Cut / Guide lines for tubular construction

[Axiom34]

Alright so I need some help making this process easier…

Every now and again I find myself working on something involving tubes and it’s always a headache to figure out the line for the cut or for grinding.

(Example: You have a piece of metal tubing 4cm in diameter and u want to weld it to another piece of metal tubing that measures 6cm in diameter at a 60 degree angle)

Normally I just eyeball it and grind till I get it close enough but that doesn’t always work out very well. So instead of just getting more frustrated I tried thinking about ways I could come up with a guide… I remembered a process I saw one time dealing with cutting out patterns and templates for a hovercraft skirt. After playing with that idea for awhile I came up with a way to make a guide line that I could wrap around the pipe I was cutting to give me my cut Line.

(This link should take you to a picture of the process I’m using right now)

axionan.jpg

when you’re finished you’ll have a weird looking curve and if you wrap that around the tube your cutting it’ll show you your cut line.

So here’s the part I need help with… I want to make this process quicker and easier to make it more practical. Ideally I’d like some way of making some sort of simple program that I can just plug in the data and it’ll show me the cut line. Now I’ve looked around online for techniques people use to do this but I haven’t really found anything. So if someone knows of something that would work better that would be great as well.

Thanks-

[PinkertonD]

Have you considered a Tubing Notcher?

[CCR5600Design]

Use your favorite search engine and do a websearch for "tube notcher." There are dozens of designs out there, but my choice is for the type that uses a bi-metal holesaw blade. These blades are reasonably cheap and are offered in a variety of sizes to accomdate most diameters of tubing at pretty much any angle you wish to connect the tubing. The top of the line units feature a jig that can be dialed in to a precise angle of attack for the holesaw blade to achieve a perfect fit every time.


Ron


edit: looks like Dave beat me to the punch.

[Axiom34]

thanks guys, I'll check it out.