[Retired Starman]

A cold saw is certainly the correct tool to use, and I would suggest that any team doing much aluminum cutting get one regardless of the "high" cost.

I cut aluminum on my light duty 10" miter box saw for years with no trouble, the in the period of about a month blew up three $90 aluminum-cutting blades on my saw, usually with spectacular results in terms of throwing pieces of aluminum around the shop. By blow up, I mean that up to 1.4 of the carbide tipped teeth were stripped off the blade. These were high-quality blades with the correct hook angle for cutting aluminum.

I finally narrowed the cause down to worn bearings in the saw which allowed the blade to move around a bit, allowing the teeth to grab in the stock.

The last time it happened, the piece of flying aluminum angle hit my hand, fortunately doing no damage more than a couple of nicks, but I sat down and had a little talk with myself and decided if I was going to cut aluminum, I would rather spend my $1200 on a cold saw to do the job correctly than spend several thousand dollars in the emergency room getting my hand put back together. Every mentor needs to come to the same conclusion and recognize that they would rather spend the funds to properly equip the shop rather than having a student go through life missing part of a hand or an eye.

While a cold saw has capacity limitations, and most run on three-phase current, Grizzly and Jet make 9 and 10 in. saws that are reasonably priced for what you get, make very accurate cuts (I was introduced to cold saws in an industrial engraving shop where one was used to cut engraving blanks our of hardened steel with a precision of a few thousands of an inch parallel on all surfaces). They beat bandsaws for speed and accuracy any day of the year.

If you must use an electric miter-box saw to cut aluminum, get one with chop action, not one with chop and slide action. You just don't have enough control over the pulling action needed to carefully cut with a sliding saw. The blade rotation makes this a climbing cut, pulling the blade forward into and up on the aluminum. While this action is OK for wood, as with a radial-arm saw, it is dangerous to try to hold the blade back as you cut aluminum when the blade is trying to pull itself through the aluminum.

Dr. Bob
(45 years of machining experience and I still have all my eyes and fingers)