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
Yeah, those shouldn't wobble around much!

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
 
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
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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