Thread: Cutting pvc pipe.

Cutting pvc pipe. Yes I know there are lot's of ways to do it and this idea has most likely been show before, but anyway for what it's worth:

SWMBO wanted me to cut some 100mm PVC pipe into 10 x 200mm lengths. I normally don't use the BS for this, but as I was using it when the command was issued I decided to do it on the BS, but differently - seen Youtube videos of people just holding it and running it through the blade, IMHO that is a just asking for a blade break, or worse if it grabs at the wrong time and rips it out of your hand, best case throws it in you face, worst case? I don't want to know.

I Realised I could just set the top Guide height to allow the blade to just cut through the pipe wall before contacting the blade guide housing. This makes it virtually imposable for the blade to get enough bite into the pipe to jam and do anything bad. I'm not feeding it through the blade so the blade cannot be jammed half way through the pipe if the pipe moves or squeezes the blade in any way.

The pipe is placed against the small fence on my cross cut sled, an end stop is clamped for the length. This made it simple to rotate the pipe between the blade guide housing and the fence. Shortly 10 perfectly square cuts of PVC pipe exactly 200mm long were made.

NOTE: Virtually no force at all is applied to the top guide housing.

End stop, pipe against the fence.


Pipe almost touching the top guide block housing.


Ready to be moved against the top guide housing for cutting.


Guess.


Pipe touches and is stopped from moving further forward by the top guide housing, both during the cut after the cut.


EDIT: Forgot to mention - When cutting, I place my hands (far apart) on top of the pipe and rotate it towards me (towards the small fence on the cross cut table) this keeps the pipe square and applies gentle pressure down and towards the fence, obviously this causes the pipe to rotate against the direction of blade travel - IMHO this gives really good feel and control of the pipe as it cuts.

FYI: If the end of the pipe is damaged, irregular shaped or not square - The end stop simply needs to be a right angled piece larger that the open end of the pipe, the high point of the rough end of the pipe will contact the right angle end stop for the complete revolution of the pipe as it cuts, leaving a perfect square end.