3 Things You might Not Know About Cutting Discs (But You Should!)
A cutting disc. It’s a disc. You put it in an angle grinder and it… cuts. That’s all you really need to know, right? Of course not. As is the case with any tool, the more you know about a cutting disc, the better you can use it. More importantly, the more you know about the humble cutting disc, the less likely you are to shatter one and have a hundred tiny black ninja stars shooting around your workshop.
1) Every cutting disc will expire – and when it expires, you really need to throw it away!
Each cutting disk will be clearly marked with a month and year on the centre label. If there is no label, it might be printed right on the disc. It will never be more than 3 years past the date the disc was manufactured. This date isn’t just there to ‘tick a box’ for some obscure European export compliance checklist.
The resin used to build all types of modern cutting disc – regardless of brand or rating – is likely to break down after 3 years even in the best conditions. The resin absorbs moisture from the air, and begins to deteriorate. In short, there is a decent chance that after 3 years your old discs aren’t actually glued together anymore. Spin one up, and it will fly to pieces. Hard, abrasive, deadly flying pieces.
2) Don’t hang a cutting disc on a pegboard.
Don’t leave them open on a shelf or lying around in the bottom of a toolbox either. Ideally, you should leave the plastic wrapper on a cutting disc until you need to use it, and even if the wrapper is intact you need to keep them somewhere dry and cool.
If you don’t, they will absorb moisture even faster than usual. That means they’ll become brittle and prone to shattering well before that 3 years we talked about is up.
3) With a cutting disc, you really get what you pay for.
We all love a bargain, but opting for a cheap brand of cutting disc just means you’ll have a cheap cutting disc. They aren’t as well made as a premium cutting disc would be, and they fail at a much higher rate. But if we haven’t frightened you with the image of cutting disc failure yet, we won’t now.
Economically, a cheap cutting disc won’t even save you money. A cheap cutting disk might cost ½ the price of a decently made one. Tests indicate that the cheap ones last between 1/10th and 1/5th as long. You could easily go through 10 bargain basement cutting discs completing a job you could have done with 1 or 2 good ones. A cheap cutting disc is just too expensive to use.
