Metal cutting saw

[williamwright]

Yes, they shatter very easily.

Bill

[Animal]

Dremels are a good option if too big for bolt cutters, but with one issue. Grit cutoff wheels are extremely fragile. You can also get diamond, but you want grit for steel.

[Animal]

Flip the saw upside down, it has its own flat surface I hate jigsaws, but if it's all you've got it can be done, albeit painfully.

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

I got rid of the junior that had the plastic ends to hold the blade, useless, the older ones with the groove in the metal itself are better. Otherwise traditional normal adjustable hacksaws with a scew to tighten the blades seems to be about the best, but bigger of course, and apparently not cheap these days. Brian

[nothanks]

The only PPE needed is a pair of safety specs -very cheap from all the usual places

[The Natural Philosopher]

Ive never made any impression on silver steel at all except with a grinder of some sort

[The Natural Philosopher]

Or even a 'covid' plastic mask.

Gloves are a good ideas but not essential

[RobH]

I have a full sized hacksaw, since I was working in the steel industry, and use sandvik blades with it. It does most home jobs for me now and the blades are fairly good quality as well.

[John Rumm]

If working inside, a mask is good as well - a grinder on steel creates lots of very fine metal and abrasive dust in the air.

[newshound]

I remember acquiring some junior hacksaw blades as part of a package. They turned out to have been made from mild steel. Even the cheapest carbon steel blade should cut through many 15mm copper pipes. A proper eclipse blade should cut a couple of dozen half inch steel bolts with no trouble.

You need a bit of tension on the blade, and there is a certain amount of technique too.

A full sized hacksaw will be better if you have room to use it. If you are cutting many copper pipes then a proper pipe cutter will be easier. The "ring" type fit in quite a small space.

If you are tight on space a Dremel can be useful. There are two sorts of metal cutting disks: smaller, thinner unreinforced ones which are brittle. These cut quicker but don't bend. The larger fibre reinforced ones are slower (because they have to remove more metal) but much more robust.

In very tight spaces, multi-tools are the thing. Just make sure you don't use a wood blade.

[Harry Bloomfield Esq]

williamwright has brought this to us :

I reserve those for cutting in ideal conditions, where blade control is easier.

[alan_m]

Ive thrown away my bent metal junior hacksaws after purchasing a few with a cast frame and a tensioning screw for the blade. They are slightly bigger than the bent frame type.

The main problem seems to be the quality of blades on sale. They often seem to made of some poor quality cheese despite being sold with "well known" brand names.

I've found that most copper pipes can be cut in situ with this this type of cutter

if one has to resort to water pliers to grip and turn it.

[alan_m]

One other thing I have found with junior hacksaw blades is the different size of pin at either end of the blade that fits into the saw frame. There doesn't seem to be a standard and while some blades will fit the saw with other blades the pin is too large and will not fit into the slot in the frame.

[Chris J Dixon]

Back in my working days at Bombardier, I was overseeing laying out the 25 kV cable route from roof to underframe for the Class

357 EMUs. This was all done on a CAD system which was surprisingly slow at 3D manipulation (we are talking about 23 years ago). When we came to do the trial fit, the real cable behaved somewhat differently, and fouled the brackets that had been laid out.

The shop floor was an "assembly only" area, to the extent that metalworking tools were not permitted, so in order to sort the problem I used the junior hacksaw from my car boot to rip out the offending structure, so we could measure up for the revised design. It was hard going, but the mild steel eventually yielded.

Chris

[Theo]

Thanks all. I think I shall invest in a Bahco 12" hacksaw and 32tpi blades (since there doesn't seem to be a massive choice at the quality end), and maybe see if I can dig out the 6" version with screw adjustment for the smaller jobs.

A dremel/mini-grinder would probably come in handy too, but some way down the power tool shopping list...

Theo

[williamwright]

Oh get it bought!

Bill

[newshound]

And cordless for convenience. Under £20 in Aldi-Lidl when they have them.

[Dave W]

My bent-metal junior hacksaw works perfectly fine - it puts good tension on the blade. You need a better one - or perhaps it could be bent to give more tension?

[Tim Lamb]

In message [e-mail], Dave W [e-mail]> writes

Mine also work fine. Probably 4 sets scattered around various handy locations. Adjustable blade tension is a benefit but performance depends mostly on blade quality. Never going to cut hardened steel!

Aside.. On holiday in Felixtowe aged eight, I was gifted one of these. Sadly, I could not wait to get back home to try out my new saw:-) More than 70 years ago!