cutting stainless steel tank - best cutting approach?

[jimbunyard]

Originally Posted by Madehn

i have almost every tool mentioned here-- occilating tool like a Fein will not work well on this task- plasma cutter will work but be sure you have liability insurance paid up and a quick way out-- best response i saw was this--"ike the man said, cut-off wheels (1/16") and a 4-1/2" angle grinder. You'll need LOTS of wheels. A Metabo grinder is the best, but if you can't find that at least a Makita or another quality brand. If you 'hog' the tool - put too much pressure on it when cutting - you'll probably need more than one grinder. Best to have a back-up grinder anyway, let one cool down while the other one works.
Wear real safety glasses AND a face shield. It's not uncommon for these wheels to come apart at very high rpm. An old welding hood with the clear lens in place but without the dark lens works well also. It's gonna be very noisy; ear plugs or better for hearing protection. I'd wear a respirator. Once you get a feel for it and make your first cut completely thru, you'll be amazed at how well it cuts. Draw the wheel back & forth with moderate pressure on your cut-line till it cuts thru, (you'll know!) and go. Don't tell anybody, but when I do this stuff (and I do a lot of it) I get rid of the handle on the grinder, and (gasp!) the guard. In a confined space both are a PITA, but if you haven't done a lot of grinding better at least leave the guard in place. Wear gloves, (thick ones) and use both hands to hang onto that tool! No one handed grinding or cutting." i think he said it best. have the fire extinguishers clsoe and dont be alon when you do it so that if something goes wrong there is somebody to help also really good advice to have a couple of extinguishers close

Have to say this is the post that most follows my approach, and I do a (comparatively) lot of metal cutting. I too eschew both the guard and the handle, but for extended cutting both eye and lung protection are a necessity.

Also, practice on something in the open before if you've never done this, and keep your face out of the cutting plane.

If the OP is in reach of a Home Depot (or some other stockist), these discs, in my experience, cut fastest and last the longest.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Diablo-4...701F/202830999

[Singularity]

One more vote for an angle grinder.

Recently removed a SS tank starting with a sawzall. Angle grinder was much faster though it made a bigger mess and offered a greater chance of safety excitement. I'd only suggest a sawzall if cleanliness was a paramount concern. As the metallurgist said...you have to go very slowly with the sawzall unless you want the blade to last mere seconds (why must I spent $4 re-proving this to myself every time I try to cut metal).


One more vote for eye/face shield protection, particularly with the angle grinder.

[dcstrng]

Grinder and 4.5" wheels... Practice (always a good notion especially for those of us who don't do this for a living) on some 4130, or similar, and the 304/316 will seem like butter... well, not quite, but...

[hellosailor]

I had only seen Diablo at HD and assumed it was one of their house things, but I've also seen Diablo blades been shown at a home show competition, making some good brand names look like junk. FWIW.

You might want to look at an industrial gas supplier, for some cheap CO2 or nitrogen, or dump a bag full of crushed dry ice into the tank, to flood it with inert gas if you're expecting things to get sparky.

[tworail]

Diablo is a brand made by Freud Tools and well regarded I believe. About as far from a HD house brand as you could get. I have used one of their metal cutting discs mentioned in this thread to cut apart the fuel tank and while it worked OK it dulled after 10 mins of use and wasn't a viable option. For other applications it would probably work great. It also didn't do anything to the stainless steel except heat up the metal.

Diablo also seems to be the only brand that offers proper carbide tipped sawzall blades. I had to special order them at my local hardware store, since they don't typically carry them and I don't feel like driving to the closest big box store since it's about 50km away - assuming they had them in stock.

I did try this style of Milwaukee blade with continuous edge coated with fairy dust which was pricey but mostly useless:

[captwylie]

Tricks I have learned from working on SS pipe are circular saw with abrasive blade, plasma arc is the easiest but it throws a lot of fire, welding machine with cut throat rods, they look like welding rods but they are made for cutting metal. You can use an acetylene torch but you cant use the air lever. Adjust the flame with a 1 inch long feather and melt it off moving back and forth to direct the drips. Again a lot of fire. An angle grinder with cutting disk will get the job done but use the guard . I have seen workers get a disk in the face when using a disk that had been broken while laying on the ground then came apart when the grinder was turned on. Not a pretty sight.

[arcticmonkey]

re stainless tanks
same problem... I contacted a mobile welding guy... asked advice hired him and his buddy... a couple of hundred bucks later ... done... took him less than an hour... slick.... I spent the rest of the day cleaning up

[jimbunyard]

Not exactly sure what universe you're cutting in, but when cutting (abrading) ferrous metals with a grinding wheel, the wheel doesn't dull, it wears away (provided one uses the right speed and feed), hence the recommendation for lung protection (the disc is fiberglass).

Given your apparent difficulties, I'm curious if the tank isn't actually monel or some other such unusual alloy. The disc illustrated cuts stainless very well indeed, from 16 gauge through 1/2".

As for Home Depot, don't use them if you want, I prefer not to if I can avoid it, but they are Diablo stockists.