The Life of a Premium Blade Topping the list of FAQ’s during a cutter presentation is “How long does the blade last?” As is often the case with questions of this type, the short answer is: “it depends.” In order to give a more informative answer to this question, we have summarized some of the factors which affect the life of Magnum Shear™ blades. All of the information in this article assumes the user is honing the blade regularly, cutting only “Approved Products” and following the information in the instruction manual.
Blade Information: The current “Premium” blades are made of hardened tool steel, are typically 2-4mm thick and have a cut width between 9” and 40”. These blades are ground with multiple bevels: the primary angle (the cutting edge) and the secondary angle (which provides the wedge shape of the blade). In addition, they are honed for improved durability. Interestingly, ease of use and durability have a negative correlation, so, as the blades cut more easily, they will typically wear out faster. This is noteworthy when discussing blades with potential and current customers.
Blade durability: Blades will commonly wear differently depending upon what material you are cutting.
• Flooring — On less expensive laminate flooring, the blades can easily last thousands of cuts (about 6-12 months of daily use), and they often outlast 20-30 saw blades which dull very quickly on laminate. On laminate flooring with a thick wear layer, or on engineered wood with a hard veneer, you can expect 3-6 months of use, outlasting 10-20 saw blades.
On any natural products (engineered wood, parquet, solid wood etc.) there are natural variations within the product that can result in chipping and faster wear on the blade. For instance, we’ve seen knots in wood flooring cause blade chipping on multiple occasions even when the blade is brand new. These differences from one board to the next make judging blade life quite difficult on these products. However, in most cases a small chip in the blade will not affect overall functionality of the machine.
• Siding — On siding products such as fiber cement siding and vinyl siding the blade life is even longer, estimated from 1-2 years. One caveat is that after cutting fiber cement siding the blade is dulled enough to make cutting other products difficult, but the dulling process thereafter is so slow that it continues to work great on fiber cement. It is recommended that if you are using the machine on multiple products that you keep two blades on hand, using one for fiber cement and the other for vinyl siding or flooring.
Blade Sharpening: Blades can typically be sharpened 1-2 times by a professional blade sharpener. It is important that the sharpener notes the blade’s primary and secondary grind angles and takes off as little material during the sharpening process as possible. You can tell that the blade must be replaced when the handle is almost striking the table after a cut which signifies that no more material can be taken off of the blade in the sharpening process.
Cut Depth Adjustment: The latest generation of PRO and RCT magnum shears come equipped with cut depth adjustment screws (or ‘jack screws’) which can be adjusted to compensate for blades which are worn down or sharpened more than the recommended 1-2 times by a professional blade sharpener. This extends the life of your blade even further!
Blade comparison: The premium Magnum Shear™ / EZ Shear™ blades easily out perform most circular saw blades, with orders of magnitude longer blade life and improved cut quality. This is a great selling point, especially when demonstrating the cutters, since users can often recoup their investment in the blade savings alone by using a Bullet Tools cutter.
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