Always good to have some blood spattered around just to keep the crime scene people in work!  (As a diabetic I get to test my blood and inject insulin a bunch of times a day---one reason I went with the pump is so I only have to shove the needle in once every 3 days.

There is another way of looking at it, particularly since we are all blacksmiths. Lest we forget an old blacksmith saying. "Spend a minute in the forge and save an hour with a file".  Now we all know a grinder is much faster than a file, so if i want to make a file be as fast as a grinder, i guess ill just spend two minutes at my forge. Then i wont need a file. And now my file is as fast as my grinder,  Such benefits,,, more time playing in the flame, no noise, nothing flying around, no electricity, and best of all, i dont have to buy all those grinder consumables.  I call that the ultimate grinder ppe. 

Not having electricity to the shop I hot cut a pick head to get a shaft to make a drift from last Sunday.  I think it would have been faster with an angle grinder; or with a minion to hold so I could use a sledge rather than the 3# hammer.

Even with electricity in a shop, Got to heat it up to forge it anyway, might as well cut it hot. 

I have a large industrial angle grinder; it's actually easier/faster to cut it cold if I'm minionless.   I didn't want to haul it to the house as the outside plug is near our wood pile with quite a lot of flammable detritus laying about.

We got a piece of 2 1/2" round mild steel jammed in the Tereflex track on a remote job. It just came up out of the brush, whatever the rig was  going over and it wedged between growser bars, bogy wheel and a torsion bar on the walking beam. There was no going forward, backward and we were faced with breaking the growsers loose with no guarantee it would free the bar. 

So, I took a hack saw to it, laying on my side and darned if it took almost a whole minute to cut it through. Seriously, less than a minute.

Unless it's medium or better carbon steel you can probably cut it with a hack saw faster than you can get it hot enough to cut on a hardy or top cut. Let alone pack both bar and great big disk grinder to the house and back.

You have to use the hack saw correctly of course and it really helps if you can find the right tooth count but don't underestimate how fast and surprisingly easy a hack saw is.

Frosty The Lucky.

Along with the hacksaw helps keep the biceps & triceps in shape.

Lol, i have a long and passionate relation with my hacksaw's.  When cutting with a hacksaw in my shop, not getting rid of boogers and traps in the wilds, you have to be aware of saw kerf, a silly couple of millimeters can be critical. It can really screw up your day when you are cutting the hinge joint on a 3 knuckle barrel and forget,,,

My go to hacksaw for "rough cutting" is a bowsaw frame that I mount sections of bandsaw blade in. Never had one break on me and works a treat at the scrapyard or out in the wild.  I also put fine toothed BSB's on my regular shop hacksaws for more precise work.   My 180# fork lift tine was mounted on a solid steel rod that was rusted in place.  I cut it free on a spoil bank with a steep slope and trees growing through the 50 year old forklift remains with that bow saw.  (One trick is to punch the mounting holes a slight bit closer to increase the blade tension as compared to the wood cutting blades.)

1 hour ago, ThomasPowers said:

My go to hacksaw for "rough cutting" is a bowsaw frame that I mount sections of bandsaw blade in. 

What tooth count?

Whatever I found in the scrap stream.

I have a 4 1/2 inch angle grinder, and now barely use it anymore, I started to do most of my work by hand. As anvil said, rather spend 2 minutes in the forge to make my files as fast as the angle grinder. I did have two close calls in the year that I've been using it, one exploding grinder disk, but I took safety precautions and nothing came of it. the second one got a bit closer, and I got a cup wire wheel stuck in my clothing. luckily the angle grinder stopped spinning and I could quickly unplug it before it ripped my clothes. And why did this happen? I used the tool for the first time, while starting to get tired, and the kicked back into me because I didn't take the time to secure the piece well enough. second time using it and I took everything outside to have enough working space, and I haven't had any problems since.

On 4/15/2021 at 2:12 AM, pnut said:

Have you seen the table saws with the safety brake that stops them if they hit flesh. I watched a demo of a hot dog stopping it? Didn't even break the casing. 

Pnut

Is such a thing really possible?

I've seen videos of them. They always seem to use a hot dog. I wouldn't trust it with My fingers. 

When the mechanism triggers it looks pretty destructive to the saw. If it didn't work, well, it would be pretty destructive to your hot dog. 

I think it destroys one component that you can buy replacement parts for and not the whole saw.

My grandpa split his finger (not the whole finger, but enough of it) with a table saw in his younger years. I bet he would have traded a few dollars in parts to save himself a hospital trip.

No doubt. Even the whole table saw replacement cost would be less expensive than an emergency room trip. 

I just rewatched some of the videos on this saw. You are correct that it is just a matter of replacing the blade and the braking mechanism. 

The biggest problem I have with the Sawstop technology is that you will now have to cut your hot dogs with a bandsaw.

Steve

What no Machete in your shop?

I use the hot cut hardy and wood mallet. Just be careful not to get a finger in between them (no fail-safe there).

Machetes are for pizza! Have you no couth, Thomas? 

I recommend limb loppers for hot dogs, especially frozen ones.

Frosty The Lucky.

 

Steve, no worries. You can bypass the safety on the sawstop for when you need to cut wood with a high moisture content or if you feel like cutting through a nail that you pounded into the end of a board. It will also cut your hot dog in this state. 

Pizza cut on a table saw! Brilliant! Well, if you like strips or squares. Someone probably has a hack to cut wedges. 

A crosscut sled works well for that, especially with locator pins to set the correct angle.

Memo to self: Do not loan any power tools to these folks!

And Frosty; down here Machetes are the general purpose tool used for branches, chorizo, negotiations, etc.

I recall seeing something on the news about a Machete being used for a branch . . . withdrawal down your way, Thomas. Those are all valid uses though.

I've used one to flip trout in the pan on a camping trip. When I first moved here we used to have those round robin, 'I thought YOU brought the xx!' on camping trips. 

I'm going to have to make a spring die for a LG tortilla press now.

Frosty The Lucky.

On 9/9/2021 at 2:49 PM, Stash said:

now have to cut your hot dogs with a bandsaw

I personally prefer chainsaws for hot dot cutting but then again I always have a pile of chainsaws around the shop so maybe I’m biased