18″ Diamond Blades & High Horse Power Saws Low Horse Power Saws

Once diamond blades reach 18″, they are usually going on a walk behind saw. These kinds of saws vary greatly in size, power and cutting speed. Understanding the specs and details of the saw is very important. The most critical element is knowing the horse power.

We deal with a ton of big companies that do road cutting all day every day…. AND they don’t know the horse power of the saw off hand when we ask. There are two main reasons to understand the horse power of your saw.

The first is safety. Diamond blades are engineered to wear away segments to cut appropriately based on material and cutting speed. If a blade is meant to cut at a low horse power like 13hp, but you put it on a road saw cutting at 65hp, you could potentially have a safety hazard on your hands. Typically the blade will just wear down quick and there will be no damage done, but there is always the potential for thrown segments etc that could be EXTREMELY dangerous.

The second reason to have a grasp on your walk behind saw’s horse power is MONEY! Like I mentioned above, if you put a 13hp 20″ blade on a 65 hp saw, the blade will be toast almost immediately. A 20″ asphalt blade is usually around $300 or so. This is like throwing $300 in the garbage.

A simple google search for your walk behind saw will show the specs and the horse power, or if you have the manual handy, it will list the hp in the first couple pages. If you have a whole fleet of saws and get them confused, simply sticker them with a red dot for high horse, a small green dot for low horse power.