A friend in a bike shop would like a tool that can cut stainless steel mudguard stays in one hit.
Mudguards stays are around 3-4 mm.
So - the requirment is to cut 4 mm stainless steel in one bite, ideally one handed.
I guess he wants either a BIG pair of wire cutters, or a small pair of bolt croppers.
At the moment he uses a juniou hacksaw to... saw, which is slow.
I would welcome advice and recommendations, either general, or specific.
Both he and I are in the UK.
BugBear
RS components sell a wire cutter that will do this.
John
Thank you. I was tempted by Straight jaw compact bolt cutter,9in L RS Stock no. 539-069
which look very nice, but (despite the size and leverage), it says "Suitable for cutting soft steel" unless the littl'uns, which will manage all manner of nasty hard materials.
BugBear
I meant "unlike" of course. damn these fingers!
BugBear
OK for a few occasionally, but you could end up with serious wrist/tendon strain if you want to do a lot. We use crimping tools a lot and have that sort of problem, just a different tool.
One of the little bench shears we use has a hole for shearing bar up to 6mm, and its big daddy which we have at home can shear up to 1/2".
Blade life might be a consideration on stainless as well.
Peter
-- Peter A Forbes Prepair Ltd, Luton, UK snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk
How about an angle grinder in a stand (Lidl had the stand for =A34.95 last week)?
Makes a useful chop-saw.
I bought the stand and the only thing I had to do was to turn up a new pivot because the original pin was undersized so it twisted a bit. Now it is fine and probably would work for you.
Tony
Thanks to all for the suggestions; just to expand the detail on the requirments, the mudguards are fitted to the bike while it's hanging in the air (from hooks).
Only once the mudguards are fitted is the correct length of the (now fitted) stays known. So the stays are cut "in situ" on a bicycle.
This (of course) precludes some of the bench mounted proposals.
The wrist injury point is well made, but fortunately, only 1-2 bikes per day are being done.
BugBear
Bolt cutters can be found on market stalls for peanuts, they won't last forever with stainless but at those prices who cares!.
Greg
I'd look for something like the cissors used for cutting brake cables. There should be bigger ones. They cut very good, the part can't snapp out and they make little burr.
Nick
I have a racketing cutter, designed I think for armoured cable cutting on sight. it has the name BAUDAT on it. it could well be what your friend wants...
If you wanted to borrow my cutter for a test I'm near Guildford.
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