Yep. Looking to make a dead straight cut with minimum hassle. My band saw sucks and a hack-saw would wander without a tube jig. But, my chop saw is sitting there in my garage, ready to go. Just don't want to f- up and have to buy another length of tube stock.
A tubing cutter works well. You have to be careful to not take too big a bit each time. Many turns around is better then a few. Take a large half round file and clean out the slight burr and you are ready to go with a perfect perpendicular cut.
Exactly what Tom Martin suggested. Take it slow with progressively tightening the cutting wheel till it pops then dress with a file. Takes a little ( very little) longer time than a hacksaw but you you end up with a nice clean square cut.
Fabing up aileron control tubes on next day off. Wanted to insure I get good clean and square cuts. Has anyone used a TCG non-ferrous blade on a mitre/chop saw for this? Or, should I go buy something special?
I wrap a sheet of paper around the tube and tape it at the proper length in order to have a reference to mark the cut line. Then you can cut it slightly long then file/sand to get exact length.
Robert
I had occasion to make hundreds of cuts in tubing in the course of building my last two planes. I use a floor-mounted metal cutting bandsaw to make the initial cut which is a little long then bring the tubing to final dimension with a bench-mounted disk sander. A fence is clamped to the disk sander table that is precisely 90* from the disk and the tubing is brought down to final size very quickly and easily.
One of these days I will have a disk sander.
I found an inexpensive large tubing cutter that will handle 1.125" aluminum tubing. Gonna give it a try.
Thanks for all the response!