In praise of angle grinders

I have hacksawed and filed and grindered away for the best part of 10 years now and only recently really set myself up to do any fabrication work with metal

With an angle grinder and a decent vice the speed you can work at on certain jobs is like night and day

Chop up some angle iron in 5 mins flat

Cut a slot so two angle iron ends can mate together, 3 mins total

It's the time saved on this sort of stuff, anything up to about 12mm thick is now a complete breeze, wish I'd known years ago

All that exercise with your hacksaw and files helped keep you in shape. Have you planned an exercise regimen to replace that exercise?

Wait till you try a 16" friction cut-off dropsaw. You'll love it.

Hi all, now saving up for a"Evolution " metal cutting circular saw.....have to build a new barn .......

Andy1,

look out for a 300mm metal cutting chop saw, a cheapy, new from Screwfix or a used Makita.....they work a treat....u can get loads of abrasive cutting blades quite cheap.....I bought a job lot of 50 for 50p each but would like the new metal carbide cutting blade for mine when the old blades are gone.......

look at "extreme projects" on youtube to see how they work...amazing.....be careful with ur new found toy, they can be quite dangerous if not used carefully........

happy days....clogs

Those giant angle grinder chop saws would wake the Thrice Headed Hound of Hades. The other issue is that they fling clouds of abrasive dust into the air which land all over your workshop. Fine if you have a separate or outdoor chopping area but otherwise it's hardly conducive to clean / precision working otherwise.

I ditched mine for a used 4x6 bandsaw which isn't a lot slower, doesn't frighten the crap out of you and won't set the dogs off. I'd hate to have a chop saw catch the work and pop the disk / fling the work, whereas a bandsaw will just jam. I'd like one of the metal cutting circular saws mentioned (Evo Rage etc) - perhaps when the beer funds reappear at some stage.

Murray

I recently had to liberate some steel bar from an old lorry half- shaft I would not risk my bandsaw blade on that but the angle grinder made short work of it with a 1mm disk. Colin

I only use the thin 1mm blades and hold it like a baby bird, let the machine do the work.

Full face helmet and glasses so you can see everything thats going on

Those 1mm blades have very little torque and make things a lot less scary IMO

You would have made the job easier still if you had simply notched the ends, and your legs would have lined up 😉

Would just comment that whilst I do buy some kit/consumables from cost-effective online sources, and those such as that link will be OK for, say, flying dust; I do believe that PPE such as safety visors/glasses are best bought - and worth the small premium - from reputable vendors who can be trusted to supply goods manufactured to safety standards.

Dave

Interestingly, Screwfix have a face mask which is cheaper than the Ebay model quoted, has a specified impact rating and you can touch and feel before you buy. Or even take it back if it doesn't behave. I've had a few clouts in the chops saved by a mask like this in my woodturning ventures, but never threatened by lumps of metal. **LINK**

Make sure that the mask/eye protection has a EN166 rating, if it hasn't it won't provide much protection

Ady please be careful of how you handle the grinder when it has those thin wheels on it as they are terrribly fragile , any side pressure on those wheels can cause them to fracture when you start the grinder up again .

I once sat my 5 inch grinder down on the ground without paying attention and the wheel must have been the first thing to contact the ground , when i picked it up and turned it on the wheel fractured and sent a chunk flying across the workshop - luckily not at me ! I am now ultra careful with those thin wheels !

+1 for the face shield and buy a good one not some cheap junk , i also recommend long sleeves , denim or prefrerably a leather welders coat and gloves , leather type gardening gloves work well .( don't use them on bech grinders though ! )

It may sound like overkill but once you have had a wheel fracture and send a flying razorblade across the room you will soon understand why i use such measures .

Ian.

I'm always careful. never lay the unit on the blade, ever, and use glasses so I'm never guessing.

It's like artwork, but with a spinning metal cutter

Had to cut up some steel structural framing recently using one of those petrol-driven demo saws with the metal cutting disc - now that's scary, a stream of sparks like you would not believe, nearly set the paddock on fire, and certainly melted the plastic component of the boot laces when i unwittingly put my foot in the spark stream. It did jam once or twice, but thankfully the clutch is designed to slip if that happens so no damage or injury, just a bit of elevated heartrate!

I love my angle grinder for all the reasons above.

I'm in the process of building a chop saw mount for it so that I can cut bigger stuff straight. The plan is to build it so that it can work with the 115/125 grinder (19 quid from homebase) or a 230mm grinder and cut up to (say) 8 inch wide plate.

Most of what I do isn't huge - the particular immediate challenge is to cut off a 30mm piece of 25x25 bar - so a 125mm (in two passes) is OK and it's a lot less scary than the 230mm.

If I get it working, I will post the story in workshop progress.

Iain

Iain- I built one some years ago and it was very useful. Mostly out of angle, 2"x2" etc. the main bit is the hinge, from tube, about 10" long, this keeps everything square. Make dedicated fixings for the grinder, not the "universal" fixings as found on the bought ones. I fitted a cheap 9" grinder and it did a lot of work, I was making gates etc. at the time.

Chop saw attachments for 4" angle grinders have been available for awhile now. I bought one from Lidl a few years ago, and set it up to make my own French Drains for leaching rain water from behind my retaining walls. If I recall correctly, the price was under ten pounds.

.

I got an EN166 rated faceguard for 11quid to replace my original which is getting on now

It's quite a bit of kit, far beefier and well worth the money if you need face protection

Thanks chaps

Thanks for this Mike. Looks like an idea to try to drain my soggy garden.

Cheers Michael.

If using an angle grinder outside make sure where the Sparks are going is nowhere near any Windows, the red hot debris in the spark stream will embed itself in the surface of the glass, don't ask me how I found that out.

Dave