We use 2" x .049 wall tube cut 4" and deburred. We also use three shorter lengths but in small quantities. I usually get 200' and send it out. For the short lengths, we cut the tube on a bandsaw then deburr each end, inner and outer, in a lathe.
Would it work if I slide 1' pieces onto a mandrel in the lathe and used a pizza cutter type wheel in the cross slide to part the tube? Kind of like a pipe cutter.
You could use your lathe as a pipe drive I suppose with a regular pipe cutter. A pipe drive is basically just a big lathe chuck with a couple stop posts to keep the tubing cutter from spinning instead of cutting. I made thousands of cuts with one when I was growing up and helping out in my dad's hardware store. I don't think the cutter wheel would work by itself, but no reason you couldn't use the whole tubing/pipe cutter. If your lathe will feed 2" pipe I'm sure there is room for the cutter.
Alternatively if you just wanted to play and get creative...
How about an eccentric drive power hacksaw with a guide mounted on your lathe? I use a hand powered hacksaw on the lathe sometimes.
How bout just a parting tool in the lathe? Should make really quick work AND give a nicer cut. Tubing cutters are a pita, imo.
Or, an abrasive wheel on a RAS/chop saw, using a stop. Quick too.
I'd use a dry cut saw with a stop. With care you wouldn't even have to tighten the vise although some sort of lever or wedge used as a quick clamp might be nice. Maybe 5 seconds per cut. Hardly any burr but maybe another 10 seconds per end against a wire wheel in a bench grinder to knock the sharp corners off. I can't believe that anyone would even consider using a lathe to make or deburr cuts like that. Kids these days.
Actually -- I don't think that the pipe cutter would work well with walls that thin. And if the mandrel is just barely a slip fit on the mandrel, I think that could work well -- even without gripping the tubing with the chuck. Use a wheel out of a pipe cutter, not a pizza cutter which is too large an OD and too thin.
The only problems that I see with this are:
1) The mandrel will probably get burred fairly quickly, unless you have the infeed stop just before the cutter wheel touches the mandrel. 2) The tubing might want to walk. Orient one end against a step in mandrel diameter, and use a live center supported pusher for the other end -- with the tailstock moved every time you take another bite off the length. This suggests that you may want to make a first cut on a batch of your 4" stock, and then shift the tailstock to make the next batch of cuts.Or -- add a threaded end to the mandrel, and a spin-on nut to lock it against the step.
If you do that -- turn a groove where the hacksaw blade will hit, using a parting tool. With the cutter wheel, you need the backing of the mandrel, but not with the hacksaw blade.
Good Luck, DoN.
Ok - why not buy a pipe cutter - take it apart and steal the cutter wheel from it. Then make a holder - pin the wheel and mount it on your cross slide. Then cut. It really spreads metal apart.
You could do about the same thing with a V pointed tool - or a square face cutoff tool. The trick is to cut slowly. Slow is relative.
One could put a tool post grinder with a saw in it - and saw off lengths, while having a mandril of hardwood.
Lots of ways for creative minds.
Having something within keeps it from flattening.
Mart> We use 2" x .049 wall tube cut 4" and deburred. We also use three
I form up some stainless steel woven cloth into a "beanie" shape using a mandrel in the chuck and a matching cup mounted on the tailstock.
I've used a cutting wheel from a pipe cutter and run that in from the side, it cuts nicely. Maybe if the thin tube was supported on such a mandrel it'd work ok.
Otherwise just hack em out with a chop saw... :)
You want to cut long pieces of tubing into 1 foot ones, then cut those up more on a lathe?
Do those pieces then get cut up again on some other machine?
Mount rollers like from a tubing cutter on a steady rest behind the cut and mount the cutter wheel from the pipe cutter in the toolpost and you have a power pipecutter. .045" should survive in the chuck with normal pipe-cutter feed. A levered tailstock with a large cone live center (or even better yet, a live "plug" to hold the cuttoff in position after the cut is finished) set up to stop the tube at the right position for the cutter to make the right size cutoff would semi-automate the length setting. Pop the lever back to release the cutoff, pop it back to position, move the pipe ahead in the chuck untill it seats on the cone, and fire it up for another cut.
bigger question - is it a big-assed lathe that you can feed the 2" pipe through the spindle? Would definitely simplify things if it is. In my last post I was ASSuming that was the case.
I wouldn't even bother with a vise. With any length of tube and a tube stand, just hold the tube by hand while you feed in the RAS with an abrasive wheel, or on the chop saw. The tube, with 049 wall, won't distort at all, with an abrasive wheel.
Mebbe just a cupla seconds with a deburring tool, some emory or scotchbrite.
I cut 1.25 solid round, 2" sq tube (1/8 wall) all the time on a RAS, just holding the stuff by hand.
Yeah, I don't understand all this lathe stuff either, unless it was a cnc with a barfeed.
I was thinking of a brass "anvil" for the cutting wheel. Your job tells me this might work.
I can "see" that!
The tubes come as 20 footers. Cutting it in the bandsaw is OK but slow and the deburring is a bitch because the tube ends have to be very well deburred because the tubes have to fit on a die, get one end swagged then parts get stacked on and the other end gets swagged. The finished product is a 4" wide x 8" to 10" dia. wire brush that fits on a weed-whacker type machine that uses two of these brushes. It's called a Power Broom.
Hmm, it's a Reed Prentice and I think two inch WILL fit! (here's the finished product:)
For the mandrel I've used an old bit of stainless I had lying around. I cut a small groove say 0.8mm wide x 0.5mm deep x on the mandrel where the cutting wheel runs in. The wheel effectively does not touch the manrell.
I also do a job where I cut 100mm diamter PVC tube into 50mm long pieces. I part these off using a bit of HSS. I have a turned wooden mandrel in the chuck that supports the parted off bit of the tube. I also have another wooden mandrel in the tailstock with an old bearing & bolt to support the other part of the tube when its "cut free".
To mount the cutting wheel I just have an off the shelf hex head shoulder screw that suits the ID of the cutting wheel.
Ok. It doesn't look like super high precision is required. Whack them with an abrasive chop saw, and get/make an inside and outside reamer to debur them. Seems like speed and overhead cost is the over riding factor here.
I've seen a whole strapped bundle of EMT being cut into short lengths on a chop saw.
jsw
A dry cut saw would be slick but my main concern with holding the tube is as the long piece gets shorter and lighter it needs to be held tight enough that it can't shift a little and rip teeth off the blade. A sleeve clamped in the vise maybe? The other thing I've found with using any kind of chop saw and using muscle to hold the material is that with lots of cuts and an old fart operator there's some risk of repetitive motion injury. A year ago I was using a miter saw on and off all day for about 3 weeks. I didn't realize how much muscle I was using to hold the material down. It gave me golfers elbow and it's still not fully healed. It made me more aware and I'd be especially careful If I was paying somebody to do a similar job. It was definitelyl painful and debilitating. I just grin and bear it but an employee could turn an injury like that into a string of doctors appointments or worse. Since we're only talking 200' at a time I guess it's not an issue here though.
I agree there'd be no need for clamping with an abrasive saw. But for clean thin walled material the dry cut is way nicer and faster. Hardly any sparks or burr or heat.
A wire wheel on a bench grinder is perfect for this job. I'd make a pin type holder for the short pieces.
Me too with abrasive. But it takes a bit more care with dry cut.
He seems determined to make it as difficult as possible. Jobs like his are typically set up in half an hour and carried out by the lowest guy in the shop. This discussion is another example of things taking longer to talk about than to do.
What are you calling "dry cut"? Carbide saw blade??
I'm assuming the OP's tube is steel, since 049 is not a std alum wall. If it WAS alum, I'd say 80 tooth 10" carbide blade.
Since it is apparently steel, I'd say abrasive. Unless dry cut is totally different.
They do make a steel cutting circular saw blade, which I've never used, just read about. They seem to work well, but iirc, they aren't cheap -- or at HD.
The only thing I'd use the lathe for is facing, and only if that level of finish/accuracy were req'd. Then, while on the lathe, I"d deburr it. But only if the lathe were necessary.
Have you noticed that we are being completely ignored by the OP?? LOL!!!!!
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