Industry professionals around the world know Starrett as a brand synonymous for producing quality and innovative hole saw and band saw blades, but I can assure you that it doesn’t stop there. The company manufactures more than 5,000 variations of precision tools, gages, measuring instruments and saw blades for industrial, professional and consumer markets worldwide.
Starrett, a leader who has set the standard for fine precision tools in the industry over the past 140 years, has rightfully earned the title of world’s greatest toolmaker. Let us cut a little deeper into the Starrett framework to uncover why it’s not just hole saws and band saw blades that cut the mustard, and look at some of Starrett’s other accurate, robust and durable blades widely used on jobsites and in workshop environments.
Hand hacksaws
Refusing to follow the crowd, when it comes to hacksaw manufacture, Starrett uses their own unique method to create bi-metal saw blades. Starrett Unique™ Technology joins two strips of high-speed steel wire to a backing steel using the principle of solid-state diffusion bonding. This results in 170 percent more weld contact area, when compared to a standard bi-metal blade. But what does that mean for the consumer?
Users see a massive increase in resistance to tooth breakage and fracture, it offers much smoother and faster cuts – on average 35 percent faster than competing products. Longer blade life – typically 35 percent longer than competing blades – all combined to guarantee one simple benefit, a lower cost per cut.
Within the Starrett hand hacksaw blade range is Redstripe® and Grey-Flex® blades. Redstripe is ideal when the blade is not subject to bending and twisting stresses. The uniformly hardened blade holds the edge when cutting hard-to-machine alloys and maintains straightness of the cut. While Grey-Flex is a high carbon steel all-purpose blade, suitable for cutting mild steel, copper, brass, aluminium and similar materials. Its hardened cutting edge makes it extremely tough, plus it features a flexible back.
To find out more about Starrett’s Bi-Metal Unique, Redstripe and Grey-Flex hand hacksaw blades, CLICK HERE.
Jigsaw blades
Incorporated into Starrett’s jig saw blades is a Bi-Metal Unique Unified™ Shank, which allows Starrett jigsaw blades to fit most well-known jigsaw machines, including Bosch, Black & Decker, Makita, Lenox, Sandvik, DeWalt, Milwaukee, Skil, Vermont American and Morse.
Within the jigsaw range, Starrett offers two main models: the Bi-Metal Unique and Dual Cut. First let’s take a look at the Bi-Metal Unique. Just like the Bi-Metal Unique hacksaw, the same process technology is incorporated making them more resistant to breakage, cut faster and cut longer than conventional saws. After initial use, the soft backing materials in the centre of the blade will wear away, forming a groove which acts as a natural chip breaker and provides multiple cutting edges. These multiple cutting edges then produce thinner chips that are more easily removed from the saw cut.
Not to be outdone, Starrett also offers Dual Cut jigsaw blades designed specifically for wood cutting. With teeth facing in both directions, the dual cut offers burr-free cutting on both sides, plus its Bi-Metal Unique saw technology enables Starrett’s jigsaw blades to last 25 percent longer, compared to existing bi-metal blades. They’re also stronger – with 170 percent more weld contact – faster, smoother, more precise and unbreakable during normal use.
As with all Starrett jigsaw blades, each of the shanks are colour coded to application, with yellow for wood cutting, red for multi-purpose, blue for metal cutting and navy for multi-purpose carbide grit. If you are interested in finding out more about Starrett’s jigsaw blades, CLICK HERE.
Reciprocating blades
With a push-pull motion, reciprocating blades can cut through wood and metal quickly and cleanly. The number of teeth per inch (TPI) usually determines what type of material they can cut. Typically, lower TPI delivers faster cuts and normally is used for cutting wood, whereas higher TPI is slower to cut but offers a cleaner cut and is ideal for metal.
Starrett’s reciprocating blades follow the same colour coding on their universal shanks, as that of their jigsaws; blue for metal cutting, red for multi-use, yellow for wood cutting, but also black for heavy duty multi-use and grey/no paint for pallet dismantling.
Reciprocating blades are often chosen because of their benefits, such as safety through reduced vibration and noise, reduction in spark production and fire risk, ease of access, large cut capacity and multi-purpose ability.
Starrett currently offers three different reciprocating blade shapes: ‘parallel’, for harder cuts, especially when the tip needs to be forced and for straight cuts; ‘tapered’, which has a better possibility for getting to hard to reach places and offers straight cuts; plus ‘scroll’, for curved and contour cuts.
Within the range Starrett has recently released the new 3X Power Bi-Metal reciprocating saw blade range, which offers increased productivity, best performance, high durability, new tooth and tip design and features a selection of blades for each application – wood, metal, multi-purpose, carbide grit, pallet dismantling and repair blades, plus the King Cut, for fire rescue and demolition services.
