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Vent saws
If you were outfitting a new Platform,what would you put on it for saws? We already have a CE bullet and a TS550 Stihl wheel saw.Looking for ideas and blade types for the wheel saw.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on
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It's a good idea to have at least two rotary (wheel) saws on any truck company.
One should be set up with a carbide-tooth blade for general cutting. These blades work well on plywood/tarpaper/asphalt shingle pitched roofs, wood siding, and collapses wood structural members.
The other blade should be set up for metal cutting. This saw would be used for cutting security locks, burglar bars, and metal roll-up doors. Diamond blades work best for this.
Some folks advocate the abrasive composite blades for this, but those blades wear down quickly. If you're going to cut a bunch of metal - for example, numerous doors at a mini-storage warehouse fire, the composite blades wear down quickly. That will waste a lot of time with blade changes. Save the composite blades for the heavy rescue or USAR company - those are the best choice for cutting concrete.
Carrying two saws, each set up for a different type of cut, will save time and add flexibility when you get to your next fire.
The saw blades shown are what we carry at my department. We're currently cutting a lot of metal roll-up doors for training. We've used one diamond blade to cut multiple Triangle, Box, and Inverted L cuts on approximately 20 doors. The diamond still cut as well as when they were brand new.
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Permalink Reply by Asst Chief Tim Cook on
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This is the plan. Two wheel saws,one diamond ,one wood.Two vent saws(chainsaw) with one utility chainsaw.While I'm quite happy with the CE,I'm also entertaining other ideas. What do you like for the wood blade? I like a warthog although there are other choices.
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Permalink Reply by Dennis Brown on
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Theres nothing like a good old K-12 with a carbide tip blade and carry metal,diamond tip blades on truck and a good chain saw
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We use the one shown. It's a 32-tooth blade with limited tooth depth. We intentionally limit the tooth depth so that we don't cut too far into structural components when venting roofs.
I don't have anything against the warthog blade, but the teeth are a little long for general use.
I've seen them kick like a mule when you hit a nail or other non-wood component while cutting, too.
The trade-off is how deep do you want to cut? If you want to cut heavy timbers, thick wooden warehouse doors, etc, the warthog or other long-tip blade is a pretty good choice. If you want to just cut siding, roof sheathing, etc., then a higher tip count with a shallower cut is better.
We don't have CE saws, but we're seriously considering them. We have standard chainsaws on the engines and quints. These have carbide-tip chains. They work OK, but wear down pretty quickly when used for anything other than lumberjack stuff like clearing downed trees.
Our USAR/heavy rescue a mix of utility chainsaws, rotary saws with wood and metal-cutting blades, and concretes saws with abrasive blades and the water tubing for the dust suppression.
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Permalink Reply by Oldman on
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We started using a "chunk Carbide" on our cutoff saw. This blade will cut almost anything. We have used it to cut metal including vehicle hoods and guardrails, wood, and 1/2" thick lexan. I looked but we have used it so much so I cannot tell you the manufacture. I'll have to look it up. This blade has various size chunks of carbide silver soldered to the disk, and is one mean cutting blade.
Sorry about the image quality - Attachments:
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IMG00007-20090214-1350.jpg, 36 KB
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Oldman,
Any chance that your saw blade is one of these?
It's a Ventmaster Multi-Cut blade, and retails for around $375.00.
Ben
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Permalink Reply by Doug on
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I'm going to keep an eye on this thread and forward it to my Chief, as we currently have a VentMaster chainsaw and a Milwaukee sawzall on our truck, but we are going to be purchasing a circular saw in the very near future.
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How do you like the Ventmaster? It's one of the models the Boss has his eyes on.
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This is the stuff I'm looking for. It's been awhile since we bought a saw OR a blade. We've got a wood one for the 550 as well as composites for same. I'm leaning toward a diamond or two instead of the composites.We'll keep 'em but I'm looking for a blade that's more general purpose'Powerhead choices and reasons why are also welcome.
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Just remember that the carbide tips tend to chip or come off the saw blade and throw fragments at your eyes from a 3,000 RPM saw if you cut metal with them and hit anything that's not very lightweight.
That's why I recommend different saws/saw blades for metal and wood/general vent duties.
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My feelings as well.We just spent a bunch of money acquiring this rig and I want enough stuff on it to operate safely and efficiently.A good mix of saws allows for quick,multiple operations.There has been some good progress in blades over the last 5 or so years and we really haven't caught up.I want to get that fixed nefore we place the rig in service because I think it's going to be busy after.The Boss bought a nice selection of hand tools to round out the package. Going to make my life a lot easier,I can tell you that.
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I like it. It's reliable, it's easy to use with bulky firefighting gloves, the depth guard is easy to adjust and to take off or put back on. We just used it the other night in a non firefighting mode, clearing tree branches from a storm that blew through, and it performed well.
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