“Chainsaw” Carve With Your Angle Grinder
By Chuck Cage
This weekend I met “Chainsaw,” an artist from the Austin area who carves wood with… well, you get the idea. He’s a super nice guy, and he turned me on to the chainsaw artist’s secret weapon: a chainsaw blade designed to mount in your 4-1/2″ angle grinder. He says it works great for creating curved surfaces.
King Arthur Tools, the manufacturer, lists it as “excellent for rapid wood removal, cutting, and general shaping.” The blade is actually a separate component, trapped between two shaped-steel plates for mounting to the grinder. That means the blade is replaceable, and ‘Arthur sells replacements for $23 — about half the tool’s $45 price.
If you check out the website (link below), be sure to look at the rest of their selection. They have larger chainsaw cutters as well as a selection of numerous abrasives we haven’t seen elsewhere.
And while we haven’t tried one of these personally, we’ll take Chainsaw’s word that they work wonders. C’mon — his friends call him “Chainsaw!” How cool is that? Answer: cool enough that we’re gonna order one and give it a shot.
Squire 12-Tooth Disc [King Arthur's Tools]
July 16th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
looks really cool too!
July 16th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
Booo!!!
I call foul for not giving us any pictures of “Chainsaw’s” work.
We can over turn that on appeal if there’s a story on him in the works for the blog.
July 16th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
Not to knock “Chainsaw”, but at what point do you stop being a chainsaw artist? For me the wow factor of chainsaw art is the fact that its all done with such an awkward tool. Is it common to use smaller tools like this?
July 16th, 2007 at 3:08 pm
A chainsaw disk blade on an angle grinder is not an awkward tool for carving a tree trunk? I gotta give it up to anyone that can use this or a chainsaw in an artistic fashion. I can barely get my hedges looking good when I trim them.
July 16th, 2007 at 4:59 pm
Squire…meh. I’m saving up for the Fender.
July 16th, 2007 at 5:28 pm
Well, this looks perfectly safe to me.
July 16th, 2007 at 5:54 pm
I wouldn’t be surprised if we start seeing this in horror movies!
July 17th, 2007 at 10:43 am
I think Ed (the british guy) on Extreme Home Makeover nearly cut his hand in half using one of these. He removed the guard from the angle grinder. Found a link: http://edsanders.net/ownWords.html
July 17th, 2007 at 10:47 am
Arbortech makes a decent woodcarving blade for those that prefer carbide.
They also make all kinds of other neat carving gear, ie. minicarver.
carving wheel
http://www.arbortech.com.au/view/woodworking-information/industrial_20070412135335
home page for other stuff.
http://www.arbortech.com.au/index.html
check out their as160 brick and mortar saw
July 22nd, 2007 at 8:29 am
I have one of these, but haven’t used it a lot yet. I love my angle grinders, and these types of tools get my attention. You can even pair up a couple of these blades on the same grinder. I’ve seen pictures of the work done by people that use them regularly, and they get some pretty nice results. You’re not supposed to remove the guard, just rotate it a little to expose the blade where it needs to be exposed. I’d highly recommend only using an angle grinder that shuts itself off when you let it go. Just a toggle power switch is scary. King Arthur tools also sells some carbide sanding disks that are pretty neat too.
http://www.katools.com
August 4th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
I been carving for 50 years and none of this stuff was around when I started.
It is all labor intense, and awkward. That being said, What does a chainsaw do? ans. removes wood. What does a die grinder do? ans. removes wood. What does a chisel do? ans. removes wood. What does a rasp do? ans. removes wood. So you see where I’m going. The sculpture is in your head
all you have to do is produce it. Please belive the older your joints get the easyer you try to produce.
October 14th, 2008 at 8:34 am
OK, I use the ‘Saw Chain’ blade on my DeWalt 4″ (I also use the Arbotech minigrinder. Both of them are heavy and can be awkward trying to get “inside” wood art. There is one ‘in progress’ on my Flickr. Speaking as a former ‘commercial’ artist and now (again) art student I don’t think the type of tool used has anything at all to do with the quality of art, it can, however shorten the time required and there is no harm in being able to produce more in less time. For example, in ceramic art you don’t ask ‘was it a foot or elec powered wheel’