Re: miraculous escapes

Yes narrow excapes leaves us with respect! your not supposed to put grinders in a vice, damage to the grinder if its not snug enough it will viberate loose, or too tight and crack the housing, the locking switch, is used for long extended periods of use, a finger can become very numb from holding the switch, allows for more hand manipulation in grinding. If you want to cut with it than you should make a cradel, and use it like a chop saw the vise should be use in conjuction to firmly hold the work piece, or buying a chop saw if it only need it once in a blue moon than rent one, i've learned to respect the equipment have be bitten a few times, the lastest thing this year for me was I was cutting a piece out of a rusty sand screw, so i was crouched down with my head tilted to the side my ear was slightly exposed, the rust I was heating up poped! a hot piece flew right into my ear hurt like hell, I am lucky that it can be reparied and only have a slight loss in the one ear, I can't get any water in my ear, an infection will result, the hole is cotterized from the burning so it will never heal, they have to take a piece off my scalp and cut the hole to remove the damaged tissue, A another guy had a molten ball drop into his ear drum and melted it out, he is deaf in that ear and suffers ear infections constantly, a moment of laspe and respect comes!

1. Position of the safety shield is designed to shield the operator when the tool is used for the purpose intended. When the grinder is mounted in the stand as shown in the photo, the safety shield is on the wrong side of the blade, leaving the operator exposed.
2. Direction of cutting blade rotation. For safety, cutting tools are designed so that sparks and particles are thrown away from the operator when the tool is used for the purpose intended. When the grinder is mounted in the stand as shown in the photo, the direction of cutting blade rotation may not be correct.
3. Diameter of cutting blade in relation to thickness of work being cut. Without getting into force vector math, tensile strength of cutting blade material, and the assumptions made in cutting tool design, for safety, the piece being cut should not be thicker than one half the radius of the cutting blade.

Cutting a 1" O.D. pipe with a 4" diameter cutting blade fitted on a grinder using a setup as shown in the photo would be the equivalent of embarking on an around-the-world trip without a spare tire -- you might be successful. However, before pushing the safe operating limits of the tool, you might first want to figure out how the velocity of a cutting blade shattered 12,000 r.p.m. compares to a speeding bullet.

Likewise, the thickness of 1" x 5/16" square tubing is 1". The thickness of 1" x 1" x 5/16" angle iron is also 1" -- the measurement is taken along the radius of the cutting blade (depth of cut). One inch is the _theoretical_ maximum depth of cut for a 4" diameter cutting wheel. You are pushing your luck if you insist on doing it in practise.

The grinder stand setup illustrated in the photo to make it into a mini chopsaw is intended for very light duty cutting by the hobbiest market, for example, cutting nails to make axles for model airplane wheels, or cutting small pieces of aluminum bar that will be machined on a mini lathe into a model airplane part, etc.

You might be using the wrong tool if the boat trailer you are building is not for a 1/10th scale model boat.

thank you for this interesting comparison between grinder and chopsaw.

think i better stick to the hacksaw for the thicker stuff till i get a real chopsaw.

Sam