Need Your Help: Need to Design a Saw with SUPER LOW KERF LOSS

**Educated Guess** · Jul 4, 2019, 02:16 AM

Hi, Everyone. I have a small business that makes expensive guitar picks. One of the materials we use is called DuPont Vespel (pictured below). It is one of the most expensive plastics in the world.

The problem? Let's say I make a guitar pick that is 1.0 mm (.040") thick. I am losing as much in the kerf as I am in the pick. There are some slicing services I've found that can get this down to about .020" (.50 mm) kerf loss per pick, but at $10 a throw it's way too expensive. CNC is also too expensive.

There are small HSS saw blades that go down to .020" or thereabouts, but I need to find a way to mount a blade and do the cut. I thought something like this design, adapted to my specific needs, might work.

I'll figure it out cuz I HAVE to do, but would love to hear your ideas.

Thanks,
EG

**Flintlock42003** · Jul 4, 2019, 05:17 PM

Maybe a rock saw with a .020” diamond blade, they have vices like in the photo. Highland Park and Covington are two leading brands.

**mklotz** · Jul 4, 2019, 05:29 PM

Machinists regularly use slitting saws; they can be had in thicknesses as small as six thousandths...

https://www.mcmaster.com/slitting-saws

**Crusty** · Jul 4, 2019, 05:48 PM

Now I understand your process - your raw material comes in rods, not in sheets. Ignore my previous comment about using a scroll saw - that was written when I thought your material came in sheets.

**cmarlow** · Jul 4, 2019, 10:42 PM

I have no idea how hard or brittle the plastic is, but I wonder if a deli meat slicer might work. It is just an idea I had.
If the plastic was not too hard and had a little bit of flex in thin slices the meat blade might be able to take a 1 mm slice off it. Usually thickness setting 2 is 1 mm. If you had to put a fine saw blade on the slicer instead of the knife blade meat slicers usually have an automated powered feed on the table that you might have to turn off and push the table past the blade manually so you don't feed the plastic into the blade too fast. The advance mechanism for moving the meat for the thickness of the slice is not normally affected by this.

**12bolts** · Jul 5, 2019, 04:02 AM

What method do you use currently for cutting?
Possibly you will have problems with melting if you use a friction method to cut it. Even a saw might generate enough heat if run too fast.
Or just charge more for the finished product. Plenty of items that are $pendy because manufacture/waste is the price driver

**high-side** · Jul 5, 2019, 08:25 AM

Their's no way around cutting the material and not ending up with some waste. You just minimize the waste as much as possible. If I was selling the picks for good money, I would buy the material in sheet form. If you already have the material in bar stock, you could try a very thin slitting saw blade like mklotz suggested. In my experience working with engineered plastics, the very thin slices may bow or curl due to heat from cutting and internal stresses in the material.

**Terer** · Jul 5, 2019, 08:27 AM

вот что я могу посоветовать, есть у меня такие круги, наружный диаметр 258 мм. внутрений диаметр 100 мм. толщина режущей кромки 02 мм, вот его краткое описание " Алмазные отрезные круги с внутренней режущей кромкой (сокращенно АКВР). Они применяются при резке сапфира, граната, кварца, керамики, стекла, арсенида галлия, кремния и других полупроводниковых материалов. Круги предназначены для работы на станках резки Алмаз-6, Алмаз-12, TS-23 и других аналогичных станках.
Круги АКВР представляют собой тонкие кольцевые диски из нержавеющей стальной ленты толщиной от 0,1 до 0,2 мм. По периметру внутреннего рабочего отверстия нанесен алмазный (алмазоносный) слой."
куда этот круг крепить и привод придется решать, но мне кажется это было бы хорошим решением.