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Slitting saw basics: teeth, depth and speed

How tooth count, depth of cut and saw thickness change slitting saw speeds and feeds.

The math is the same as milling: RPM = SFM × 3.82 ÷ D and IPM = RPM × teeth × IPT [1][2]. What's different is how few teeth may be cutting at once and how thin the tool is.

Teeth in the cut

Gaylee recommends at least 2 teeth engaged [3]. Forum practice puts 2-3 as the target and 4 as the max [4]. Shallow cuts with a coarse saw can leave less than one tooth engaged, which hammers the saw.

Picking a tooth count

Gaylee: fewer, stronger teeth for deep cuts over 1/4", soft or free-cutting material and high speeds. More teeth for thin material, slots under 0.025", hard or work-hardened material and slow speeds [3].

Thin saws and deep cuts

Harvey's non-ferrous chart halves chip load and limits depth to 3× thickness when the saw is thinner than 1% of its diameter [5]. Its baseline depth is 5× thickness. At 8× it reduces SFM 10%, and at 10× it reduces SFM 20% [5][6].

Setup

RobbJack: arbor runout ≤ 0.0002", seating under 0.0001", side runout under 0.0005". Flood both faces equally or the saw walks [7]. Climb mill on CNC only with minimal backlash; cut conventional on manual machines [3][8].

Open the slitting saw calculator

Tooling for this job

• Carbide slitting saws
• Slitting saw arbors
• Cutting fluid

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Sources

1. [1] Hannibal Carbide, Feeds & Speeds: Milling Cutters or Saws
2. [2] Harvey Performance, Speeds and Feeds 101
3. [3] Gaylee Saws, Saw Cutting Recommendations
4. [4] Practical Machinist, slitting stainless with HSS (forum)
5. [5] Harvey Tool, Slitting Saws Non-Ferrous chart (PDF)
6. [6] Harvey Tool, Slitting Saws chart (PDF)
7. [7] RobbJack, Slitting Saw Setup, Ring-In & Runout
8. [8] CNCCookbook, Slitting Saw guide