Looking for advise and experience here..Need to get a good ( compound? ) metal chop saw. Something very good for angles that need to be on. I see the basic close enough ones.. Can anyone recommend a good one fro doing tube frame work. Will be cutting up to 3 " od Tubing
what you need is a cold cut drop saw, they have a solid,toothed , blade, spin pretty slow and use coolant. they are accurate to less than 1/2mm when set up properly, and are ususally used in production steel shops. the downside is they cost about 2 thousand bucks. I want one bad. http://www.brobo.com.au/coldsaws.html
i have two chop saws, both milwaukees, one is an abrasive and the other a dry cut saw, i cant depend on either to cut an exact angle based on there settings, of all the metal saws i have used only a cold saw was able to cut the angle it was set to, but your looking at $2000 for a used one.
We had a cold saw in a shop that I used to work in. No one that worked there was very impressed with it at all. I certainly wasn't. Most of our work was with stainless steel. We cut alot of angles and we'd wear out the saw blades. We tried lots of different saw blades that were specifically for stainless and was careful on not feeding it too fast. They still wouldn't last very long. BTW, it was brand new. It was such a POS that the owner made the company take it back. It was a KMT or Kalamazoo, I think. Unless I have no other choice, I don't use an abrasive cut off saw either. They are pretty inaccurate for any kind of precision fit up. Our horizontal bandsaw was faster and made a better cut, more accurate cut. A GOOD horizontal bandsaw is one of the handiest tools you can ever have. Make sure to get one with a mitering head if you can. They are expensive but well worth the $. Buy good blades and they will last a long time as long as you have don't have a numbskull using it. Just my opinion...
I have a Scotchman cold saw, very accurate, clean cuts I can cut a .250 2x4 in under 30 sec with a mill quality finish. I love it, one of the best investments we ever made, far out performs the band saw cuts we use to outsource.
One thing I have learned about chop saws is to take my time making a cut the matters bacause the harder you push the blade through the more it flex's.
I had a chance to demo this ng120 at the NC Auto Fair this past weekend, I was very impressed to say the least. http://hemsaw.com/Femi/femi-NG120.htm
I use a Milwaukee Port-a-band for all tube cutting and fitting now. I do all my copes with it as well. I used a hot chop saw and its loud, and makes a fuggin mess. Port-a-band makes clean precise cuts, is quite, and the mess is confined to directly below the cut. Just lock the tube in the vice, make you marks with a sharpee and cut. Maybe use a flapdisc to bevel the edges for penetration.
Amen to that! I saw and used this saw at last year's SEMA show and was VERY impressed with the accuracy of the cuts. There is very little heat created during the cut, generally making it possible to touch the part being cut!!! The saw blades, therefore, last quite a bit longer. It was a little pricey, but man did I want one for my shop!!!
i have a jet swivel head band saw, works great wasn't as much as a cold saw. the cold saws are great but usually expensive. I have seen pics of the metal blade chop saws coming apart and looked pretty scary.
http://www.medfordtools.com/evolution/raptor.jpg We have one of these in the weld shop where I work. It works great and the blades are servicable. Just my 2 cents....
I bought one of these and never used the abrasive cut off saw again. Works great and cuts through mild steel tubing like nothing. Not so good on hardened stuff, or stainless. You need a special blade for that. Can't compare to a Scothman similar machines, but at about $400 it's a steal. http://www.milwaukeepowertoolsonline.com/Chop-CutOff-Saws/Milwaukee-Dyr-Cut-Chop-Saw-6190-20.html
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