Best Method For Cutting Thinwall SS Tubing

Use a proper pipe cutting tool, routinely used by plumbers to cut pipes in domestic installations. Do turn off Caps Lock before attempting to use this tool.

Chop saw? Pah!

Depending on the requirements,

Stainless Steel Tubing Cutters - RIDGID Professional Tools.

Cutters & Cutter Wheels - Reed Manufacturing Co.

c tubing cutters - Wheeler-Rex

These may slightly deform the ends.

TURN CAPS LOCK OFF!

I don't have any better advice but that is a lot of cuts to make with a hand tubing cutter. Just sayin'.

Well, look into a small CNC lathe with a material advance attachment.

You may have to Job it out, but I do not know what the economics or quality requirements is on your project.

We had a Mori-Seiki that did this, it works great.

Good point. Lasers like to cut SS.

Maybe a water jet, if not a laser?

no, on a water jet, there has to have something put on the inside to keep it from piercing through the opposite wall, (Kerf is really wide after the first piece making the quality of cut poor), or roughing up the ID

Problem with tube cutters they distort the end. the cutter rolls the material in at the cut so it will need to be dressed or the ID is reduced some.

Makita offers a circular saw blade that's made to cut tubing cleanly. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nDp96opXUs

Their blade has cermet tips which handles more heat when cutting also can be ground to a sharper edge then carbide. I'm not sure though that it will work on that small of a tube.

If not these people make saw blades with cermet teeth. And will make one to your design.http://www.carbideprocessors.com/pages/company-info.html

Also you may want to try some coolant it will help reduce burring.

Then there is these guys. http://www.nesmalltube.com/services/precision_cutting.html

Buy a tool designed to do the task?!?! What a novel idea.

GA

Hi Jon,

1) Develop a Shearing Die ...that is the fastest.....but you must accept the ovality to the cut tube to 0.1mm (0.004")

2) Use a Rotating Laser ( better than linear sliding...) ..slower ..expensive but negligible burr.

3) Subcontract the work

for deburring I suggest you to use nylon abrassive brushes..

or barrel deburring

try contacting the manufacturer on how their other customers make their cuts

Your problem is more difficult due to the small diameter and wall thickness. All presented solutions are valid for "usual" SS tubing and are not of the shelf valid for your operation.

There is first the condition of a small radial cutting force in order to not deform the tubing end and the second constrain of lack of burrs. I very much doubt that mechanical cutting could meet both conditions.

I would suggest to look at wire sparkling cutting since the 2 conditions correspond to the process. It is possible to imagine a first step of traditional cutting and after it to put in a fixture a group of precut tubes and cut at length by wire. I think it could be more economical than deburring since the process does not generate any burrs. You should only determine empirically the deformed length due to the traditional cutting and cut at a length such that the final length is what you need. This second operation could be subcontracted the machines being in general expensive. There are also such machines available second hand and if you could use the technology for other operations it could become ecnomical to buy.

Use a plasma cutting torch; it loves to cut St Stl.

Automation is simple with a simple feed mechanism, a roller to rotate the tubing at the plasma cutter and circuitry to interconnect the different parts of the unit.

Experimentation would determine if it is better to leave the plasma torch going at all times when cutting a batch or to integrate its timing with the feed and rotating mechanisms. This method is often times used to cut piping for gas pipelines and other uses. For larger pipes they can ride on a track that is strapped onto the pipe and rotated around the pipe while cutting.

The ends of the tubing will be very square and with little or no splatter on them.

Good Luck, Old Salt

5000-8000 per month is a lot! You might have some bargaining power, especially if all the pieces are all exactly the same length. You might be able to make a deal with a tubing supplier to purchase 40,000 lengths every 6 months or so. They might have the technology to help you out.