Wire Sawing

Wire sawing is what you use when the section is too thick, too awkward or too sensitive for a disc. A diamond-beaded wire is threaded through the structure, joined into a loop and run continuously under tension by a hydraulic drive unit, cutting on every pass. Because the wire has no radius, there is no practical depth limit.

A floor or wall saw is limited by its blade: roughly half the disc diameter, less the guard and arbor. Once a section is thicker than about 800mm, or the cut has to run in two planes, or there is no room to swing a machine, the disc stops being an option. Mass concrete, bridge piers and abutments, deep foundations, thick quay walls and heavily reinforced transfer structures are all wire saw work.

It is also the answer where vibration is the constraint rather than the thickness. A wire saw is a continuous, low-vibration cut, which matters next to sensitive equipment, on a live hospital estate, or where a structure is already distressed and percussive breaking would make it worse.

The wire has to get through the structure, so wire sawing almost always begins with core drilling: a pair of holes cored at the corners of the intended cut for the wire to pass through. That means the coring has to be accurate, because the wire will follow the line those two holes define.

From there it is about tension, water and control of the section. The drive unit maintains tension as the loop shortens; water cools the beads and carries away the cuttings; and the piece being removed has to be supported or lifted before the cut completes, because a released block of mass concrete is a serious load. Sequencing the lift is usually the part that decides the programme.

Cuts are clean, square and need no making good. There is no percussion, so no impact damage to what is left behind. Slurry volumes are higher than disc sawing and have to be contained and removed rather than run to drain, particularly on port and airfield sites where drainage runoff is an environmental compliance issue.

We are based at Little Westerhill Farm near Maidstone in Kent. Kent, London, Sussex, Essex and the wider South East are covered from our own yard, and longer programmes are mobilised UK wide. Wire sawing sits within our concrete cutting service, alongside wall sawing and floor sawing.

For slabs within reach of a disc, see full depth sawing.