Micro Lathe?

Die grinders are available in both electric and pneumatic powered versions, and 1/4 collets are the most common size.

Had you considered actually buying a crappy little benchtop lathe? It would be a lot safer, and your results would be more predictable.

Look on ebay for watchmaker's lathes. You'd want one that uses collets. I don't think the small Chinese benchtop lathes as from HF would work well with thinwall tubing.

You could lay the bench drill press on it' side and use wood blocks or similar to steady your hand, but you dont get to buy any tools that way.

Carl

What we use in the silversmith trade for cutting off jump rings, short tube sections and other smallsawing operations is a minature bench saw. I guess you could probably buy one but we generally make our own. this is based on a 1/4 horse induction motor running at 1440 rpm, screwed to a base board. On the 1/2in shaft we fit a threaded shaft extension. On this we mount a 2in dia by 15/1000 tho hss circular saw blade. 18 to 20tpi this runs through a table made up of in my case 1/8in thick brass sheet on 2 wooden supports screwed to the motor base plate. On the brass table ive mounted a piece of 1/2in angle to form a fence. this is adjustable from 20/1000 close to the saw up to 1in away. So for cutting tube I hold the tube with my rt hand and the piece thats going to be cut off with apair of tweesers. You need to control both parts to save the saw!! You must lube the saw , candle wax is the best. With this setup you can cut away all day. Its fast, accurate and cheap to make. I made mine sone 25yrs ago and use it still. Hope this helps.

There are small cut-off saws that are designed to do this kind of work.

Here's an example:

DOC

Norm Dresner wrote:

This one is $23.99

Screw a 2x12 to the end of your bench, extending up about 12". Bolt the DP base to that so the spindle is horizontal. Voila! Instant lathe

Dare I say this? But perhaps a drill press with a tiny little homemade compound on the table with a home made cut off tool would work. Such a compound could be made of hardwood, aluminum etc with a course thread bolt to push the cut off tool with.

Not enough side loading to worry about the chuck coming off, yet depth control is easy enough and could be easily measured using gage pins, or even a proper sized drill bit as a gage pin

In that size..the $49 HF 3/8 drill press would work, and one could simply clamp the cutoff tool to the table and simply swing the entire table by hand into the spinning tube. I believe they have a keeper collar below the table. Use a replaceable razerblade as a cut off blade using it backwards..just the point, not the sharp edge. Movement would be short so keeping it on center woulnt be much of an issue as the table swung that 1/16 of an inch for full cut off.

Gunner

Political Correctness

A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

Might work, Gunner. An issue I've had with parting off small thinwall tubing is that a 3-jaw chuck, Jacobs or otherwise, doesn't work as well as a small collet because it tends to crush the tube more than a collet does. If the cutting tool grabs even a little, gronk!

One way to address that might be to insert appropriately-sized bits of drillrod into the tubing to keep it from getting crushed. Then a small DP might work very nicely.

ebay search..Arrow Saw

Someone has a gazillion of them up at the moment for $25

Political Correctness

A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

True indeed.

Ayup.

Gunner

Political Correctness

A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

| >One way to address that might be to insert appropriately-sized bits | >of drillrod into the tubing to keep it from getting crushed. Then a | >small DP might work very nicely. | >

| Ayup. | | Gunner

For many years I've used both a wood dowel as the stiffener when chucking relatively large (for me, 1/4") tubing into a DP and using brass or aluminum tubing to protect wood dowel (usually < 3/16") when I chuck it up to shape in a makeshift wood lathe. Both techniques work very well to protect the workpiece.

Norm

| >Here's an example: | >

| >And of course you can take a look on ebay for something this style. | >

| >DOC | >

| This one is $23.99

Exactly how good are these miniature cut-off saws going to be trying to slice a, say, 1/16" slice from 3/16" thin-wall tubing.

I look at them and I wonder if, instead, I could use my 9" band saw instead. Even that seems to me like it's going to mangle tubing that small and relatively fragile.

Norm

I routinely make small brass washers out of tubing for ship modeling work. I hold the tube in a pin vice and cut off a slice with a jeweler's (hand) saw. I cut it a tad thick to compensate for the next step, which is to finish both sides by rubbing it on a hand sharpening stone down to the thickness I need ... 030 or 015 or 008... whatever. The entire time required to make a washer is less than the time it takes one to read this procedure. When you do a batch, it takes about 15 seconds per washer.

Boris

more cutoff saws.........

"Norm Dresner" wrote in news:hBQlh.614076$ snipped-for-privacy@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net:

Think about it: what kind of edge do you get now if you set your Dremel on a low speed

While I'd prefer a higher-speed wheel, an abrasive blade in one of these should easily do the job on thin-wall, especially if you take it easy.

If you have one of the cordless dremels and a cutoff/sanding [the thin kind] disk, try using this combo set on low speed - it won't be fast but it will be clean and straight if, that is, your hand doesn't shake... (mine might)

Hi Norm,

Probably beyond your price range, but the Grizzly Pen Turner lathe might work for you. See this for the catalog page with some accessories:

Just another idea...