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Who Is Cardinal?
Ed Zuzelo, Founder and CEO of CARDINAL Saws
& Blades, received his first patent for the design of a saw for
cutting masonry and concrete in the mid - 1940's. This is long before most
companies in the industry today had even started in business. The name CARDINAL
dates back to 1950 when CARDINAL began manufacturing abrasive and diamond blades
as well as sawing equipment for the masonry, stone, asphalt, and concrete
industry.
In 1950 CARDINAL was the only manufacturer of both saws
and blades in the world, although there were three other blade manufacturers in
the United States at that time.
In the following 58 years CARDINAL has acquired
more than 53 patents in the field of sawing and prides itself in being able to
deliver to the end user a product which carries a money back guarantee based on
the claim that CARDINAL blades will produce the lowest cost per unit of sawing
when both the cost of the blade and the labor to perform the sawing is taken
into consideration.
Since 1950 we have operated under the name of
CARDINAL and technical information and advice to the sawing contractor,
engineer, and architect has always been freely available from our staff and
technicians. We welcome any questions you may have. Our business philosophy has
always been no gimmicks, no free giveaways, just quality blades at a fair price
to produce the most economical results for the contractor and help a good man do
a better job.
In 2002, CARDINAL invented a truly universal
arbor (Patent No. 6,651,644) capable of being mounted on any concrete saw on the
market today, conventional or early entry. This now gives the contractor a
choice plus the opportunity to buy the finest and most economical diamond blade
available anywhere in the world for cutting green concrete.
A Word about Sawing Green Concrete To
Eliminate Random Cracking
Much longer than 50 years ago it was a well
known fact that moisture evaporated from newly placed concrete during the
process of curing, the volume decreased and the shrinking process produced
uncontrollable random cracks throughout the slab unless a predetermined weakened
plane was installed in the concrete at the location the contractor wanted it to
crack and form a joint for temperature expansion and contraction.
Prior to sawing concrete either with diamond or
abrasive blades, these so-called weakened planes were formed with a cement
finisher's jointing tool while the concrete was still in the plastic stage. On
one hand random cracking was almost entirely eliminated since the weakened
planes were formed prior to any substantial loss of water which causes the
concrete to shrink. However, hand formed scoring in the plastic stage produced
joints which were inferior from a structural standpoint since the hand tools
were unable to cut through the aggregate and in fact displaced and disturbed the
concrete during its early cure stage. The introduction of sawing eliminated the
structural problem but introduced the necessity for the contractor to make a
calculated guess as to how early he could walk on the concrete with his saw to
cut a weakened plan. Because the concrete begins to shrink as soon as moisture
evaporates many factors needed to be considered including the temperature of the
air, relative humidity, temperature of the aggregates during the mixing stage,
wind conditions, type of cement, etc. and a mis-calculation would result in shrinking
stresses which produced random cracks and an unacceptable pavement.
Trowelling the pavement surface both advanced
and thereby extended the window of time during which sawing could take place
minimizing the risk of random cracking. Sometimes conditions produced by nature
in addition to the volume of concrete that needed to be controlled, did not
allow the contractor sufficient time to perform the necessary sawing to prevent
random cracking.
Additionally, the only diamonds available in
the early 1950's were natural diamonds, which could not withstand the impact and
heat such as synthetic diamonds which were invented some years later. This was
also before the time of laser welding technology and segments were attached to
the steel core using silver solder. Both the use of natural diamonds and silver
solder required the diamond blade to be kept cool with water to avoid damaging
the diamonds and melting the silver solder.
Unfortunately, the necessary application of
water further reduced the window of time for sawing because early entry caused
the water to wash away some of the uncured cement along with sand and aggregates
that had not completely bonded. Oddly enough, a CARDINAL diamond blade
distributor/contractor, John McLean of Redi Supply Co., Inc. of Greenville,
North Carolina one day concluded that green concrete had enough moisture in it
to keep the blade cool and was successful in being the FIRST contractor in the
world to use a diamond blade DRY! It was a CARDINAL diamond blade.
In the early 1950's to avoid damage to the
concrete surface and advance the sawing window time, CARDINAL sawed joints in 84
miles of concrete pavement on the West Virginia Turnpike using a saw which spanned
the complete concrete surface and traveled on the steel forms without contacting
the pavement surface. Coincidentally this was also the world's FIRST up-cut saw
which led to the UPPERCUT™ Diamond Blade.
You can forget about sawing in the Red Zone,
Blue Zone, or Green Zone. The most important scoring (sawing) of concrete should
take place in the END ZONE, prior to the loss of significant water which causes the concrete to
shrink which is when random cracking is most effectively
eliminated. Contractors can be confident that CARDINAL UPPERCUT Diamond Blades
can be used for sawing green concrete as early as their specific conditions
permit.
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