Good luck! As long as the guide strips stay in their slots and the 2 x’ are well clamped the cylinder should remain true. As you probably felt from the first cut it will want to ride up off the blade. Some plumbers tape ove the top of the keeper piece might help with that. The off cut should be left free. A jig saw with a metal blade might be safer but would leave a rough edge. A big enough chop saw would certainly do it but not sure if 10” would be big enough.
One last thing normally you don’t use a cross cut guide at the same time as a rip fence but in this case the cross cut guide is fixed as well as the fence. Still, it’s important that the cylinder not move in any direction other than to rotate. With what’s at stake I’d probably drill for a pivot bolt through the stop block as well with extra washers and doubled nuts tightened just enough to allow rotation but very little end play.
I missed your post earlier. You did have an idea. Actually several good ones. Thank you for giving me some good advice. I agree that a miter saw would work will. I have a very nice miter saw, but I don’t know if it would be ok with the rules. My table saw sucks. I can’t even get the blade totally perpendicular to the table plane. But, I do think it will be the best tool I have for cutting out the cooling fins and for reducing the throat of the tank to fit into the battery tube. So I consider this cutting exercise necessary to work out how I will do those operations.
I would need a big hole saw to be the diameter to the O2 Tank. It would cost many times more that the $10 I paid for the tank and it would have no other uses I can think of.
You sure sound like you know alot about circular blades. I hope you don’t mind me hitting you up next time I need to make a purchase.
I feel a bit dense. Well, I almost always feel dense, but more denser. I have a dual bevel sliding compound miter saw, but assumed it wouldn’t be allowed. I’m thinking that some good humor just flew straight over my head.
From the official rules…… Hand Made Category:
All hand tools are acceptable, as well as these power tools:
Soldering gun/station
Electric Drill / Drill Press
Dremel style Rotary tool Cutoff Saw including Band Saw and Table Saw
Disc or Belt sander
The bold is my emphasis.
A cutoff saw, by my definition means a metal abrasive wheel saw or a miter saw with a blade appropriate for whatever is being cut. Wikipedia agrees.
If I am wrong the judges better scratch my entry.
Any saw can be dangerous. Table saws receive a lot of misuse or improper use. Having a cut off piece of anything against a fence while a slide miter is also in use is bad practice. That is especially bad when a hand is used to restrain that cut off piece. All it takes is the slightest wrong move of the cut off piece to catch a spinning tooth. The hand follows the cut off piece and sometimes ends up in the blade. I have two woodworking friends who have some fingers that are shorter than they used to be. Those accidents occurred between the balde and a fence when cutting off small amounts the wrong way. Part of my point there is if someone thinks the miter saw is wrong for the hand made category I’d argue it is better to promote safe use of a tool that actually uses a same size blade as the table saw.
As for knowing about blades, I’ll pass on whatever I know anytime. I have learned some years ago in school before miter saws were invented and have picked up more info since. I don’t read every message posted here so feel free to use the PM. A resource that can be helpful to understand blades is at Freud’s website. Freud has made some really fine blades for decades. They have some, that couple with a good table saw, turn out rips that can be glued up as they leave the saw. From the dropdown menu select saw blades and then select by material (to cut). It is not a course but by reading and checking the specs for different blades , materials you can gain some understanding. EG. A blade for best and safest use on a miter saw may be different from a blade recommended for table saw crosscutting, especially if the miter saw has a sliding carriage.
I agree with you that a miter saw is within the rules for hand made. Mine just has more bells and whistles that I felt took it to another level. I guess I didn’t think about it much before I ruled out using mine. It clearly requires active hand involvement to make the machine perform a cut. So I think I was wrong to rule mine out of the tools I could use. Plus, last year, I felt there was an impression that I wanted to push/bend the rules. That made me feel bad. So I’m really trying to not do anything that might get construed as trying to do that. Looking at your build thread, you clearly are within the hand made category rules in my opinion.
Sorry to hear that. I feel that same way when I see someone slalom waterski with a two-handled ski rope. I promise to take great care. I lost a 1/2” from my left hand’s middle finger in a water skiing accident. It too has limited tactile sensation and also gets cold easily. I have to watch out for it in the winter as it can easily get frost bit in no time. That, plus, I will have less volume with that hand if I were to make a certain gesture.
Went through several iterations of a table saw jig for the O2 Tank this weekend. Finally settled on this. Couldn't really use the channel guides as the jig will need to move all directions for all the cuts to be made. I think this will work fine if I can keep my focus and a steady hand.
Also, worked on a jig for machining the inside of the head. Didn't get very far. Probably will use the base in the second picture combined with some vertical attachments. Really hard because the small end of the former O2 tank is pretty small and makes it hard to keep flat but yet also be able to rotate.
Any movement that allows the piece to climb the blade and skew could spell disaster. A rough edge riding on a guide could cause the blade to bind in the cut as well. Please survive this.
