Diamond blades have certainly developed a broad range of forms. Looking at a web page’s inventory, there are alternative cores and bonding materials, plus different rim profiles to choose from. Easy enough to identify, the segmented rim category is fitted with equally spaced slots all the way around the blade. Elsewhere, serrated shapeshifters lose the slots and gain a jagged-edged countenance.
Weighing Designs That Favour Serrated Rims
There’s a kind of binary simplicity to other diamond blade rim types. The either-or design promotes a simple continuous rim style or switches to a series of slotted cutouts, which are added to improve cutting airflow. Ultimately, serrated rims steal the best features from those other two blade types. They deliver uninterruptible benefits, the same as a continuous cutting variant, then their edges dip and rise in a sawtooth pattern so that they can deliver the intermittent abrading traits of a segmented cutter.
Segmented Diamond Blades Cut Fast
The rim continues for a short distance, angles sharply inwards to create a gully, then it resumes its curving passage. The pattern repeats as it encircles a diamond blade. As mentioned previously, the profile is designed to suck in air. Used in wet or dry cutting applications, serrated rims have a talent for grinding their way quickly through concrete and masonry blocks. This is the blade type that’s seen at the edge of a road, cutting through asphalt and concrete. On a building site, the same blades cut through bricks. Of interest here, the slot profiles are available in slightly different shapes, all the better to address those different building materials. Teardrop-shaped slots are common, as are slender U-shaped gulleys.
Exploring the Benefits of Serrated Rim Cutting
Capable of providing greater grinding power, segmented rims don’t always leave a clean finish. They do their job, then they move on while leaving behind coarsely abraded incision surfaces. Meanwhile, continuous rim variants provide the cleanest cut, but they work best when used on ceramic or tile. They also operate relatively slowly, require a cooling water supply, and have trouble flushing cutting debris. By merging the two rim profiles, by combining their best features into a form that uses a serrated rim, tool operators gain the upper hand. There’s still the option to cut fast, but now grinding operations are much tidier. There’s also less chance of chipping.
Segmented diamond blades are faster, and they’re the superior grinding option. However, the gullied profile doesn’t work clean. By switching to serrated grinding, we keep the fast abrasive action but add the clean cuts that are found on continuous cutting diamond blades. High-end serrated rims, they’re known as Turbo diamond blades, provide even more grinding precision and productivity-enhanced operational speed.
