![]() ![]() Unlike the old paint, this new paint doesn’t gum up when the hole saw heats. Milwaukee recently switched over their hole saw coating lines to a thermoset paint. We were not allowed to take any photos of the tempering process and were hustled to the painting/printing part of the line. This is where the hole saws would go after heat treating to be baked for several hours to get to their hardened state. Next, we were taken through the room with the tempering ovens. It uses three robotic arms that work in concert to pull the round blank off the conveyor, weld the seam on the side, and weld the cap to the bottom.īelow you can see a closeup of one of the robotic arms placing a hole saw into a fixture to weld the seam. Weldingįrom the cooling tunnel, the round blank gets loaded into the welding station. The now round blank is removed and placed on a conveyor which moves through an air cooling tunnel. Finally, the front die completes the wrap around the cylinder. Then, the side dies come in to wrap the blank further around the cylinder. Stuart’s Note: I could watch this all day!įirst, the rear die pushes forward, to partially wrap the hot blank around the cylinder. The hot blank gets dropped in place between the cylindrical center die and the rear concave die. The blank gets heated red hot and then is fed into the hot forming machine. The fourth press isn’t used in production, it is used for prototyping - they gave us the example of testing new types of slots. ![]() The last one cuts the strip into shorter lengths for bending into hole saws of the specified size. Another cuts the slots for removing the plug. One stamps the size markings onto the blank. There are four different presses on the high volume line. From the roll, the strip of metal goes into a straightener and then gets fed into their presses. The hole saws start out as a coil of bi-metal flat stock with the “rip guard” teeth already formed. The steps that are noticeably different are the hot forming and welding processes that turn a flat blade into the cup-shape that makes hole saws recognizable. Making a hole saw involves many of the same steps as making a Sawzall blade. Above, you can see some of the stages of making a hole saw: from hot forming the flat stock to a round blank, to welding the seam and the cap, tempering the hole saw, and painting/pad printing the branding. In this factory they make hole saws from 5/8″ to 6″ in diameter. Have you ever wondered why hole saws are described as linear edge products alongside reciprocating saw blades? Making Hole Saw ![]() Below, we’ll follow the journey of how a hole saw is made in high volume line, because that’s what we were allowed to see. Milwaukee has two different lines for producing hole saws: an automated line capable of producing high volumes, and a “high flex line” for quickly responding to demand. Milwaukee says that the bi-metal hole saw is “the workhorse of the industry,” and is used by many different trades, and so it needs to be able to cut holes in clean wood, nail-embedded wood, and in different types of metal. ![]() Milwaukee Hole Dozers are bi-metal hole saws, meaning that the teeth are made from a hardened metal that’s different from what the rest of the cup is made from. ![]()
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