Is the paint on Sawsall Blades toxic?

Sort of off topic!!!

I cant seem to find any sawsall blades that are not painted. I want to cut a whole ham into several pieces to make them a more usable size, without thawing the whole ham. I think a sawsall should cut it fairly easily while frozen. It's just that paint that I'm not sure about.

Thanks

Reply to
Jerry.Tan
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Pay a butcher to do it, couple slices on his bandsaw and you are done, why risk it.

Reply to
FrozenNorth

Pretty much ay finish used today is not toxic once dried.

My first choice though, would be to ask a butcher or the place where you bought the ham to do it. They have a bandsaw that will do the job easily.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

AFAIK, the only saw-blade that would be approved for cutting meat would be stainless steel.

Reply to
philo 

I agree with Ed and Frozen, but if you want, maybe you can use a wire wheel on a bench grinder to get rid of the paint. Wire wheels do wonders. Go from the back down to not dull the blade.

Haven't been close to one very recenty but I don't think they look stainless.

Reply to
micky

Aside from that, am I the only one wondering how you can do any decent cutting of a whole ham with the typical, relatively short sawzall blade? All I see is a hacked up mess.

Reply to
trader_4

Toxic or not, the company is not selling the tool to cut meat and unlikely went through the bother of checking whether or not all components were FDA approved and most of their blades were not designed for this purpose.

Reply to
Frank

I did a Google search and found a nice long stainless steel meat cutting blade. It was about $50

To me however, cutting servings up into /smaller/ proportions is something that just plain does not compute.

Reply to
philo 

When our family was smaller I used to have the butcher slice a turkey in half. That bandsaw they have is quick and easy, even with frozen foods.

But this is a DIY oriented forum, so:

If I only had one to do, I would definitely get the butcher to do it.

But if I were going to do it reasonably regularly, I'd get a meat cutting blade for my hacksaw:

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Reply to
TimR

Good idea. I bought a hacksaw camp type kit to get included blade for bone cutting and it cost a lot more than this. Blade also shorter and not that handy when used for quartering a deer. I would have bought a hacksaw blade like these had I thought about it.

Reply to
Frank

I have the saw my Granddaddy used to split deer and hogs . Looks like a giant hacksaw and works just swell . I've seriously considered using my 3 wheel benchtop bandsaw to cut up meat , but wouldn't use a saw on venison - I don't want to get the fat and marrow in/on the meat . I did use my recip saw to cut up a frozen deer haunch into pieces I could wrap once though . I used a long coarse demo blade , and it worked well . The dog was right there , enjoyed the "sawdust" .

Reply to
Terry Coombs

Power tools and cold slippery weird shaped chunks of meat scare me a little.

I think those power saws will take off a wrist just as fast as a ham hock.

I'd rather use the hacksaw and go slow.

Reply to
TimR

Blades made for pruning are pretty much paint-free in my limited experience. I'd certainly run the blade through a high-temperature wash beforehand. I had the bright idea one time of running a frozen salmon through my little benchtop bandsaw when I lived in Alaska. I never was able to get rid of the smell no matter how many times I cleaned the machinery.

Reply to
BenignBodger

To each his own , but the hacksaw is just about as dangerous as a power saw IN THIS CASE IMO .

Reply to
Terry Coombs

I'd be more worried about whether the pig was fed GMO food than about the paint on a sawzall blade.

Reply to
Joe Lowbrow

Burn the paint off with a propane torch.

Reply to
Thomas

Later years now, I'm deferring to a butcher but every now and then do a small deer.

Friends and I always used a regular hand saw but when I saw butcher zip off a rack with his hand bone saw, I wanted one. Got the one I mentioned but found just as difficult to quarter a deer.

Like you say, you don't want bone and fat in venison and other than quartering, every other cut is boneless.

For op, I did chemical regulatory work and am familiar with FDA regulations for food contact. Most producers of non-food contact items are clueless on the requirements as product in normal use does not contact food. If clean and not flaking off paint and the like it is normally safe for individuals to use items not designed for food contact. Food toxicity issues are almost always with the food itself, not with what it contacted.

Reply to
Frank

You have not seen a good selection of sawsall blades. THe standard ones are about 4", but they are sold up to about one foot long.

Reply to
Jerry.Tan

Why not? A whole ham is about 20 pounds. Most in the store have been cut into a few ham steaks from the center and the end pieces left at 5 pounds or so.

Personally, I'd not worry about contamination from a new blade, but that is just me. I'm not able to tell anyone it is 100% safe.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

The important thing is not to have any uninsulated electrical cords around. It on touches the meat, the meat may come alive.

It was good for cutting the 2x6's that held up my deck, and for cutting the water heater into pieces. A hacksaw cuts to a limited depth and a limited length.

With the water heater, it cut 90 or 100% as well when all the teeth were gone as when the blade had teeth.

Reply to
micky

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