How to hold a grinder to safely cut thick metal

  • Dec 11, 2020
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source yandex images
source yandex images

The disc wedges, the grinder seeks to break out of the hands, we remove the disc from the recess and try to start the cut again. Everything repeats itself, it is impossible to cut, hands are tense and it is not known what to do next.

Friends, this situation always happens when an inexperienced person undertakes to cut thick metal with a grinder. If this has happened to you, then this article will give an answer on how to cut metal of any thickness without clamping a disc.

Why the disc is jamming.

When we start cutting thick metal, the disc makes a furrow for itself and goes deeper into it. At this point, an inexperienced cutter has little control over the same position of the blade throughout the cut. A slight swinging of the grinder begins in different directions, the disc begins to bend, the resistance of the metal increases and a clamp occurs. The deeper the cut becomes, the stronger the clamp will be.

When will not clamp

It is necessary to hold the grinder so that the disc first and to the end goes in one position, does not deviate to the sides during the cutting process. You also need to keep the disc as perpendicular to the part being cut as possible. In this case, the cut itself will be the least short, which means you will cut it off faster. Holding the blade non-perpendicular (not at right angles) to the part will increase the length and cutting time. We keep in one position and at a right angle, but how to do this, we look further.

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How to hold the grinder perpendicular to the part

Let's start setting up our grinder for an easy cut without clamps! We will cut this piece of iron. We put on it a piece of a corner or a profile pipe, the main thing is that the wall of the upper part can give an angle of 90 degrees with our cut piece of iron.

Take our tool, place the disc at the base of the corner, and now we press the entire surface of the disc to the side shelf of the corner. In this position of the grinder, the disc will be strictly perpendicular to the surface of the piece to be sawn. But this is not the main thing, see why all this was needed.

The disc is pressed against the corner shelf, it is perpendicular to the surface. In this position, we look from above as far as the nut or thread is visible due to the disc guard. But we look from above so, let the casing and nose be on the same line, we will fix this position of the nut or thread relative to the casing with one eye. We remember this position. Now we will cut in practice.

Sawing metal 38 mm thick

For example, I assembled a weldment from two plates and round timber. The thickness of this prefabricated piece of iron will be 38 mm. Here we are going to saw it. We apply everything that is described above, adjust our tool so that the disc is perpendicular when cutting and goes in one position.

The thickness of the cutting disc on my large grinder is 2 mm. Disc diameter 230 mm. I always cut myself with sparks, there is a separate article about this, where there is a lot of controversy about the correctness of such a cut, but I think so correctly.

We cut off a piece from our piece of iron, there was not a single moment of biting throughout the cut.

Friends, the topic is very important, only a general theory is given in the article. To find out all the little things and see the very moment of cutting a 38 mm piece of iron, watch this video.