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Metal working tool saga
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Indigogyre
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Joined: 04 May 2006
Posts: 47

PostPosted: Sat Aug 09, 2008 3:26 pm    Post subject: Tool nervana! Reply with quote

It seems this was my week for power tools. Earlier this week I received a discount coupon for HD for 10% off everything for a single purchase. There were a few things I was eyeing but was holding off and decided this might be a good time. There is currently a liquidation discount sale at all HD's for them to get rid of various local stock.

Well, the items I wanted to get were not on clearance or liquidation which was a bummer. I managed to catch a sales associate and chatted with him for a few minutes. I mentioned that this morning the drill press that was on my list was no longer advertised or listed and was wondering if it was discontinued or going to no longer be sold. He was unsure checked the tag but the box was still coming up full price. I was a bit disappointed and asked about a discount on a beat up box. He said sure and offered to take 10% off which was as high as he could go without needing a manager. I said great, that's fine.

170 - 17 = 153 - 15.30 = $137.70 for a 12" Ryobi drill press with laser sights. Smile hehehe, have to love tools with "LASERS".

To round out the power tool collection I was able to pick up a disk/belt sander and a grinder which was also 10% off. So now it seems that my power tool collection is fairly complete and believe I have everything that is needed for a long time to come.

Just wanted to share my "fairy tool" saga since it hardly ever happens this way.

Dean
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fast_monte
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Joined: 17 Aug 2005
Posts: 40

PostPosted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 8:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hey Dean,

How about an update on how the saw is working out?
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Indigogyre
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Joined: 04 May 2006
Posts: 47

PostPosted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 7:31 pm    Post subject: New Saw Reply with quote

Monte,

I have not used it yet. It was an ordeal putting the saw together because someone had this great idea of doing it solo. For those unfamiliar with the saw the shipping weight is 137 pounds and 130 comes connected as one part. I put the stand together and nearly killed myself wrestling the saw onto the stand. I had expected it to go together in a slightly different way and had issues lining up everything and the legs kept bending out of position. I ended up with a nice fist shaped bruise on my inner forearm from wrestling with the saw for a long time before getting it into position.

My time for working on projects has been reduced significantly in recent weeks. My sons started football so it's practice 3 nights a week and games on the weekend. It's not leaving me much hobby time at the moment.

My sons game is early on saturday so I plan to spend some quality afternoon time checking out how the saw cuts. I'll take some images during the process to show everyone.

Dean
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Indigogyre
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Joined: 04 May 2006
Posts: 47

PostPosted: Sun Aug 24, 2008 9:02 am    Post subject: Review of new saw. Reply with quote

Fast_Monte made a recomendation to check out a horizontal bandsaw from Harbor Freight. Thanks for the suggestion Monte.

After being unhappy with the way my abrasive cutting for metal was working out I decided to go and return the cutoff saw and add some extra to get the saw.

The saw that was purchased.


The saw comes un assembled and needs to be put together. It basically comes in peices for the base and the whole top section completly assembled. It would be best to have some assisting in putting it together. It might be best if you had 2 others to help, this way two could hold the top unit and the 3rd could put the base on without any problems. It mentions getting help to assemble it

I took some time last night to work on using the new saw. I learned a valuable lesson and i'll get to that later. I adjusted the backrest to be 90 degrees from the blade and then made adjustments to the saw blade to cut some stock.

The first thing I cut was some 1x1 1/8 inch angle iron, the saw was awesome. It made the cut quickly and cleanly, much better then any other cutting method tried to date. Here is where my mistake came, instead of setting up another test cut on my 1.5" square tubing I was over excited and went strait to cutting the finished stock. I had rough cut some tube to be 52.5 and wanted to cut it to the finish length of 52. In order to get a perfect matching pair I clamped them together so I could cut them at the same time.

I decided to just square up one end and took a thin slice off the of it. The slice is somewhere between 1/16 and an 1/8 in thickness. It was not a strait cut so it is a wedge.



This turned out really well. It took a bit longer then I expected but it is tube instead of angle iton. Mistake number 2: I should have checked the ends for squareness at this time but did not. It seems that the adjustments made to the saw prior to making this cut interfered with the cut and had to de redone in mid cut and I was anxious to setup the saw properly.

After redoing the saw setup I make the finished length of the tubes and then set it into the saw. I put a stop watch on it this time and it took about 3 minutes and 40 seconds to complete the entire cut. I'm thinking this is a but long and I need to fine tune the tension a bit to get a good cut rate.

While waiting for the saw to cut my attention was focused on something else but I heard the pitch of the cut change and knew it was almost finished. I was on the opposite side of the blade so could not see what happened but it looked like the cut finished but the saw kept running. Well, there is a fine line of cut off material that can but discarded. The total amount seemed the right size to not drop off cleanly and wedge itself between the blade and the stock holder and jamed the saw blade.

This first image is the cut side from the abrasive cutoff wheel.


Here is the cut side from the bandsaw side. It's hard to tell from the image but it is a lot cleaner and smoother.


The first thing I did was check for the right length and it was as spot on as I could have wanted. The saw hit it's mark and stayed there as far as I could tell. The next thing I checked was for squareness of the cut. Oh no! It seems the fence was off a few degrees and noticeable over the 3" length of the clamped tubes. I'm going to square off the ends once the saw it set for a true cut and see how that impacts the overall length of the parts. On the plus side I picked the longest parts to work with and can use the tube to cut down into the smaller parts without loosing to much to waste.



Major lesson learned is to do more test cuts and validation of the cuts before moving onto finished stock. It will be easier to work with once everything is setup. The plus side is that I only ever plan to cut square on this so once the fence is set I'm good. Smile

Observations on using the saw:

It is very low and standard material stands are too tall to fit under the tubes for support. I will need to put something together to handle that function or at least raise the saw up. I plan to put the saw on it's own custom modile base to make moving it even easier. Perhaps that will address the height issue as well.

Overall I am very pleased with the saw and it will make things easier. Other then running a quick file over the ends there is no cleanup needed that I can see. I am using the stock blade at the moment and plan to upgrade for even better cuts.

Dean
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Indigogyre
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Joined: 04 May 2006
Posts: 47

PostPosted: Mon Sep 01, 2008 7:19 pm    Post subject: Bandsaw adjustments Reply with quote

Well, this has not been my most productive week but despite some earlier set backs some work was done. My plans for spending a lot of holiday time in the garage were thwarted by the evil munchkins. They always have last minute plans that take precedence.

This week started with my desire to align the saw to make some square cuts. The first mishap was when I tried to cut some tube to length which was just the right size to wedge between the blade and the cutoff stand and ended up binding the blade and bending it.

Replaced the blade with a better bi-metal metal cutting blade which was larger so I had to start adjusting for square once more. Almost had the blade square and decided to change something else which totally messed up everything done to that point, a good hour or so wasted.

Went back at it and managed to set the saw up for an almost spot on square cut for the horizontal. Now I find out that the vertical is not nearly as square so I need to clean up the cuts to at least make the cut square and plum.

Any advice on how to setup the saw for a square and plum cut and how to dial it in faster? I wasted some of my tube stock working on getting a square cut and would not like to repeat it as much.

I did however manager to cut all of my large tube to size and will work to square off the cuts.

Oh, I'm not too worried about the cut offs since they are what is going to be used so I can learn and practice welding.

Dean
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Stomper
Master


Joined: 01 Oct 2005
Posts: 473
Location: Woodburn, Oregon USA

PostPosted: Mon Sep 01, 2008 10:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

For those with limited space and no room for "floor mount" tools, a recipricating saw (aka Sawsall) with metal cutting blades works quite well too. You can get blades in legnths from 3" up to 14" in various tooth counts, and with a little practice you can make nice, CLEAN cuts.... oh yeah, you can also get woodcutting blades and cut wood too. DeWalt has a couple EXCELLENT (and affordable) cordless models to choose from. Wink
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Tony Krewson
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