One more for rigid. The bottom line is you get what you pay for and as long as you stay with one of the major brands you probably can't go wrong.
 
muleskinner said:
I have both an abrasive and a toothed chop saw as well. I also have a porta-band that gets used 99.9% of the time. Cuts fast, quiet, less mess, and its a much more versatile tool IMO.

0a29a6ad.jpg
Click to expand...

That is a sweet setup. Poor mans band :cool:

Do you have that setup then or just showing the picture? For $80 it looks pretty useful, you agree?
 
cruiseroutfit said:
That is a sweet setup. Poor mans band :cool:

Do you have that setup then or just showing the picture? For $80 it looks pretty useful, you agree?
Click to expand...

I wish I had that setup. I built something similar, but my saw is an older Milwaukee and didn't have the right deck for the Swag table. It is incredibly useful for fabricating.

As for chop saws, I have owned Milwaukee, black and decker, and two Dewalt's. I prefer my band saw:D
 
I have a milwaukee portable band saw but i still find myself using the chop saw constantly so.......I just ordered up an evolution rage 2 cold cut chop saw Im pretty excited

I also posted this on pirate just looking for as much info as possible and they all said that you cant go wrong with the evolution saws. Even a few shops were using them all day every day for a few years now and havent had a single problem. So i decided I will take my chances
 
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I like band saws for their accuracy and clean cut on pieces under a few feet, but if I've got lengths of tube or angle to cut, it's way easier to use a roller or two and feed a chop saw. Those cold cut chop saws are sweet, you will find that they are easy to get accurate and clean cuts with.
 
be sure to post back with your review on the evolution cold cut saw once you've used it a bit. Those have been on my radar for a while.
 
At work I have one of these:

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And one of these:

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This one gets used WAY more than the other one. My use of the plasma has even gone down (quite a bit) since I got the cordless saw. It flat rocks. Plate, tube, angle, unistrut, pvc, whatever. Light and portable, cuts a ton on one charge.
 
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