Yes, you can do it. But, not so fast .. :
- you need a special "dry cut" blade for steel cutting
- beware you can cut mild/construction steel only, not hardened and not too thick, the full-cut depth should not exceed 4-5 milimeters tops, 3 mm ideally (that is the full path of the blade in the material,
not the thickness of the material
- the saw must be locked into the "chopsaw" mode
-
the piece cut must be fully supported and the saw blade
must approach the material in as vertical an angle as possible (so if cutting a 3mm bar, make sure to put it vertically to the fence
- the piece you are cutting must be FULLY supported, this is absolutely critical, even more so than with aluminum
- consider using a zero-clearence hard-plywood fence instead of placing the stock directly on the saw
- you must not cut too-slow, that would heat up the blade and cause premature wear on it, do not go too hard either, but do apply some pressure to get the cut done sooner rather than later, just slowly "submerging" the blade in stock like one does when wanting a perfect cut in wood is a big no-no with metal cutting by a chopsaw
- safety, safety safety!
- here will be high-speed hot metal chips flying all around, dust extraction will *not* catch them => make sure that you have a wall or something behind the saw AND you absolutely must wear safety glasses
- make 100% sure to wear hearing protection, the metal piece will resonate when hit by the blade and will make a lot of noise, way,way more than from wood cutting
- lastly, be ready to spend an hour cleaning the saw afterwards, you will need to remove any chips which might get into the saw mechanisms which are made from aluminum - a steel chip will damage the moving parts if it gets stuck between them and is not removed
Personal advice:
The dry cut blade makers often say up-to 6mm total width but that is really optimistic. Anything beyond a 4 mm bar placed vertically or a 2 mm walls profile is torture for the blades and they die very fast. Your 3mm bar is probably the sweet spot.
Lastly, the KSC 60 is not officially rated for steel cutting. So beware you would most likely void your warranty here ...
You are much better off getting a 10" Makita or other maker chopsaw (aka not a slider) and dedicate it for metal cutting. These have much more rigid frames and also the cost/size is way more sensible for something hit hard by the vibrations from metal cutting.
ADD:
If you do not go for a specialist metal-cutting saw, look for a general chopsaw with the smallest rpm. 2500-3000 is ideal, but even 4500 can be OK-ish, just look for as low rpm as possible.
What we do is use a 10" Makita chopsaw at 4600 rpm but we use it intentionally with an 8" blade to further reduce the linear speed of the blade edge - a 200 mm blade at 4600 rpm is equivalent to a 260 mm blade at 3500 rpm and it does make a difference ..
luvmytoolz said:
A cheap angle grinder is ideal for this. If you don't already have one, they're kinda hard to do without generally.
Not possible to do clean (and not burned) cuts with a grinder .. but one can do so with a chopsaw and the right blade. The blade does wear out pretty fast though.
