#How to make a homemade pipe notcher full

Loved the cage build thread by the way, maybe we should get that put in here (or a copy of it?). Jon - people use milling cutter types all the time, I guess it was just a problem with the way you clamped it? It's just a milling operation - you should be able to cut the tube rather than move it! What type of cutter were you using? What was it held in - I don't quite get the 'clamps at head height' bit? Sadly, time is a BIG issue for me - my project time is severely limited due to living in a different country. I figure I can build a cutter type for roughly the price of a hole-saw type, so it's got to be worth a try.ДЄlso, this method is gonna save me some valuable garage time (I hope!), which is priceless. It seems you get what you pay for with notchers - some people do fine with 'Harbor Freight' cheapies and never have a problem, others (possibly more demanding users) complain about slop, vibration, innacuracy and difficulty with cutting at higher angles. The milling type notchers don't care about the angle. They're fine at 90 degrees, but the further away you go, the less effective they are. The hole-saw type notchers have problems with off-angle cuts. Hi guys, i need to make a good fit between the notched tube and the one it mates with, so the old chop saw method is out for me - too much 'filling' to do with the welder. I'm not worried about the motor/drive, I need to sort the chuck (3-jaw / collet?) and bearing block first. * Compound/cross-slide vice/tabel to mount the work and move it relative to the cutter. * Pillow bearing block between gearbox and cutter to support the cutting loads. * Motor (1.5 or 2 HP) and compatible gearbox of the correct ratio to give the right cutter speed - obviously the cutter speed relative to the work depends on the radius of the cutter, so I may use an electronic speed control to vary the motor speed for different cutter diameters (i.e. I figured the 1.25' shank diameter would give me a good range of cutters if I use a collet type chuck. (Edit: right click on the image, copy its url and use it between img tags.) (How do I get this to appear on the page?) I paid around 25 GBP for the pair of cutters - a hell of a lot less than the regular list price: So after a quick search on ebay, I bought a couple of new cutters from the States (there isn't much larger stuff on the UK ebay).

For these tools to work well you need a 'roughing' end-mill cutter. Most of my tubing will be around 2' diameter, so I obviously need a 2 inch cutter. This price is in the same ballpark as buying the JD2 or Protools and having it shipped to the UK, but I will hopefully end up with a much better notcher.ДЄfter a bit of digging, I found options for the relevant parts were available, and the only potentially disasterously expensive bit is the cutters themselves. I figured I could make one up for roughly 10% of this (IN GBP), so my target budget is 350 GBP. The price for a commercial cutter-type notcher is 3500 US Dollars (plus shipping, duty etc.). They got me thinking about making a more versatile & rigid milling-cutter type notcher (rather than the hole-saw type), which could be made for roughly the same cost as the hole-saw type. While investigating which to buy, I came across various complaints from people using these notchers and a couple of interesting threads: The obvious candidates being the JD2 and the Pro-tools notchers:

I figured with that much tube work ahead I'd invest in a decent tube notcher.

#How to make a homemade pipe notcher full

I've got several cages to fabricate in the next 2 or 3 years, one cage/chassis combo (currently underway), and later some complete custom fabricated full tube chassis. Hi, I thought I'd start a thread on my tube notcher project.