Welding Tips and Tricks

Every now and then I need to notch some pipe or tube to make a stairwell railing or some truss, so I bought the $50 version at HF. It's a good example of you get what you pay for. Out of the box, it's pretty easy to set up. You need a half inch drill or a drill press with at least 18" clearance from chuck to table and your own hole saws. I had to shim out the pipe holder bracket at least an 1/8"+ to center it on the hole saw. Thats really no big deal, but when I went to change the hole saw size, the threads on the shaft pulled right off!

In short, it's not meant for any kind of production work. If you have need of notching a few ends every now and then, and all of your saddle joints will be the same size, it's probably an alright tool for that purpose only, nothing more. I had no problem cutting steel pipe and steel and aluminum tube but I used a good quality Starrett hole saw for it.

Pro tools has the beast, but for general occasional use the HF does a good enough job. Once you upgrade though, you will never go back
Bob

They are a little more exspensive than HF but JD Squared pipe benders and notchers are top of the line. I have both and both work flawlessly every time.

where do you get those at, Jim? I could use a good tubing notcher here in a few months. gunna be building a space frame from sub-frame under a morris minor PU

I get mine straight from the manufacturer. I have the Model 32 Bender and the Notchmaster notcher. Some of the best money I've spent. Also, they have a complete, and I mean complete line of dies for their benders. These things are heavy duty and very well made. I can easily put a 180 deg. bend on 2" sch. 40 pipe without hydraulics. There are a couple of other places out there, if you look, that sell the product line, but they charge more for either the product or shipping or both. And sometimes the lead time is twice as long. Trust me ,stick with dealing directly with the manufacturer, unless you find a killer deal somewhere.http://www.jd2.com/.

I'd never heard of them, that's why I asked. 'the beast' is a damn well designed tool. I dunno if I can justify spending $500 on a tubing notcher, but jeez... it sure looks nice. I'll probably just go with a notchmaster. thanks for the link