Welding Tips and Tricks

Evolution is "bare" with minimal paint, Diablo has a thick red coating. Cutting 3" x 1/8" flat-bar, standing up. Night-and-day difference in favor of the diablo blade. It's still loud, but the very annoying, piercing high frequencies are subdued substantially.


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Is this the 14" Evo steel cutting blade with __number of teeth vs 90 tooth diablo?

LtBadd wrote:Is this the 14" Evo steel cutting blade with __number of teeth vs 90 tooth diablo?

Richard,

No, Oscar has the 36 tooth blade that comes on the Rage saw.

The video seemed the audio was about the same, maybe the same blade both cuts.

We need a comparison.

No, it wasn't the same blade. The Evo 36 tooth blade made the first cut, then the Diablo made the 2nd cut. It would be pointless to make a comparison without making a comparison . The difference you hear will depend on the quality of the audio reproduction on your end (headphones/speakers), but I assure you the difference is there both audibly and visually. The overall loudness is very very close in relative level, that I'm not denying. The big difference is in the higher frequency content that is more discernible in real life because of the sensitivity of the human ear to some frequencies. If you look at the SPL meter, the levels are around 105-108 dB. That is very very loud and very difficult for inferior speakers to reproduce at actual real-life levels. But don't let me stop you. Go ahead and crank up your stereo to those actual levels if you have an SPL meter so you can hear the actual difference.

BTW, regardless of what you think of my comparison or how I carried it out, The 90 teeth definitely make a difference in the smoothness of the cut. There are some other blades I saw on Amazon that look pretty versatile too; a 100-tooth aluminum/non-ferrous 14" bade for $60 and a 120-tooth for very thin steel 14" blade for $73, both by Benchmark Abrasives. I don't cut a lot of aluminum but I do cut a lot of relatively thin steel (3/16" and thinner) so I'm thinking those might be worth adding to the tool arsenal. There's also a couple good looking ones by Mercer Industries (72/90 tooth), and a couple by Oshlun (100 Al/120 MS).

Not to complicate things and not having any illusions that my phone app would be anywhere nearly as accurate as Oscar's equipment but there is one possibly significant difference in our tests. Oscar has a Rage 2 that has a stamped steel deck that's spec'd at 46lb and I have a Evosaw 380 with a cast deck spec'd at 62lb. Close to 1/3 more. It would be interesting to know if the extra weight in a more rigid deck and possibly other beefier pieces would affect the sound levels and characteristics

Oscar wrote:No, it wasn't the same blade. The Evo 36 tooth blade made the first cut, then the Diablo made the 2nd cut.

So you're talking about 108db vs. 105db between the 2 blades?

Oscar wrote:The overall loudness is very very close in relative level, that I'm not denying.

homeboy got 73db vs. 76db on the Diablo vs. Evo.

Maybe he is right, I have the cast base also.

Not trying to nitpick your test, just just surprised that the noise was so close but so much higher than what homeboy measured.

Decibels will be relative to the length of the part cut, assuming that the width and depth and material is the same.

TraditionalToolworks wrote:

Oscar wrote:No, it wasn't the same blade. The Evo 36 tooth blade made the first cut, then the Diablo made the 2nd cut.

So you're talking about 108db vs. 105db between the 2 blades?

Oscar wrote:The overall loudness is very very close in relative level, that I'm not denying.

homeboy got 73db vs. 76db on the Diablo vs. Evo.

Maybe he is right, I have the cast base also.

Not trying to nitpick your test, just just surprised that the noise was so close but so much higher than what homeboy measured.

Your 380CPS should be pretty much the same as my 380. It only took a min. to download the FREE decibel meter. I used a 1in x 1/8 angle with flanges on the deck, V up. 66 tooth factory blade the same.

I do think the heavier cast base will lessen the levels, but in either event both tests were on the same playing field in the sense that both of us used the same respective saw. If we had used the stamped base saw for one test, and then the cast base saw for the other test, then that would definitely skew the results IMO. Also, the environment plays a factor. My test was in an enclosed garage. In a much more open area, the levels would be much lower. If I did this test in my backyard, the levels would definitely be lower, but the difference would still be there in a relative sense. I'd expect the SPL to be around 100-102 dB outside in the open. Also our own hearing abilities play a role. If one already has declining hearing and can't hear higher frequencies to begin with, then that skews our own perceptions especially if it is a recording through loudspeakers/headphones that can't reproduce all the very annoying high frequencies. I don't wanna turn this into a loudspeaker testing thread so I'll just leave it at that. I can hear the difference, but perhaps it has more to do with "being there". Lots of variables, so take my findings with a grain of salt because it is only one of many possibilities/scenarios.

homeboy wrote:Your 380CPS should be pretty much the same as my 380. It only took a min. to download the FREE decibel meter. I used a 1in x 1/8 angle with flanges on the deck, V up. 66 tooth factory blade the same.

I shamefully admit I haven't even been in the shop over the past week. It's been so hot...finally cooled down a tad today, but I got a message on my cell phone saying we could get outages up to 2 hours between 3:00pm - 10:00pm until August 20, which they consider peak hours...I don't even have air conditioning, so I'll probably loose my power so someone else can live in their plush house, keeping the AC down to about 68 degrees...

I also bought another cheap 72 tooth 14" blade from Tomax, since it had a $3 coupon on Amazon. $61 shipped Obviously not a professional level product but for a hobbyist, it will work just fine for me I hope. I'll be sure to test this one out as well.