Saddle Cut Tubing

Hi Franko,

I have had poor experience with shallow pitch canopies. They always seem to puddle water, no matter how tight I stretched them.

Something that I did years ago was to make a Quonset style canopy. I was doing some boat work myself, sanding, scraping, priming, painting, and wanted to keep the boat dry. The advantage of the Quonset is the low peak and shallow pitch in the middle but the steep pitch for drainage at the edges.

I used some 9/16" steel rod salvaged from silo tie rod but 3/4" conduit or similar should work as well. I bent the rod into the proper curvature and sunk the bows into the ground to create the frame. I don't recall how I tied them together; I may have just lashed cross bars in place. The canopy material was one of the ubiquitous r-enforced poly tarps which was stretched over the frame and staked to the ground.

You would have multiple options depending on whether you wanted a take-down or "permanent" structure. some tee and/or cross connectors could be used to make assembly easier. Bow materials could be solid rod, thin wall conduit, or sch. 40 pipe. A larger diameter PVC pipe could also be used, the advantage being tees and crosses for connectors are readily available.

If you decide to go with the roughing end mill for notching, I would suggest cutting a vee notch with the band saw first. Much less material to mill out.

Bob
 
I appreciate all the comments and discussion. Thanks, guys. :)

GarageGuy said:
A vertical mill is the ultimate tubing notcher. Your angles should be way more precise than with your HF notcher. The rigidity of the mill should make it smoother to use too. Less chatter and runout. A high quality bi-metal hole saw should work great. Like Stan mentioned above, a huge roughing mill would be even better, but very pricey! :eek 2:
GG
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The hole saw will probably work, GG, but I found a 1.5" cobalt roughing end mill on Amazon for about $25, so I'll give it a shot at it. The thing about hole saws is they don't always cut their advertised diameter. The way to go may be to start with a 1.375" hole saw and finish the cut with the roughing mill.

I have some good hex-shaft arbors that hold them very well. I never planned to use the center drill on this.

savarin said:
Having made loads of bicycles without a tube notcher I had to cut them by hand and angle grinder.
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Savarin, the second link just took me to a Java download. The first link is for Windows and I use a Mac.
I have 18 saddle cuts to make for this project, and maybe 4 or 8 more for mid-span braces, so I don't think I want to hand grind them.

RJSakowski said:
Hi Franko,
I have had poor experience with shallow pitch canopies. They always seem to puddle water, no matter how tight I stretched them.

Something that I did years ago was to make a Quonset style canopy. I was doing some boat work myself, sanding, scraping, priming, painting, and wanted to keep the boat dry. The advantage of the Quonset is the low peak and shallow pitch in the middle but the steep pitch for drainage at the edges.
Bob
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That's a possibility, Bob. I thought I might make some additional braces (maybe a couple on each side of the center) that would slide on over the side tube. Even a steep pitch canopy will pool snow and water. My plan was to have enough width to over-hang the boat by a foot or so on each side and don't run the tarp over the side tubes, just up to them, to let water run off the sides.
 
I may have gotten a very good deal on the 1.5" roughing end mill I ordered. I went back to see who made it and when I clicked on the link in my purchases, the price was listed today at $111. I paid $25 for it yesterday.

It is made by Sandvik in Sweden.

YG-1 E2248 Cobalt Steel Square Nose End Mill, Weldon Shank, Uncoated (Bright) Finish, 30 Deg Helix, 6 Flutes, 4.25" Overall Length, 1.5" Cutting Diameter, 0.75" Shank Diameter.

The one pictured is, of course, not 1.5".

71dQCA5sbfL._SL1500_.jpg
 
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Wow, yea that's a steal!


Stan,
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Franko,
Could you use galvanised mesh bent in a fairly flat arc for the roof. A friend and I made a free standing pergola in this way and the cover does'nt pool except for a tiny bit at the very top which the wind blows off anyway.Would show pics but the structure is 3000 miles away.
John.
 
Everyone loves tool talk so I will mention this only as another option for down the road. While you now have a pretty awesome rougher, every couple of months Enco has a set of endmills for sale, that range in size of maybe 1/2" upto or around 1.5" they are pretty affordable in the 80 dollar range. I use the 1" and 1.25" one to clean up tubing notches done with hole saws or other means. I would think for the size tubing your are looking to mess with, these would leave a nicer cut area (though for your purposes I am sure it has little to no effect. Might be worth looking into if other size tubing is something you do.

Rich
 
Franko said:
I may have gotten a very good deal on the 1.5" roughing end mill I ordered. I went back to see who made it and when I clicked on the link in my purchases, the price was listed today at $111. I paid $25 for it yesterday.

It is made by Sandvik in Sweden.

YG-1 E2248 Cobalt Steel Square Nose End Mill, Weldon Shank, Uncoated (Bright) Finish, 30 Deg Helix, 6 Flutes, 4.25" Overall Length, 1.5" Cutting Diameter, 0.75" Shank Diameter.

The one pictured is, of course, not 1.5".
Click to expand...

Holy smokes, for a Sandvik cutter that size you got a screaming good deal. You win!

GG
 
I had no idea what I was buying. I saw cobalt roughing mill and $25, and thought, "It's probably crap, but might make it through this job." I had been looking at Shars for about $48. They adjusted the price the next morning after my was being shipped.
 
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