Product review: Irwin Lenox Gold recip saw blade

Have you ever seen that trick where they saw a car in half? Well in our case it is no trick, we really did do it and we haven’t had so much fun in ages. In fact to tell you the truth it’s quite  addictive. Once you have cut your first car you start looking for other suitable cars and when I say ‘suitable’ I mean ones where the owner has given you permission.  That we would say is the number one rule of car cutting,  always ask first. Yes we know it is tempting  to trim a little off the back of that car which always seems to get parked across your drive but in most countries there are laws against such things.

So, assuming  someone gives you the green light, what do you need to perform this trick?  One reciprocating saw, one pair of safety goggles and one Irwin Lenox Gold recip saw blade. The last item is really important. The teeth are titanium coated and this helps them last longer and also dissipate heat into the metal you are cutting which help prevent overheating. Once a metal cutting blade over heats it is pretty much done for so using the best blade you can buy is an economy because you will only need one to cut the average car in half.

What really amazed us in our test was not only just how quick and easy it was to cut through the metal body work of the car but that the blade also did a perfect job of cutting through the laminated screen. Laminated windscreens are made up of two pieces of glass with a thin film of clear plastic sandwiched  in between. Since they are specifically designed to stay intact during a collision  you might reasonably assume that cutting through one  would be tough going. Not so, which is why fire and rescue services the world over use them to cut the roofs off crashed vehicles. The Lenox gold blade saves them having to change blades mid way through the job and in their case that could be the difference between life and death. Fortunately for us the stakes weren’t so high, it was just a good day out and a fun way to test out an industrial grade power tool accessory.  We also tested the blades through a whole range of other materials such as iron pipe and square section steel. It wasn’t half so much fun but it is the sort of thing that builders, electricians and plumbers do daily and as our site is called ‘skill-builder’  and not ‘car cutters’ we felt duty bound  to do it.