Cropping steel

Oredr the lengths you want it in from the suppliers, they'll have a guillotine thingy.

Ask your steel supplier. For those sort of quantities I would expect they would cut them for you and the finish usually would need little clean up. You will have to do the hole but setting up a few stops on a pillar drill will make short work of those.

hth Bob

I would use an automatic hacksaw or a horizontal bandsaw. However, if you don't already have one, it would be a lot cheaper to pay a cutting fee to your steel stockist and buy 120 pieces 200mm long.

Colin Bignell

If you want a neat job at not too high a cost with little work consider getting them water jet cut. Not vastly expensive, and no limit on shape.

For that quantity, I would just get a steel stockist to provide them precut in the length you need. Trivial for them to do.

A cut off saw or AG in a stand will do it, but will leave a bit of cleaning up required on each cut. You are also taking out more metal due to the width of the kerf.

A hacksaw blade in a reciprocating saw would also be a viable option, but even then you may spend a couple of hours in total doing the cutting.

the place I would buy such would also cut it to size.

It is as you surtmise teh biob for a proper metal shearing tool.

No, they are just for show. Don't even think about it. :-)

shearing or sawing if you must are the ways sheet metal is shaped: save grinding for finishing really hard high carbon steels.

I think there would be a bit of flexing in 5 mm strip 200 mm long. What's its loading like and does a bit of flexing matter?

Its normal to use thinner square section tube as it doesn't flex much.

Angle grinder stands I've played with have a very unrobust hold on the grinder, I wouldnt trust them at all, and certainly wouldnt do over

NT

If you know what you want, speak to you local steel stockholder, as they all offer a "cut to length" service, though it may only be available for larger orders. For something as simple as you say you want, it may even be worth having a chat with a local engineering firm, depending on how much you value your time. It's the kind of job they used to let the apprentices do for tea money.