Firefighter John Gilkey from Montgomery County (MD) Fire, Station 29-A, sent in this tip. The tip is simply to use some old hose as a saw bar cover. A couple of short bolt, washer, nut assemblies, and you’re done. Of course a quick stencil and a rattle can finish it off nicely.
The photo below shows how the addition of some webbing and a plastic buckle can be used as a retention system.
We get a number of emails with great submissions sent to the site daily, but this one has to have been one of our favorites. Short, simple, and to the point. The email is copied below in it’s entirety for your enjoyment.
Hey VES,
Found this stuff on the Engine the other day…Don’t know what it is but it makes great “Bar Covers” for our saws…
Signed,
The Truck Guys
This great tip has been added to all of the other great tips on the Tips from the Bucket page.
Finally, a good use for hose.
Man and I thought our saws were clean!!! Ours are clean just because they’ve never gotten dirty!…lol
I agree with the hose comment, but where are the depth guards on the saws? If you slide them all the way forward they should be protecting the whole bar. Nice use for the hose. Firefighters are always thinking.
Depth gauges are nice, IF you don’t feel comfortable running a saw on the roof, every one should know how deep to go on the roof. During RIT operations, if you need to breach a wall or make a door out of a window, they just get in the way.
Saw guards are for probies and EMS guys. If you don’t know how to cut stay on the engine !!!!
love the email and since i ride an engine the only piece we have i do the truck work to. we run in the county alot and that unidentified stuf on the engine worked as a tow strap. we got one later and put on the engine. right on about the depth bar they tend to make the saw a one deminsional tool. we can’t afford that trick.
Agreed…lose the saw guards. They have their place in training academies, but in the real world they just get in the way.
cum on fellows it’s a great idea especially for storage in the compartments, it keeps the chain from gettin bumped around and gettin dull or even knockin a tooth off we all know a sharp saw is a better saw, so for those who don’t like guards, come on it’s a simple screw that comes off with one hand if you don’t like it, but the guard should stay on while in storage. remember ego does kill firefighters.
Hey Gilk, I can’t believe you used Riley’s collar on that bar cover!
While looking at the picture I noticed a K-12 blade Im not familier with. Can you give us alittle insight as to its intended use and manufacture, also it appears to be mounted so that the rotation is backwards. Im sure it was done on purpose but what is the advantage of this?
tooltime- that blade is called a wharthog blade….it’s actually mounted in the correct position. It is a carbide tipped saw blade that is supposed to cut through anything on a roof, and in my experience it has.
just as nice as those new diamond tips which do the same. However the diamond tips get caught up on the tar and rubber where it melts over the diamond (still cuts), but the carbide tip doesn’t cut as quick on the metal or sub q. not to say that it won’t…but not as quick
Hey we can’t figure out what that stuff is either, but we also cut some of it up into pieces to use for protection during vehicle extrications. Some short lengths to fit over A and B posts, some cut into flat flaps that can be laid over sharp edges, etc…
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I would have to disagree with the comment that a carbide tipped blade does not cut as fast as a diamond blade on Q-deck and metal siding/roof. In fact, once the carbide blade penetrates the material I have yet to see anything cut faster. I prefer an aggresive blade like Fire Hook’s Chopper 12 tooth. If one chooses to utilize a carbide tipped blade for cutting these material they need to have full PPE and most importantly eye protection. The amount of sharp material thrown from the kerf coupled with the possibilty of losing a large piece of carbide in that makes standing around the saw dangerous. It also makes a terrible noise during cutting especially during the plunge.
The Warthog blade works as advertised. On one fire, the first truck crew on the roof destroyed a Cutters Edge chain and one of those fancy diamond blade saws, and barely got one side of the cut done. I got up there with a K12 w/ the Warthog and went through the roof like it was butter. Roof was a flat wood/tar/membrane roof w/ two layers on a garden apt. After that, I was sold on it.
Stay Safe
Im guessing thats to keep the bars from getting road grit in the compartment, because I know you arent taking them out to actually vent a roof.
And brickcity, the guard on the cutters egde works great. A real roofman loves it… of course ours only has one setting(all the way open). But none-the-less I would get rid of it.
To stay on point I like the bar covers,
To get off point– correct me if I am wrong, but aren’t the depth guards a safety tool to use with the saws. Sure they might not be right for everyone but for normal roof ops they are a good thing.
As for RIT operations, we don’t normally take a saw, but if you do, your RIT team should be standing by with a saw ready the way your SOPs state.
But I think that if intentionally ignore safety because your not a “probie or EMS” then that RIT activation your worried about will probably be for you!
sorry if popped any big heads.