Cutting EMT conduit

Looking for ideas to cut 3/4 EMT about 7"long. It would need to be mostly bur free and up to say 2000 pc a month. What do you all think would be the best way?

mymachinery said:

Looking for ideas to cut 3/4 EMT about 7"long. It would need to be mostly bur free and up to say 2000 pc a month. What do you all think would be the best way?

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Ridgid makes a stationary one that spins the tube.
122 Cutting and Prep Machine | Wrenches & Tubing Tools | RIDGID

Automated cold saw

RJT said:

Automated cold saw

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Or sub it out / buy it in ready cut - in the UK many stockholders offer that service, ....... and IMHO for what it is - it's cheap.

Chop saw would be my first choice but you are going to have to deburr each end. I noticed the Ridgid machine uses the same cutting wheel technology like the hand cutters but with roller feed to rotate the pipe. If I had to do a bunch of them and didn't want to buy a single purpose tool (I'm sure that machine is not cheap) I would probably use my lathe. That's assuming you have enough room in your shop to stick a 10' length of EMT out the headstock. You would of course have to adhere to the safety issues concerning something 10' long hanging out of the headstock (proper support etc.). Rig up a steady rest with a cutting wheel instead of a pad or bearing on the top arm. I would also want a lever system to engage the top wheel holder to speed things up. The top cutting wheel would be held in the sliding member and you would pull a lever down to push the cutting wheel into the pipe which is firmly supported by the bottom rollers or pads. Use the tailstock as a hard stop at 7". I think with the proper speed you could turn one out every couple of seconds.

mymachinery said:

Looking for ideas to cut 3/4 EMT about 7"long. It would need to be mostly bur free and up to say 2000 pc a month. What do you all think would be the best way?

Click to expand...

High school kid hired for 10 bucks an hour, give 'em a hacksaw and a burring reamer.

Barfeed lathe would be my first choice or a screw machine. I have a local shop that has B&S screw machines if you want to sub it out.

You can weld the ends together of the largest bundle you can get in your cold or band saw. Automated saw would be even better.

I guess I should have been more specific. The ends have to be square without the ends closing up at all like a wheel would do. They would have holes punched in the tube on a horn die and a separate piece inserted in each end so it has to be a clean cut. Was just thinking of the possibility of using a powered pair of pipe cutter wheels, one inside to pinch trim the tube from both sides.

This rigid 122 might work, could always use an expanding mandrel on the ends.

Sounds like a low value job, so they have to be cut cheaply without much capital outlay. What tools do you have at your disposal? Awfully hard to beat the cycle time of cutting 25 or 50 tubes at a time in a saw. There are tube end deburring tools that will do both inside and outside at the same time. Pretty fast in a cordless drill, could also be set up by the press on a little horizontal gear motor. Hit each end, put on press.

Cold cut chop saw. There is no method I know of that is burr free, but cold cut should be close.
You may be able to cut a few pieces at a time if you have some basic work holding, and holding both sides of the blade will give the best cut. I have a plastic cutting operation where I use a Dewalt chop saw, wood type. The saw is pitched forward enough that the cutoff rolls off and drops into a bin at the operators feet.

With a fully auto cold saw, one at a time would take maybe 8 hours , you could deburr them with a wire wheel while it runs.

Manual cold saw stack up as many as your accuracy allows

'Supported shear tube cutting'

KleenCut Supported Shear | Tube Re-Cut Machine - Haven Manufacturing