Re: [TCML] Machining Question - Techniques for Cut-Off Sawing

[FIFTYGUY@xxxxxxx]

Dan-
 
    Good comments from all so far.
 
    If I had to choose *just one* for production work,  in various materials 
(brass, aluminum, stainless, plastics, wood), I'd choose a  big vertical 
bandsaw with power feed. Some power feeds are just a pneumatic  cylinder with 
adjustable air pressure.You can cut curves and disks with it as  well. You can cut 
small pieces fairly easily, as big ones have T-Slot tables to  fixture work in 
(try to get one that uses the same T-Nuts as your new vertical  mill!). 
    Do-All is a well-known name. If it doesn't have a  blade welder on the 
side, it isn't a "real" bandsaw!
    If you're fabbing lots of structural steel, an  abrasive circular 
"chop-saw" is the quickest, crudest, loudest, dirtiest, most  dangerous way to do it. 
But so are O/A torches or plasma cutters, and you  can cut out curves and 
circles or parts still on the machine with them.  Automated ones will make paper 
dolls out of heavy steel plate all day long.  Lasers are pretty good, too.
    If you want to cut ceramics as well as *anything*  else, make friends 
with somebody with a water-jet machine.
    I've always had to go back and flycut, mill, plane,  broach, or surface 
grind a finished surface after I've saw cut it if there was  any concern for 
precision. 
 
-Phil LaBudde
 
Center for the Advanced Study of Ballistic  Improbabilities



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