I bought one of the miniature cut-off saws with a 2" diameter blade at least three years ago. I unpacked it eagerly and noticed the incredibly sloppy and ungainly holding mechanism. I also noticed this little beasty was probably the most dangerous tool I ever bought. I could just see me reaching in to retrieve a part before the blade had stopped, and slicing off a top knuckle. I was more afraid of this little beasty than I was of my monster 10-inch grinder, the machine that would sand a 100x-varnished picnic table down to bare wood in a few seconds, bolt heads included.
A few weeks ago I had a job that demanded I finally use the little beasty. I needed to build an exhaust pipe for one of my ships that had a 30 degree bend. So set the sloppy guide at 15 degrees, then back to 0 degrees. It worked like a charm. The little blade zinged through the brass tubing, leaving no sharp flash to clean up.
I cut a whole lot of bent exhaust pipes, since I had the tool working and brass tubing on hand. One swipe with a 320-grit sandpaper stick, and the surfaces superglued themselves together as if connected by suction.
Last night, I had to make four stovepipe ventilators. I had the perfect 4mm tubing, which needed to be 5mm high. I'd realized that I could overcome that ungainly holder by marking the tubing at 5mm intervals, and just sacrificing the first cut by whatever the blade offset was. What I didn't have was my safety glasses, which were at the main house across the way for a taxing grout removal job.
OK, if I leaned far to the left, and closed my eyes after setting each cut, nothing bad could happen, right?
Actually, right. I made the first sacrificial cut, and watched as the cut-off piece flew out to the right. With my eyes mostly closed, I relied on my hearing. I heard ga-zing--fop--bing! The ga-zing was the cutting and ejection to the right. The fop was the piece, which was fairly sizable for N scale, hitting the curtain a few feet to the right. The bing was the piece dropping from the curtain onto a metal heating register on the carpeted floor.
I retrieved the first piece. Man, that was a nice cut! Let's make a dozen.
So I cut eleven more, keeping my head far to the left, eyes nearly closed, listening to the ga-zing-fop-bing each time. This was so much better than laboring with a razor saw in a miter box!
Ga-zing-fop-bing! Music to my ears. I could do this blindfolded--well, not really, as that screwy mechanism needed alignment for each cut. But otherwise blindfolded, with my eyes at no risk.
Now I had enough ventilators for six ships. All I had to do was pick them up off the floor. . .
Remember that nice little bing at the end of ga-zing-fop-bing? The bing was the brass part falling on the metal of a heating register, which, I now noticed, obviously has openings for the hot air to escape upwards. Or miniature ventilator shafts to dive into.
Seven of my N scale ventilator shafts now reside somewhere deep inside the real world ventilator shafts of my house.
