Slitting saw trials

why not just cut the slit shallow, measure and adjust on the next pass. Much like i do on the the lathe
 
Actually, you will find that some slitting saws and arbors have fairly low run out. I use Martindale slitting saws when I can and those are pretty flat. Keo and Robbjack make good ones but they're expensive.

I found that the arbor is really important. It has to be accurately made and to fairly tight tolerances. Sierra American makes really good ones. Those multi-step imports are not worth buying, IMHO. If you make your own, the OD of the arbor needs to be about double the hole size of the saw. For example, an arbor for a 1/2" hole saw will be about 1" OD. The arbor diameter should be somewhere near 0.0005" smaller than the nominal size of the saw hole and the face cuts on the arbor and washer need to be very clean and flat.

Saws will have their own run out and I think this has to do with heat treating a very thin piece of metal that have been worked on the rim. It's surprising they don't warp more than they do but good saws from good makers are pretty accurate, I think.
 
Just for the record my 2"" saw was very flat. I did three passes side by side to cut a shallow slot three times the width of the blade. The width of the slot turned out to be very consistent.

Slot depth was something else. The problem was with radial (?) run out. Some tips were higher than others which made the bottom of the slot slightly wavy. Of course this would not be a problem when cutting completely through the work. So I guess that's why they call it a slitting saw instead of a slotting saw.
 
Odd. I haven't seen too many blades where the teeth are at different heights. There is almost always one or two teeth that seem to be off to one side or the other so they can thump during a cut.
 
Circular saw blades suffer from the same dilemma. Most of the cheaper carbide tipped blades are only sharpened on the face of the tooth. I had more than a few that seemed to take a lot of pressure to get through hardwood. They didn't look dull at all. So I decided to sharpen them on my cutter grinder. Over half the teeth on a 60 tooth blade were .020-.040" short. Now they cut like a laser.
 
I'm glad that derf has confirmed the phenominum. It was totally unexpected. Yes, very odd that we would actually find such a thing. It seems like it should be relatively easy to make round blades round.
 
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