Cutting K&S stainless steel tubing

[MK]

For those metallurgist out there and scratch builders like Max @mmagliaro, how would you go about cutting K&S stainless steel tubing?  Size is 1/4" ID.  The key is making a fairly square cut.  I'm sure a Dremel cutoff wheel would work but I don't think I can get it that square hand held.

I was thinking a pipe cutter but I don't know what kind of SS alloy K&S uses and if a pipe cutter has a hard enough cutting wheel.  Using a pipe cutter would give me a square enough cut.

I don't have any scraps to test it on as the length I have is "just enough" for my project.  This is for a non-MRR project but I figure somewhere here might have done this before.

[Maletrain]

I don't usually have any problem cutting stainless steal for boat projects with just a new hack saw blade.

I don't know how square you really need it, so I don't know if the following suggestion is good enough for your purposes. But, I have used a table saw to cut a nice flat surface on a piece of wood and then a drill press to drill a hole the size of the pipe OD in that wood, with the hole perpendicular to the flat surface.  I then put the pipe I want to cut into the hole and use the wood surface as a guide to cut by hand with the hacksaw.

Or, I go to a local metal working shop and ask them to cut it with a power tool that has a blade designed to cut SS.

However you get it cut, think about whether you need to leave a bit extra length so you can dress it with a hand file to get a nice surface on the cut.

I will be watching this thread for better ideas, though.

[wvgca]

A pipe cutter would slightly shrink the diameter  at the cut point, but a hacksaw wouldn't , but leave it sightly rough ..
It depends on what you want for a final finish ??

[CRL]

Take a piece of angle iron with a nice square cut end. Clamp it in a vice. Place the tube inside the V of the angle and use a hack saw with the blade riding against the end of the angle iron. If the cut isn’t to your liking, use a file against the end of the angle iron to dress the cut.

To cut a shorter piece than you can hold, slide a 1/4” hardwood dowel inside the short piece.

[MK]

Wow, that was fast!  Seems like the consensus is a hack saw.  I have an X-acto miter box so that's good enough.  Dressing the ends are not that critical.  Just getting rid of the burrs with light filing is good enough.

The tubing is going to be used as a sleeve over 8-32 threaded rods with screwed on ball ends.  Going to replace some linkages in my 1/10 scale RC rock crawler.

[mmagliaro]

I always use the Dremel/cut-off method.  If you don't get it square enough, a large flat DIAMOND file will clean up the end. (a regular file will be useless).  When I was cutting really small tubing, I made a jig by drilling a hole in a block of aluminum, and then cutting a slot in it to guide the Dremel disk.  Slip the tubing in the hole until it appears under the slot, and cut.

[ncbqguy]

An Atlas track saw or Zona Saw in a miter box works.
Charlie Vlk

[robert3985]

I cut thin tubing on my lathe using an abrasive cut-off wheel in my cordless Dremel.

If I didn't have a lathe, I would cut a short piece of the tubing off with the abrasive cut-off wheel (don't worry too much about getting the end square), and chuck it into a drill motor...figure out a way to clamp the drill motor to your workbench...or, if you have something akin to a Black & Decker Workmate, which is like a small workbench with a top that splits and is able to clamp lumber or other objects, clamp the drill motor in that.  If the tubing has really thin walls, see if you can find a drill bit that fits inside the tubing exactly...or a piece of brass rod that you can cut off to about 1/2" long to keep it from collapsing.

Some drill motors have a trigger lock to keep it running without having to continually pull the trigger, but if yours doesn't, pull the trigger and let the drill motor run at about half speed with one hand, and brace your other hand on your workbench or Workmate, and lightly touch the spinning tube where you want to cut it with your Dremel at the highest speed your cut-off wheel allows, abrading it slowly until it parts.  Make it at leas half an inch longer than you need, to be able to chuck it into your clamped drill motor for your final cut. 

Take the cut off piece of tubing and mark where you want your next cut to be...to your required length...chuck it in your clamped-down drill mother and repeat the above process.

It'll help if you brace your Dremel with both hands to get a good cut, and expect the piece to not come off all at once, with a steel burr still holding the piece onto the rest of the tube.  Usually you can break this off by flexing it several times until it breaks off, then clean it up with files and emery paper.

Sounds complicated, but it will make getting a square end a lot easier than just cutting it off while it's stationary.

If you've got a drill press, use that.  It'll make this process a lot easier.


Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

[peteski]

I was going to suggest something similar to what Bob mentioned, but if I cut or grind or cut material where both, the material and the cutting tool are spinning, I like to run the material in the opposite direction then the cutting tool. So if the cordless drill has is bi-directional (most are), set it to run in reverse.  The way the material will be feed into the cutting edge, not just running in the same direction.  Yes, either way work (because the materiel being cut rotates much slower than the cutting tool, but having the material rotating in reverse speeds things up).

[Maletrain]

If you are going to cut the tube while it is rotating in a drill arbor, realize that you will need to move the saw blade back and forth a little, like you are swing a stationary tube, or the saw blade teeth will fill and it will stop cutting.

But, it is hard to do that without getting the face of the cut out-of-perpendicular to the tube axis unless you use something to control the angle of the saw blade.   I use a flat block to hold the saw blade perpendicular, clamping the block to keep it from slipping.

how you choose to do it really depends on which of the dimensions of the finished tube are critical.

P.S., I like CRL's technique using a steel angle iron "with a nice, square-cut end" if you have one with a nice, square-cut end.  But, if you have to make one of those, too, then you would be solving 2 problems instead of one.

[CRL]

I totally forgot about my little aluminum mitre box & razor saw.  That would probably work too.

[MK]

Bob, interesting idea and certainly I can see it working.  Looks like I have a few suggestions! 

[woodone]

The drill and dremel will work. If you don’t have one or the other a fine tooth hack saw will work-if you insert a 1/4 inch piece of dowel into the tube first. That will keep you from crushing the tube. Once you start cutting-don’t let the saw slide back and forth without cutting. That will work harden the stainless tubing. Once you work harden stainless it is very difficult to cut or machine.

[MK]

I have a drill press and Dremel.

[narrowminded]

In my previous life we did a fair amount of instrument piping with SS cut with a regular tubing cutter.  If the end needs to be opened up a suitable drift tapped into the end should do the trick.