Arbors and Hole Saws for Tube Notching?

They do what I need them to do, and I treat them gently. Here's a tip from the Ol Joint Jigger man himself, Dale Welch; When using a new hole saw the first time, dull up the teeth slightly with some emery paper, this will diminish
machPete99 said:
Yeah, those shouldn't wobble around much!
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the chance of it digging in and breaking the saw. Been their done that.
 
The advice to slightly dull the teeth on a new hole saw came just in time because I received my keyless chuck today from Precision Matthews. With the very last of my money, I picked up two Milwaukee arbors & three 1 1/4” hole saws from the local Home Depot.

Tomorrow I will try these 3/8” shank arbors in my new chuck on my PM-25MV milling machine. I will make a video of the attempt and post a link here.

I remember that at school they used a hole saw for about five miter cuts, and then threw the holesaw away. As I recall, they did not use the center drill.
 
I wouldn't recommend using a hole saw with a keyless chuck. The chucks are only rated to their opening dia, a hole saw will over tighten it to the point you'll need a pipe wrench to open it. Don't ask how I know.

Greg
 
f350ca said:
I wouldn't recommend using a hole saw with a keyless chuck. The chucks are only rated to their opening dia, a hole saw will over tighten it to the point you'll need a pipe wrench to open it. Don't ask how I know.

Greg
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The chuck is rated for 1/8”-5/8”. My plan is to use a 3/8” shanked arbor attached to a 1 1/4” hole saw. So that could be a problem?

If I’m understanding correctly, you are saying that using up to a 5/8” drill would be okay, but that the longer lever of a 1 1/4” hole saw would exert too great of a leverage on the tightening mechanism.

Along those same lines, I recently used a cheater bar on my bench vise handle to clamp the part tighter. This broke the cast iron beam in the vise and I had to buy a whole new bench vise.

I wonder how this plays into using a slitting saw (what with the relatively large diameter of the slitting saw). I know the RPMs are greatly reduced. I imagine that people put a slitting saw in a collet.
 
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So I decided not to risk abusing my new keyless chuck.

I will get a keyed chuck for this job.
 
Seems like something more rigid than a drill chuck is desirable for this. A drill chuck is not designed for the uneven forces of cutting tubing at angles.
 
Good decision. I've often have the vibration and torque of a hole saw loosen the Jacobs taper on the drill chuck as well. For a slitting saw you want as little runout as possible, or one side of the saw does all the cutting. I've only ever used them with a collet.

Greg
 
I bought a (max) 1/2” keyed chuck from Little Machine Shop.

My options are a limited now because I will be very much out of money for at least 6 months.

I wish I could remember exactly how they chucked up the hole saws at United Bicycle Institute. I am positve that they used the bimetal hole saws for all of the miter cuts. All of the material was 4130 chromoly tubing with .020”-.040” wall thickness. All of this was on a Bridgeport knee type mill, so you know that is rigid enough for any variation of this task.
 
I think I would make or buy an arbor with a round shank and put that in a collet.
 
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