Subject: hacksaw cutting slowly
From: (Eric Chang)
Date: 10/03/04 16:51 GMT Standard Time
Message-id:

"larry g" wrote in message
...
Just for grins after reading this thread I grabbed a 1 1/8" piece of square
steel, and hacksawed it through with a hand hacksaw, wimpy frame and a used
18 tpi 10" long blade. Took ~2.5 minutes. I then took the same stock and
...
Hi Larry. Thanks for the real life data. There have been a lot of good
suggestions. One of the problems is that I am using a 24 tpi blade. The
hacksaw is tightened very well, and the frame is reasonably sturdy. It
is cutting (there are a lot of metal filings), but just too slowly. I tried
cutting a 1/2 inch piece of rebar. It took 10 minutes. This is in line with
the 1 hour per square inch of material cut.

Also in the interests of science. Just been out to the workshop to find a bit
of scrap bar to test on. 5/8" round steel bar, not sure what grade but it had a
paint code on the end and was maybe better than mild steel. Brand new 18 tpi
blade. Two trials, 20.0 seconds and 18.8 seconds and that included maybe a
second getting my left hand off the stopwatch and onto the saw and another
second at the end when I stopped the watch.

That was going mental with the saw mind you and no attention to trying to cut
any sort of a neat or straight line so I shifted a bit more metal than if I'd
cut it perpendicular to the axis.

So call it 18 seconds which would make it (8/5) squared or 2.56 times as long
for a 1" round bar = 46 seconds. Calculate all that out into square inches and
near as dammit 1 minute per square inch. I'd add a bit to that though for
making a neater cut and also not giving oneself a heart attack by the end of
the day. 2 minutes would be comfy.

I would say that a quality 18 tpi blade will make your life a lot easier.


Dave Baker - Puma Race Engines (www.pumaracing.co.uk)
I'm not at all sure why women like men. We're argumentative, childish,
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