@metaltechs - I’ve tried using the search function but safari keeps crashing. I’m curious as to why we don’t have a chop saw for the metal area, given how useful they are and also how equally dangerous other tools in the area are. I suppose there’s a historical reason? There was a blue saw at one point that had some blade issues.
Metal chop saw?
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The blue one was a cold saw that we had for 5+ years and it never worked very well and no one sorted it out, could it have worked, of course, but at some point we need to move on and make a change if it doesn’t work for us, so we finally gave up on tripping over it.
There’s clearly more than one way to cut metal. We currently have a horizontal bandsaw, angle grinders with cutoff blades and manual hacksaws.
What are you looking to cut and what kinda tool do you think are we missing?
IIRC from chats with @Gergo_Dala (hello!) and then @scythian, the blade on the blue saw needed sharpening for a long time; it was eventually sharpened but accidentally used before it was hardened so was left not readily usable again. There may be more to the story, but I wanted to identify if it’s something we purposely don’t have or something we could have and might find useful.
Interesting question. For cutting large and small stock, the big horizontal band saw is very useful, flexible and pretty accurate when set up carefully.
We have a sort of ‘chop saw’ thing that’s a grinder in a jig. I’ve not had it working. This might offer a currently available solution to a chop saw??
A chop saw would be really great. However, the current thought is a smaller vertical bandsaw might provide more functionality in that cuts curves, is generally more accurate than what we have and is speedy for sheet as well as chunk stuff. These smaller vertical bandsaws can be portable and/ or hand held.
I would always choose blade over grind cutting as there is no gritty dust, no metal vapour, they run much cooler and are safer imho.
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the grinder in a jig thing scares me
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What’s the story with the red Clarke mitre saw currently in the snug? That is a ‘high speed’ metal mitre saw (i.e. not like the slow cold saw we had). I know we have more than one way to cut metal but those mitre saws are super effective when set up correctly with the appropriate blades, and take seconds to cut through something like box section so I can see the appeal.
Project Farm does his thing to test the “best” metal saw blade for something like our mitre saw, maybe it could be inspiring considering we already have the tool? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7kX7pqaFmI
It’s Joe’s personal saw, not makerspace one, and I’d rather not see it used until at least we have a dedicated place for it and a separate risk assessment.
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The one with a label saying something like ‘finger snapper’? Can’t imagine why.
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Oh yeah sides that the other day. Felt pretty sketchy.
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