Cutting copper tube lengthways - and straight ?

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Pikey
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Cutting copper tube lengthways - and straight ?

Post by Pikey »

I need some copper strip - anyone know how to cut a tube lengthways with minimum fuss and wastage ?
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Swedish Pride
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Re: Cutting copper tube lengthways - and straight ?

Post by Swedish Pride »

hit it with the torch until red hot, dunk it in water, it's now soft like butter ( wont try to spell the word as my spelling is dodgy and I make it look rude.)
Use tin snips and it will cut it fussless
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zapata
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Re: Cutting copper tube lengthways - and straight ?

Post by zapata »

2nd that approach, it's what I've always done.
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Re: Cutting copper tube lengthways - and straight ?

Post by Pikey »

i'm not sure I can get it hot enough with propane to do a 3 foot length :?
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Swedish Pride
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Re: Cutting copper tube lengthways - and straight ?

Post by Swedish Pride »

make a 3ft long fire in the back garden and throw it on the hot coals :lol:
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Yummyrum
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Re: Cutting copper tube lengthways - and straight ?

Post by Yummyrum »

Swedish's method is what I do . I like the long fire idea although I never tried it . I have used a gas burner to preheat and used MAPP to raise it to red but I'm not sure that propane would do it over a gas burner though .
You could try using a 1 mm cutoff disc in an angle grinder but you'd need to watch it didn't dig in and nick the opersite side .

Eitherway you still have to anneal it to red hot to open it out and flatten it between two boards if you want flat copper in the end .
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Re: Cutting copper tube lengthways - and straight ?

Post by StillerBoy »

I use an angle grinder with a metal cutting blade to cut copper length wise.. it's not a fast process, but it works quite well on copper up to 1" in side.. mark the cut line with a black marker and just go slowly..

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Re: Cutting copper tube lengthways - and straight ?

Post by cob »

Pikey wrote:i'm not sure I can get it hot enough with propane to do a 3 foot length :?
depending on what size tube you have and what tools you have available.

run your torch flame through the inside, it will get red. there is no need

to quench copper to anneal it. build a cradle from wood to support your copper

so you can run it through a table saw, with the blade up only enough to cut the

copper. screw the copper to the cradle. ear and eye protection is a must
be water my friend
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Cu29er
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Re: Cutting copper tube lengthways - and straight ?

Post by Cu29er »

.

Old school it by putting in a vice and hacksaw at an angle. Put a small wedge in to keep the gap open and straight as you cut. Build's character, this way does.

Newer school use a 'sawz-all' with a short blade, at an angle. Use a secondary board as a rest and to keep straight.

.
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Re: Cutting copper tube lengthways - and straight ?

Post by zapata »

Torch will anneal a spot at a time, but it will take a while.
You can throw the whole thing on the grill to heat it up, then fairly quickly run the torch down the middle to get it cherry red.
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Re: Cutting copper tube lengthways - and straight ?

Post by Saltbush Bill »

cob wrote: there is no need
to quench copper to anneal it.
No there is not, either way works.
But it it sure helps get the job done quicker if you can pick the piece of copper up and keep working on it 1 second after you have annealed it.
Is there really any need to anneal anyway unless your going to use snips?......hacksaws, jigsaw blades and cutting disks were all made to cut much harder things than copper. How hard can it really be ?
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Re: Cutting copper tube lengthways - and straight ?

Post by Squint »

Have you got a Dremil / Multi tool ? lay and clamp the pipe in a V made os wood draw a line along the length with a black marker as said above and cut along with the metal Dremil cutting disc, easy job done.
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