Tube Notching 101:

There may come a time when you need to notch a piece of tubing or pipe. Most will use this knowlege towards the installation of a roll bar or cage in their car. Here are three methods that I use to do some notching:

The first is the chop saw method, and it requires no notcher at all. It does require a little practice, and it is the method that is most like art. What you do is set the chop saw vise at a 45 degree angle, and cut the corner of the tube off, flip it 180 degrees, and cut the other corner off. You end up with two notches that require a little massaging with a file or disc sander to be a perfect notch.

With the chop saw vise set at 45 degrees, the piece of tube is set in the vise and clamped in place:


The corner of the tube is cut off and you now have one half of a notch:



The tube is now flipped 180 degrees. If you are making a straight 90 degree notch, you will position the tube exactly like the first cut, if it is an angle cut, you will set the tube in a little further in the vise so you are cutting off more of the tube. This is where the art part of it comes in as it takes a while before you know how much to cut off for angle cuts:


Here is the tube before deburring:


And here is the tube after deburring with a disc sander:


Just in case you think you cannot make accurate notches with this method, here is the notch and a piece of tube that it will weld to showing no gap at all. This is the method I use the most including chrome moly TIG welded cages:



The next method is by using a common hole saw tube notcher that several vendors sell. This one is made by Dale Wilch, and has been used thousands of times. I do not use a drill press as I have found that most of them do not have a slow enough low speed, and you end up tying up the drill press. I mount the notcher on the corner of a sturdy table and I power it with a variable speed 1/2" drill:

Here is the notcher and the drill used to power it:


The tube is held in place with a horse shoe shaped piece of strap, and will accomodate tobe sizes from 3/4"-2". It will also notch square tubing:


For straight 90 degree cuts, the tube is set to zero with the adjustable tube holder:


Any angle from 0-50 degrees can be cut by adjusting the tube holder:


The drill is turned on and the holesaw and the arbor that holds it are fed into the tube slowly until the notch is made. You want to notch the tube with the same size hole saw that the tube will weld to, in this case a 2" hole saw was used. A little cutting fluid will prolong hole saw life:


You end up with a nice notch that will need a little tune up:


This notcher works extremely well and the variable speed drill lets you control the feed and speed. The only modification I made to mine was to replace the bronze bushings where the arbor rides with needle bearings as the bronze bushings will only last a few dozen notches:


The last method is a version of the hole saw notcher except that I chucked up the arbor and hole saw in chuck of my lathe, and the tube holder is mounted to the carriage of the lathe. This allows me to use the power of the lathe motor, and more angles than the 0-50 degree range of the notcher.

Here is the lathe setup:



The feed on the lathe is used to feed the tube into the spinning hole saw:


Angled notches are done by moving the tool post holder, this one is set at 22 degrees:

 

Dude! Great thread!

 

Thanks man!
Great lesson.

 

The first method can also save you a little of that expensive 4130 tube and a lot of time. If you use the same method with a hand grinder and cutoff wheel, you can cut 90deg notches at the same time you cut the tube off. Just mark where you want the bottom of the notch to be and cut the angles from there to the center of the tube. The next notch only requires cutting back along the "ears" that were left from the previous cut. The only scrap is 2 small slivers of tube for each cut.

 

This is a good link to a calculator if you can't afford a notcher. Just print it out and trace on the tube and cut.

http://metalgeek.com/static/cope.pcgi

Danny

 

Great thread, Id like to see more threads like this from guys who have a good knowledge to share.

 

I like the lathe version especially. Haven't seen that one before. I really need to get more creative with my lathe.

 

What he said .I never thought of using the lathe I can finally cut at the right speed .

 

Awesome tech thanks.

 

Now thats some good tech. Another lesson learned.

 

great post thanksd a lot ,this link http://metalgeek.com/static/cope.pcgi is also a big help

 

Great thread !!!

I had not though of using a lathe for this either. Great idea, and thanks...

 

Bump for the Sunday morning crew.

 

I've used the chop saw method in the past with varying degrees of success(i.e. I usually make an arse of it!).
Recently bought a lathe so I'll try that method next time.As others have said,I wouldn't of thought of that.
Great tech,thanks.

 

tech-o-matic!!!

 

Very Cool - nice job.

Just one question,

On the Lathe set up - you have the mandrel & hole saw sticking out of the chuck pretty far -

Does it move around on you..?

If you could set the hole saw closer into the chuck wouldnt it be alot more ridgid set up..??

 

DRIVE EM,
Thank you very, very much. I will eventualy be building a cage for my jalopy racer Model A sedan and this will save me a ton of time!
Ted

 

that's using your noggin!

 

It doesn't move at all. I mount the hole saw this way because when you start doing angles, it gives you more clearance.

 

Very neat set up. With the lathe set up to make the cuts, you could make a new arbor out of 1 or 1-1/2 round stock. This set up would not move, depending on the carriage feeds you could feed this as well and take alot of work out of notching.

Super info man.! A+

 

Great thread man, I like the needle bearings in the hole saw notcher. I have issues with the chop saw deflecting, but that's because it's a piece of shit chop saw. I'm buying the cadillac of chop saws next month, so that will not longer be a problem.

 

Timley post thanks

 

Good stuff, never thought about using my lathe

 

I've been using this program for all my fishmouths and am very happy with how it works: Tube miter software

I mount the tube in a vice and use a 90 deg grinder with a 3/32" thick wheel. I can rough it out in 4 cuts, fit the tube, then I'll usually have to trim the length a little or the angle of twist. Put the piece of paper back on the tube and remark. Cut if it is way off, or put a thicker wheel on and grind.

 

Great information. I needed the pictures to see how to cut on a chop saw. I have tried it and did not have the " ART" eye required....practice, practice...
Thanks.

 

Me too, hardly use mine. But that is a damn good idea. Well done DRIVE EM!

 

Great info, chopsaw & lathe method will have to try, Thanks!!!

 

This outfit was supposed to be coming out with beefy 5 inch long holesaws which help on steep angles.

Baileigh Industrial Inc.

 

Stay tuned!

 

I've been using the 45* method for years !! It's just hard to explain to some cats that don't get MATH !!! >>>>.