Early-entry cuts for decor
Concrete saws increase productivity and design options
by John Strieder
Sometime in the early 1980s, a concrete contractor named Ed Chiuminatta pulled the wheels off a board and attached them to a Skilsaw. The result? A saw blade that could roll across green concrete, slicing a control joint in a fraction of the time it would take to carve the groove by hand.
 Today, Chiuminatta’s company, Soff-Cut International Inc., is the leading manufacturer of green concrete saws — machines designed specifically to cut concrete before it dries.
Kelly Dickinson, sole proprietor of Superior Concrete & Masonry in Riverside, Calif., says that 10 years ago most jointing was done by hand. “At last some people are starting to convert over to different things,” says. (He should know; he has helped Soff-Cut test and fine-tune saws for years.)
Crack control is a concrete contractor’s biggest headache, Dickinson says, and green concrete saws are the miracle cure. They allow a contractor to do expansion cutting before the concrete has set long enough to start cracking. “It’s as close as you get to a guarantee that you’re going to control crackage,” he says.
Early-entry saw cuts are faster, easier and look better, states Jim Johnson, an engineer who designed and improved the Robo-Kut saw, which is being marketed worldwide by N-E-D Corp. “After the concrete has set there for a day, most cracks have already started,” he explains. “The sooner you can start the better.”
 What’s more, he says, the machine slashes labor costs. With the saw’s help, even a rookie can finish off an entire floor the same day it was poured. That’s cost effective, he says, especially on jobs where state regulations require contractors to match union wages when paying the crew.
Because of early-entry saws, Dickinson’s firm can pour more concrete and use less labor to do it. So he’s making more money. In a word, he’s sold. “We’ve got tens of thousands of dollars invested in Soff-Cut saws,” he says.
Soff-Cut dominates its niche, but these days, it’s hardly the only brand on the market. Early-entry saws can be as big as carpet-steamers or as small as electric brooms. They can be powered by gas or electricity. They also vary in features.
The Soff-Cut brand is known for its skidplate, which slides over the concrete on both sides of the blade to prevent spalling or crumbling.
 The Robo-Kut saw features torque control, which monitors the load on the motor and adjusts the speed of the blade to suit. “If you run into a hard spot, like a bunch of rocks, it slows and keeps a constant load on the blade,” Johnson says. “The reason why we have torque control is so the operator cannot abuse that saw. He cannot screw up the concrete.”
Soff-Cut blades cut up, while Robo-Kut blades cut down. There are other green cut saws on the market too. A saw manufactured by Rapidcut Industries LLC, for example, is touted as having the ability to cut right to the edge of a wall and be particularly good at making straight cuts.
Contractors also have their pick of blades, ranging from basic cutters to blades that “chase” existing cuts, carving V-grooves, rounding edges, or otherwise duplicating a hand-tooled effect. “You can accent your saw cuts that way,” notes Soff-Cut application specialist George Shields.
These options make early-entry saws especially intriguing for decorative contractors, who could use them to offer another cheap, good-looking option to their menus. |
