Chop Saw Stand?

[Aaronsmith8265]

Hello all.

I am a 2nd year University student studying Industrial design.
For one of my projects, I am looking at developing a Stand for Chop Saws.
As I have seen that there is a lot of Chop Saws and Abrasive Chop Saw, however, I can not see any stands like there is for Mitre Saws.
So I wanted to see if it is a product people might be interested in using in their line of work.

Any feedback would be great for my project.


Thank you

 

[Trevanion]

Generally, if you’ve got a abrasive or cold saw, you’ve also got a welder, so I’d imagine most would make their own stand for about £20 in materials and about an hour of time rather than buy one for circa £100.

Also these machines tend to be used on the floor anyway since the material tends to be too heavy and long to easily manoeuvre onto a stand.

 

[Sideways]

I second that.
Chop saws are a jobsite tool. Contractors don't want to carry unnecessary gear so it just get put on the ground for use. Metal tube, sections and rebar that are commonly cut on site tend to be heavy and / or long so they would be hard work to lift up onto a stand and any H&S benefit of not having to bend over while cutting would be offset by a much greater manual handling toll in bending and lifting the stock up and down off the ground, potentially turning a one man job into a two man job, and the hazard of heavy stock falling off the stand and injuring someone.
Lighweight metal cutting can now be done with cordless bandsaws / metal cutting circ saws, and if you wanted to work at waist height, something like a triton superjaws would be well suited to hold the stock though it's heavy to lug around.
In a factory setting, the chop saw would be on a bench or more likely there would be a powered hacksaw or metal cutting bandsaw sitting alongside the bar stock in the raw material stores. these would be served by an overhead crane to do the lifting.

 

[chaoticbob]

Hi Aaron. I haven't any industrial experience of using chopsaws so I can't answer your question as posed. You've had a couple of answers from people better informed than me which suggest that dedicated chop saw stands don't yet exist because there isn't a real need or market (not always the same thing!) for them. However I have quite a lot of experience in devising and marking second/third year uni projects, albeit in chemistry and physics rather than engineering, and can comment from that perspective.

You don't say if this project was imposed on you - 'your project is to design a chop saw stand' - or if you were asked to make up your own question then answer it. Either way you will be assessed mainly on your ability to implement the design principles you've been taught. It would be great if a second year project resulted in something useful, but in my experience that doesn't happen, and project supervisors don't expect it. It's all about getting the basic skills under your belt at this point in your career.
I think it's good that you've asked here (and presumably elsewhere) for advice. It's actually OK to say 'I had an idea, researched it, and found out it wasn't so great' in a project report. Shows initiative and flexibility of mind. Edison (I think) said that he hadn't failed 1000 times, he'd succeeded in finding 1000 things that didn't work.
Best wishes, Bob.

 

[TFrench]

I work on industrial sites - mainly food industry. I don't actually see chop saws all that often - big stuff tends to be fabbed off site and smaller stuff is done with a 4" grinder. When you do see them, it's generally electricians using them for unistrut and conduit. I can actually see a stand being handy for those guys - the material they're using isnt that heavy. Plus sparkys are magpies - put a dewalt or milwaukee sticker on it and they have to have it :lol:

 

[Sideways]

Times change. Every major tool maker will offer a sparky a choice of cordless bandsaws, cordless recip saws and at least one metal cutting circ saw. Any of these will cut unistrut and conduit with ease. It's what they were designed for.
Most times I've personally seen a traditional chop saw used has been for for cutting rebar when reinforced concrete foundations are being cast on site to anchor heavy (say 50 tons & upwards) machines.