/diy/ - Do It Yourself

[Anonymous No.1750664]

Looking for a chop saw on a budget for occasional use
I borrowed one from a friend and it made welding tubing a lot faster and easier because the cuts are precise compared to doing it with an angle grinder, so I think it's worth getting one
How are the ones in the 100-150$ range? If I were a professional I'd buy a nice dry cut saw but I'm not and I don't want to spend too much money

[Anonymous No.1750678]

>>1750664
If you're on a tight budget you can just get a compound mitre saw off craigslist or facebook marketplace and replace the wood blade with an abrasive blade. The downside is that the guarding isn't made for handling the sparks so they're going to get build-up, gouging, or melting as you use it.
Actual chop saws won't have that issue, but will be harder to find used and will cost more.

[Anonymous No.1750684]

Harbor freight makes budget chop saws that will meet your needs. Wait for the saw to go on sale or for a 20% off coupon.

[Anonymous No.1750697]

>>1750664
Spend the extra bucks on an actual cold cut saw if you plan on using it a bunch. Abrasive saws suck ass for regular use

[Anonymous No.1750707]

>>1750697
I can't find them where I live for the prices you have in america, there are pretty good ones but they are over 600 euro

[Anonymous No.1750715]

>>1750684
Any word on their band saw?
Picked up their chop saw at a yard sale and it finally shit the bed

[Anonymous No.1750724]

find another 50 bucks and get the 200 dollar dewalt.

or way better yet find another 400 and get the dry saw. you just cant even understand how much better it is until you use one.

yes you can put the dry cut blade on a abrasive saw. the RPM are not correct but I know so many people who do it, myself included in the past, and nobody has been killed yet.

with the proper saw however the blades last much longer.

[Anonymous No.1750726]

>>1750715
I own the portable band saw. Like everything else HF it needs to be adjusted before it will work well, after than it runs fine as long as you don't abuse it.

[Anonymous No.1750728]

Bandsaw is where its at...

How much metal working do you do? A shit ton or just occasionally? If you're doing a shit ton do yourself a favor and get a swiveling head bandsaw.

If just occasional I'd get yourself a 4x6 bandsaw in whatever local flavor you have and then go through it adjusting it so that it cuts nice and square.

Miles better than an abrasive saw or dry cut saw.

The only thing an abrasive saw can do better is cut hardened steel. But you can always still use your angle grinder and a cut-off blade for that.

[Anonymous No.1750737]

>>1750707
>euro
look at Holzmann they are an austrian importer of chinese tools with a great quality/price ratio
depending on the size you need you can get one for 140-275€
https://www.idealo.de/preisvergleich/OffersOfProduct/4478983_-mks-180-holzmann.html
https://www.idealo.de/preisvergleich/OffersOfProduct/2036772_-mks-355-holzmann.html

[Anonymous No.1750753]

Bandsaws are the best, but the small, cheap ones will need some work and getting used to. Long-term, bandsaw blades last a lot longer and cost a lot less than metal circ saw blades, unless they keep breaking on you due to tensioning and feed/speed issues. But they're both way cheaper to run, even including the blade breaking bandsaw, than abrasive chop saws.
They also don't completely cover your workplace in fine dust. Bandsaws are the cleanest to run, metal circ saws throw hot chips everywhere, but they're big, so it's not particularly hard to clean up afterwards.
Metal circ saws are also faster than bandsaws and abrasive chop saws, but metal circ saws don't do well in thick material, it wears the blade out much more quickly. The bandsaw doesn't care (but may take hours), the chop saw will probably need blade replacement several times in a big chunk.
The cheap bandsaws will probably produce the most accurate cuts out of all the cheap products, but a good quality, expensive metal circ saw will probably be just as good. The cheapo ones will not be as good.

[Anonymous No.1750760]

>>1750753
Another problem I've seen in abrasive circ saws is that if you are cutting thick pieces the cutting edge of the disk will melt and it won't be able to cut at all. It happened to a friend of mine who instead of stopping kept on pushing on the saw, cutting 50mm round stock, until he fried the motor

[Anonymous No.1750763]

fuck all you guys that have suggested band saw, band saws sucks ass.

[Anonymous No.1750765]

My friend heres some advice that's served me well
>you can get a good 2nd hand tool for the price of a new shit one
Also I have an abrasive and a cold cut. They each have their advantages. I got my 2nd makita 14" abrasive for about 120 euro.

[Anonymous No.1750768]

>>1750760

If you glaze over the edge of the blade you either need to sharply chop down with it to break past the glaze or hit the edge of the wheel with a grinding wheel dresser.

>>1750763
KYS.

[Anonymous No.1750772]

>>1750765
Yeah but it's a gamble. Unfortunately I live in the Balkans and most of the used stuff we have here has been used and abused over and over. I guess in first world countries people can afford to throw away perfectly good stuff but not here, and the gypsies that manage to steal the good stuff abroad and bring it here sell it for a high price, and even then sometimes it happens to be faulty

[Anonymous No.1750807]

>>1750768
Oh you want me to kill my self? No prob just give a band saw. It will only take a million times longer than it needs to with a chop saw. And the severed head will have a ragged cut.

[Anonymous No.1750808]

>>1750684
I got one of those, damn thing always cuts at an angle, the blade bends to one side. it can't seem to cut 1/4 steel it gets hot then just does nothing.

[Anonymous No.1750811]

>>1750768
Make sure it's a harbor freight band saw. Only the best! Fucking faggot tard.

[Anonymous No.1750830]

>>1750807

Haha... what a faggot... My bandsaw will out-cut a chop saw easily. Get the right tooth blade and the proper down pressure noob. And the cuts are precision, smooth, and cool to the touch when I pull them off the saw. Try that with your fucking chop saw.

[Anonymous No.1750837]

The Metabo CS 23-355 seems a pretty popular saw here, it's a little above 200 euro, would it be a good choice? It seems kind of cheap for a Metabo tool

[Anonymous No.1750894]

>>1750830
U could suck 10 dicks to my one while I cut shit with my choppy.

[Anonymous No.1750899]

>>1750830
If by proper down pressure you mean "an arbitrary amount of pressure that has always seemed to work" but you don't realize how to read a TPI manual so you feed rate (yes it's called feed rate) to SFM rate is off

Your an ass hat.

[Anonymous No.1750905]

>>1750830
What's your feeling on interrupted cuts?

[Anonymous No.1750907]

>>1750830
Ever make a jig for proper stacking geometry? Oh didn't think so.

[Anonymous No.1750955]

>>1750664
>precise compared to doing it with an angle grinder

Just get one of pic relateds. Problem solved.
Continue econo-buying grinder disc wheels instead of expensive (and sometimes proprietary) blades.

Or, are you really in need 12" of cutting width?
Do you really want to stock extra blades and change them?
Do you really want to lug around another motor and chassis unnecessarily?

[Anonymous No.1750965]

>>1750808
Mine will rip through just about anything, but does require tweaking to cut accurately. I generally check all angles using a square before each cut and adjust as needed. The vice is a POS so I use wood blocks to steady the metal in the vice.

[Anonymous No.1751003]

>>1750807
>>1750811
>>1750894
>>1750907

Did a bandsaw chop your dick off and hurt your feelings?

Why are you so against the idea that bandsaws are better than abrasive saws? Abrasive saws are old shit tier technology. The only thing they excel at is cutting hardened steel. Dry cut saws are better than abrasive saws, but IMHO still not as good as a good band saw with a good blade. The dry cut blades are fucking expensive too, and wear out way faster than they should.

Cold cut saws look pretty kick ass, but honestly I've never run one. I don't need to, cause my swivel head bandsaw will do anything I need it to and then some. I don't run a fucking production shop, but I guaran-fuckin-tee I've cut up more steel than 96% of the people on the planet.

[Anonymous No.1751032]

>>1751003
>I've cut up more steel than 96% of the people on the planet.

I thought about that statistic, but I think it's closer to 99.9999%. Only 96% is not impressive.

[Anonymous No.1751038]

>>1751032

I originally typed 99% and yeah that's probably more like it. But I didn't want come off as a bragger or anything. Lol. Kinda makes you wonder the actual percentages of people that do any kind of real metalworking are worldwide.

[Anonymous No.1751066]

>>1750715
>Any word on their band saw?

I recently got one of the 4x6 horizontal saws, and it's about what I expected. You can't really fuck up a bandsaw. It's too simple a machine. The blade is the only thing that actually needs to be made well. The stock blade was dull to the point of not actually cutting at all after 3 cuts though some bed frame scraps. The bimetal one I picked up along with it seems to be holding up fine. I recommend stalking eBay for a while for some cheap coils of blade stock and learning to braze your own together. Or, if you have a shop nearby that does blades, that's usually way cheaper than buying ready-made blades, though not quite as cheap as doing it yourself.


There's a few things that I don't like about it, though. No chip pan means I have to make my own to add a coolant system. The table that you can attach to use it as a vertical bandsaw is kind of crap, but at least it works. Already mentioned the stock blade being worthless. The bolt that tensions the drive belt is in the stupidest possible spot, since you cant really get at the jam nut and keep the screw from turning at the same time. The wheels seem to be horribly off-center, visually, yet the blade doesn't wobble. Still need to investigate what's up with that. The counterbalance spring falls off every time you lift the saw up, so you need to bend the end in a vice to close it up around the eye bolt it goes through. A lot of people complain about the stand, but I can't see much wrong with it. Yeah, it's cheap, light-gauge stamped steel, but it's solid enough. I read complaints that the guide bearings are out of whack, but mine were adjusted fine from the factory. Suspect I may have just gotten lucky there. There are some small blade guards between the guides and frame that have to be removed every time you change the blade, which is annoying. They don't really do shit anyway so I just took them off permanently. No hydraulic feed, but what do you expect for $250.

[Anonymous No.1751111]

>>1750837
>It seems kind of cheap for a Metabo tool
it isn't a metabo tool just their name slapped on a chinese import
not saying it will be bad but don't pay extra for the metabo version when others might sell the same saw for less

[Anonymous No.1751133]

>>1750772
Worth a look anyway mate. I got a husky chainsaw off a guy, he had done about 2 hours work with it. I got it for 200, he bought it for 560. I love rich idiots.

[Anonymous No.1751141]

>>1751003
no a band saw didnt chop my dick off, but what it did do is ruin about 10 grand worth of material once, I was able to repair that problem by re squaring the ends and maybe all the long short and shorts shorter and so on, I had to buy new material for the longest ones. I did that with a chop saw, It was loud and dusty and I went through a lot of disks, but It was faster and more accurate than the band saw was in the first place. the burr was removed at paint prep blasting

It was a scotchman full horizontal. I sold it for 15 grand after that job and have since replaced it with 7 dry saws.

thats the tits

[Anonymous No.1751149]

>>1750808
Yes, I had that problem too now that you mention it.
You have to be very gentle and not push whatsoever, let the saw do the work.
And lining up angles sucks too

[Anonymous No.1751222]

>>1751141

So because you didn't take the time and care to set up the saw properly and check the cut accuracy before running 10K worth of material through it you blame it for "ruining" your material?

Makes sense to me...

You never once thought, "Hey maybe I should at least throw a square on this cut and see how accurate it is" before proceeding to cut an entire stack of material?

And now you shill dry cut saws as superior. If you said it was replaced by a swiveling cold cut saw I might give you some benefit of the doubt.

Dry cut saws are noisy, throw hot chips every-fucking-where, and you damn well better make sure whatever you're cutting is clamped down real good. If what you're cutting is really thin walled you gotta watch how fast you feed or else you'll catch an edge and chip a tooth/bend the steel. With real thick stuff you gotta stand there babying the fucking thing.

With the swiveling head bandsaw I can cut scary accurate miters, and change angles in mere seconds. With thin stuff I can either slow my feed rate down, or if I am cutting a shit load of it I can put a finer tooth blade on. With thick stuff like solid 6" shaft I can set my cut up, set the feed rate, turn the coolant on and walk away to do something else besides sit there like a chump holding its hand...

[Anonymous No.1751267]

>>1751222
trips of truth

[Anonymous No.1751316]

>>1751222
what is that like 150 pieces, I could have that cut in 45 minutes with a dry saw. I bet that took you all day. with a chop saw maybee double but still when you sell by the job it payes to be fast and square.

I see you are stuck in the iron age

yes my saw was square, it did not hold square. I set it and checked it. it went out of square. maybe it was a shitty saw ( it most certainly was not) ut the fact remains I came to the conclusion that I can make a higher quality cut quicker with an abrasive. noise, dust, time spent changning blades, non of that matter. production. that is numero uno. If I can do something better faster and cheaper. I do not care if its louder.

judging by your shop that is the largest order youve ever got.

chop saws and dry saws, are way better than a fucking slow ass cant client why its not done yet band saw

[Anonymous No.1751317]

and now your talking about cold saws. like hey mother fucker that a whole different ball came, nobodys slamming stock with one of those. thats a god damn milling machine replacement, yes you could cut stock with it, I could also cut stock with a brick of gold.

[Anonymous No.1751343]

>>1751316
>>1751317
>everything but abrasive chop saws sucks because I'm retarded
Well ok.

[Anonymous No.1751345]

I think I'm just gonna get the cheapest shittiest chop saw for 70 euro and see what happens

[Anonymous No.1751357]

>>1751343
I like dry saws you illiterate fuck wad.

the fact is I replaced a 20,000 dollar band saw with a 1,500 abrasive saw. which while it worked very well, I was able to replace with a 700 dry saw.

band saws work and so does a telegraph but we aren't arguing over via a telegraph are we, because the sound quality is dick and its too fucking slow.

what other ancient technology are you using in your shop? still using tapes instead of lasers?

just admit it, you realize Im correct.

[Anonymous No.1751358]

hell yeah OP go for the chop saw, it is going to work excellently.

[Anonymous No.1751421]

>>1751357
Honestly that stack of angle probably took me only 30 minutes in the bandsaw. 4 at a time and that was only cause I was too fucking lazy to split the full sticks and run 8 at a time....

The simple fact that you couldn't get a bandsaw to make a repeatable cut tells me that you don't have the brain power required to even give an opinion on the matter. They've been around forever and everyone except for your dumb-ass has had success with them.

I already said I'm not a production shop. I do my own thing and work on my own projects. OP is looking for advise on something to cut metal accurately within a $100-150 budget, so I gave my opinion. He doesn't need something fast throwing hot chips and sparks all over his car in his garage...

Really? No one uses a cold saw to cut metal with? I disagree, there's lots of metal supplier places that will cut stock to length with a cold saw. The blades turn so slowly and run in coolant so they practically never wear out and are amazing for thick solid stock.

A cold saw is a milling machine replacement now? Jesus fuck, what kind of shit are you smoking man?

"Yeah I need to single point bore some bearing pockets in the end of this cylinder ram... You got a milling machine?" "Nah, but I got this here cold cut saw... basically the same thing."

>>1751357
>Still using tapes instead of lasers

Why didn't your laser tell you that your saw was out of square dumbfuck? KEK!

Fact of the matter is I too have a dry cut saw. And it just sits there and doesn't get used because the bandsaw is fully superior in every possible way.

[Anonymous No.1751441]

>>1751421
you and I both know that not only are you not telling the truth about the amount of time it took you to cut that stack but that you also have a cut variance due to stacking.

.5 degrees or more is intolerable

I will berate the rest of your stupidity later when Im not busy, fitting pipe.

[Anonymous No.1751449]

post machine length bucking

thats how its a replacement, saves one entire mill or lathe step

fucking ass hat

more to come!

[Anonymous No.1751450]

>>1751441
>you and I both know that not only are you not telling the truth about the amount of time it took you to cut that stack but that you also have a cut variance due to stacking.

Believe what you want to.

>.5 degrees or more is intolerable

Making blanket statements like this makes you look like even more of a mouth-breathing retard. .5 degrees over 8 inches is akin to 1/16th of an inch .5 degrees over a 1/2" is four thousandths of an inch, or practically nothing. Every project has standards for cuts. If you're building something for Nasa, then the standards will be tighter. If you're building pipe gates for farmers then within 1/4" is fine.


>I will berate the rest of your stupidity later when Im not busy, fitting black pipe in my anus.

Please do.

[Anonymous No.1751453]

>>1751449

Oh so now it's not a milling machine replacement, but only replaces one squaring step on a mill... Basically the same thing though right?

[Anonymous No.1751465]

>>1751441
I have a pure garbage $250 bandsaw and even that produces cuts within 0.5 degrees, and you couldn't do it on a $15k machine.

[Anonymous No.1751474]

>>1751449
>No a bandsaw didn't chop my dick off

>Comes back with a story about how a bandsaw dilated his asshole out to the size of a football...

My fucking sides!

[Anonymous No.1751486]

>>1751441
Ahh. No wonder you're so dumb. Union faggot.

[Anonymous No.1751494]

where do you think most titanium goes?

[Anonymous No.1751496]

you did the trig, lets see the math, I bet you cant.

but those dewalt saws, those dry cut saws. they are fucking record breaking

[Anonymous No.1751499]

>>1751486
yeah faggots make 45 bucks an hour, enjoy your any wheere else, and Im sure youll come back with something higher cuz thats you do

[Anonymous No.1751501]

>>1751474
picture of a frog like a frenchy faggot

[Anonymous No.1751504]

https://www.amazon.com/DEWALT-DW872-14-Inch-Multi-Cutter-Saw/dp/B0000302QS/ref=asc_df_B0000302QS/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=309763890402&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=4538778633196793326&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9025195&hvtargid=pla-449047652620&psc=1

this shit right here makes a band saw look like a pile of trash

Im not saying you should get one. But if you dont like sucking dicks, you should getone

[Anonymous No.1751505]

i just noticed thats a god dammed grizzly. jesus christ that is the fucking chink version of anything decent.

[Anonymous No.1751509]

>>1751496
Wtf are you even on dude?

So assuming I was out .5 degrees on my bandsaw, (Which I wasn't, because I'm not an incompetent asshole like you) and my stackup of 2x2x1/8" angle was 4 deep then my stackup only measured a bit over 1-3/4" in depth.

Ohh my! If I was a mouth breathing retard that couldn't set my saw to 90 degrees then I'd be out a whopping 15 thousandths of an inch on that last angle!

Oh wait a second though that would only be if I were a complete douchebag idiot and didn't have my angles clamped together like some kind of fucking noob, because if I did have my stackup clamped then when I slid it down to the next cut, that same 0.5 degree angle would then cut again cancelling out the 15thousandths difference.

[Anonymous No.1751513]

>>1751505

And yet I can still manage to get straight cuts off of it while you fuck up using a "$20,000 Scotchman"

Who is the real idiot here?

[Anonymous No.1751515]

1.2% sales
not even up an hour
peace guys

[Anonymous No.1751541]

m

[Anonymous No.1753101]

Bought this one. The disk is absolute shit, I'm going to change it soon
Also it was out of square so I took the hinge apart and put some washers in, now it cuts just perfect. I'm not sure how long will the hinge last but it's not hard to repair
All considered it's not bad and it's good enough for what I do, I paid 90 euro shipping included