Makita Cold Cut Saw vs the Trade Depot 2DX Budget Blade: A Budget Blade That Punches Up

Introduction

Cold cut saws are brilliant tools for cutting steel cleanly, but the blades that go with them can be painfully expensive. A widely used premium 185mm cold saw blade can cost well over $200, and its teeth are known to chip easily once the first dozen or so nice cuts are done. That frustrates anyone who mainly uses a cold saw for cutting up scrap, where paying premium blade prices feels absurd.

This comparison looks at three products: the Makita cold cut metal cutting saw itself, the premium Makita 185mm cold cut saw blade it normally runs, and a budget challenger, the Trade Depot 2DX 185mm 36-tooth cold saw blade, which costs roughly a tenth of the price. The budget blade was put through steel, plastic, and six layers of corrugated iron to see whether cheap blades have really gotten as good as their price suggests.

The Makita Cold Cut Saw Itself

The Makita cold cut metal cutting saw is the tool that makes all of this possible. It runs with cold cut blades that cut steel nicely, leaving clean results, and it is well loved as a machine. The main complaint is not the saw but what it has historically been fed: expensive blades whose teeth chip too easily.

Cold cut blades on this saw are commonly used for everything from cutting plate steel to slicing up scrap metal. Stalling the tool mid-cut, which happens in real workshop use, is also one of the fastest ways to find out how well a blade’s teeth are attached.

The Premium Blade Problem: Makita 185mm Cold Cut Saw Blade

The premium Makita 185mm cold cut saw blade delivers excellent cutting performance for its first half dozen cuts. After that, the teeth begin to chip and break off. The blade body appears to have gone too thin at the curve, which works nicely for cutting thicker material like 12 mil plate but means the teeth catch on anything and are quickly lost.

The price compounds the problem. These blades regularly cost more than $200 for a 185mm blade, and in the wrong places they have been seen at close to $300. Spending that much on a blade used largely for cutting up scrap is hard to justify.

The Budget Challenger: Trade Depot 2DX 185mm 36-Tooth Cold Saw Blade

The Trade Depot 2DX blade, where 2DX stands for Trade Depot Extreme, is a 36-tooth 185mm cold saw blade, so slightly fewer teeth than the premium option. It feels robust and looks well made, and it costs around $20, roughly a tenth of the price of the premium blade. Cheap blades have historically been a gamble because the quality of how the teeth are attached is the usual weak point, but this one held up well.

In testing, the blade survived a tool stall with no lost teeth, a scenario that would likely have claimed several teeth from a premium Makita blade. Cutting was possibly a little slower than with the premium blade and the saw seemed quieter, but the teeth stayed intact. Freehand cuts through steel produced good results, and the blade’s printed markings even survived, which would not have been the case with the premium option.

The Corrugated Iron Gauntlet

Corrugated iron is where premium cold cut blades are known to struggle: chipping, losing teeth, and wearing out quickly. The budget blade was asked to cut through six layers of corrugated iron, a task that the premium blade would not have been attempted at all. The cut produced an interesting resonance and the blade struggled somewhat, but considering the difficulty of the task, that is not necessarily the blade’s fault.

The attempt did tear the printing off the blade and chipped the top off a single tooth. On the same abuse, the expectation with the more fragile premium blade is that a heap of teeth would have been lost instead of just one.

After the Gauntlet: Final Verdict on the Blade

After the corrugated iron session, an inspection showed all teeth looking good apart from that single chip. Follow-up cuts through thicker steel confirmed the blade was still cutting nicely and had not gone blunt. Cutting through plastic was also handled well, opening up possibilities like polycarbonate roofing.

The maths is compelling: at a tenth of the price, even if the budget blade only lasts half as long as the premium one, it still works out five times better value. For anyone cutting a lot of scrap, it may well become the new go-to blade, while the premium blade remains the nicer choice when cutting thicker plate is the priority.

Conclusion

The Makita cold cut saw remains a great machine, but the budget Trade Depot 2DX blade proved it can take workshop abuse that would ruin a blade costing ten times as much. One chipped tooth across steel, plastic, and six layers of corrugated iron, still cutting nicely at the end, is a strong result for a $20 blade. If you mostly cut scrap, the budget blade is the smarter buy; if you cut thick plate regularly, the premium blade’s cutting feel may still earn its keep.