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Anyone know of a saw with a large miter capacity?

Econdron

Hot Rolled
Joined
May 31, 2013
Location
Illinois
I'm looking for a saw that can cut 4" square tubing at up to a steep 20 degree included angle. I have a bandsaw that can cut it up to about 35 degrees. We are a job shop, so this is not for production, but we frequently need to cut steep angles, and waste a lot of time with angle finders and cut-off wheels trying to cut the custom angles. Tubing size and angles vary quite a bit, 4" tubing at a 20 degree angle is just the capacity I would like it to go up. Tube laser is out of the question.
 
Quick layout shows you'll need a saw with at least 14" between the guides.

If your saw can go that wide, just make up some angle blocks for the vice.
 
Rereading - a marvel-8-mark-III goes up to 60° left/right (leaving a 30° included angle) - which doesn't get you to 20, and it's a big pricey saw. (I have an 8-mark-II and love it....)

You might look at what roll-in offers.

With the marvel's and I imagine other slide-stroke cutoff saws, you could take off most of the stanard vise jaws, and slew the work across the flat table - then bolt it down with strap clamps (there are t-slots)
You'd want to think about it and make yourself some fixturing.
 
A marvel-8 would be fine, but rather higher cost than at least some of the options above. Quick setup for single angle cuts. Compound miter cuts would be either 2 cuts or a little more cleverness in setup.
(But a marvel-8 would likely replace various other saws....)

Uh, I think roll-in makes a sliding bandsaw similar to a marvel-8 but smaller, might look into those. Doall might have a model too.

EDITTED VERSION:
Rereading - a marvel-8-mark-III goes up to 60° left/right (leaving a 30° included angle) - which doesn't get you to 20, and it's a big pricey saw. (I have an 8-mark-II and love it....)

You might look at what roll-in offers.

With the marvel's and I imagine other slide-stroke cutoff saws, you could take off most of the stanard vise jaws, and slew the work across the flat table - then bolt it down with strap clamps (there are t-slots)
You'd want to think about it and make yourself some fixturing.

OP has proven in the past to be very uhm..."Frugal"

Also a Marvel 8 won't tilt over that far.

I know, I built a fixture for a job that used a Marvel 8, set-up is to tilt saw to "xx" degrees, and then the fixture holds the part the "rest of the way".

AFA the Roll in (and copies) the limit is 14", and my layout shows it's gonna need all of it, depending on how wide the roller guides are, maybe a wee bit more (15"-16" ish)
Also, that 14" dimension is up/down, so the part would be sticking up into the ceiling,
IIRC even the extend height (the 14" high capacity) models, still have only 8"-9"
of stroke front/back.
 
A guy I know who has his own fab shop was showing me his horizontal band saw that had a way to mount the vise at 90 degrees so you could cut really shallow angles by moving the saw just off perpendicular to the normal cutting method.
 
I don't think you are going to find anything off the shelf that will miter to 20deg...I've never seen anything that goes past 30deg. You might be stuck mounting your own vise under a traversing saw like a Trennjaeger PMC8 or possibly a plate saw. You will need something with at least 25" of stroke to get all the way through a 5" square tube at 20deg assuming a 16" saw blade.
 
I'd use a hand-held plasma and a guide. With very little experience with a hypertherm drag tip you can make very precise cuts.
 
I second the idea of skewing the part on the table of a marvel. For really long pieces it would still be a pain in the ass but it’s quite doable. I’ll see if I have any pictures of past cuts on 2” stainless.


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Using a mitering bandsaw always seemed like a compromise at 45 degrees. The way a vise holds the material at those angles doesn't work super duper.

I think you'll have to clamp whatever it is down to the saw frame and if you're doing a bunch whip up a fixture. For my little 1" blade JET horizontal saw I've made up a few production cutting fixtures that nest into the table clamp material exactly where it's required to make it work.
 
I used to have a Wells horizontal that I used to cut chisel points on demolition bits up to about 7" diameter. Fixture was just a simple weldment with a flat base plate, a hunk of angle iron to make a vee, and a U-clamp over the top. It mounted on the front side of the saw table (not the vise side) and had a post to the floor to support the other end. I could pivot it to whatever angle I needed- set it with the protractor head on a combination square.

Super simple and easy to use, I could get very shallow angles by opening the saw guides all the way apart.
 
I actually have a project in progress which required about a 20 degree cut on some 2x3 steel tube. Since I just had a couple to do, I ended up doing them by just marking them out and cutting on the vertical bandsaw and then quickly straightening and cleaning up the cuts with an angle grinder. Since I needed to truncate the sharp point before welding, the grinder was going to come into play anyway.
 
With the marvel's and I imagine other slide-stroke cutoff saws, you could take off most of the stanard vise jaws, and slew the work across the flat table - then bolt it down with strap clamps (there are t-slots)
You'd want to think about it and make yourself some fixturing.

I do this regularly on my old 1917 marvel #8. It works quite well, just a bit of a pain with really long stock, but that doesn't have to do with the saw, more shop layout. I have a piece of 3/8 thick angle iron I clamp down with the tee slot clamps to the shallow angle I need and then c-clamp what I am cutting to that. It is easy to set the angle on the angle ;) For pipe I have small channel iron (1 1/2") tack welded to a thin spacers that hold the center line of channel even with CL of the pipe, this keeps pipe from rolling when clamped.
 
Using a mitering bandsaw always seemed like a compromise at 45 degrees. The way a vise holds the material at those angles doesn't work super duper.

I think you'll have to clamp whatever it is down to the saw frame and if you're doing a bunch whip up a fixture. For my little 1" blade JET horizontal saw I've made up a few production cutting fixtures that nest into the table clamp material exactly where it's required to make it work.

I have seen some horizontal bandsaws that have a fixed vice and the whole saw bow rotates around the centreline of the vice for mitreing. Thomas are one brand like that.
 








 
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