Steel Pipe and Tube Cutting Services and Capabilities
Across applications ranging from plumbing and chemical processing to all manners of construction, energy production, the automotive and agricultural industries, or throughout many manufacturing and fabrication processes, the versatility of steel pipes and round tubes is tough to top. Just as valuable as what steel pipes and round tubes can do for you is everything you can do to them. From welding, drilling, and punching to notching, grinding, beveling, and more, the first steps in any light fabrication will likely include a cutting process. While home DIYers can use convenient hand tools to cut nearly any steel pipe for home improvement projects or personal use, industrial steel suppliers have diverse, scalable solutions and cutting capabilities to meet any application.
Our cut-to-length processing and cutting services enable Westfield Steel customers to do more with all sizes, lengths, grades, and types of hot-rolled steel, stainless steel, and aluminum pipes or round tubes. This blog post examines some of the specific cutting capabilities and benefits of various equipment we use at Westfield Steel.
TSUNE Cold Saw
One of Westfield Steel’s latest additions, the TSUNE TK130GL, is Westfield Steel’s first circular cold saw. Part of an investment to expand our capabilities and improve efficiencies earlier this year, it is the fastest-cutting saw in our facility.
Cold sawing commonly uses basic blade designs to make perpendicular cuts and leaves few to no sharp burrs. It’s a popular cutting method because it leaves no heat-affected zones on the pipes or tubes, as a spray mist coolant cools the cutting areas. It is effective with pipes and round tubes as well as smaller-profile square and rectangle tubes. It has user-friendly controls that allow for minute tolerance dimensions that can be applied to multiple parts in one cutting motion.
While we knew it would be a high-performance machine, even our skilled experts were surprised by the TSUNE’s speed and output. Thanks in part to the saw’s automated feed and loading mechanisms, it can make cuts as frequently as every five seconds and is approximately ten times faster than our collection of horizontal band saws.
Modern Machine Auto Cut-off Lathes
Limited to working with round products only, lathe-cutting machines are designed for high-production cutting, most commonly with tubes, bars, or pipes. As a partially automated process, lathe-cutting operators feed tube stock through a clamping spindle mechanism that rotates the tube against the cutting tools.
For our three Modern machines, the tube length cannot exceed 20 feet for basic cutting. Moreover, our Modern lathes are capable of ID grooves for hydraulic cylinders and can cut products with diameters from 5/16” up to 3”.
Lathe cutting is popular and effective with thin-walled materials, producing square cuts with minimal burring. Initial costs and setup times can be higher than other methods or machines, but the lathe-cutting process produces high yields at high speeds and ultimately saves suppliers and customers time and money.
Hyd-Mech and Amada Horizontal Band Saws
Versatile, automated, and efficient with minimal material wasted or lost to the cutting process, Westfield Steel’s collection of traditional Hyd-Mech and Amada horizontal band saws can cut large quantities effectively. With seamless and unending blades for a wide range of products and materials, band saw models can feature various teeth profiles or include shuttles to cut pipes or tubes to almost any size while easily creating other profiles such as beams, angles, squares, channels, extrusions, and more.
Band saw cutting is more likely to produce a burr and may not be able to achieve the absolute tightest of tolerances versus other methods, but it is a fully automatic process that is excellent for large-volume cutting. Band sawing is most suitable for cutting entire bundles of many metal products at once or with those featuring diameters greater than five inches and heavy walls. The process can distort thin-walled tubing, and some round products may need to be tack-welded to prevent rolling or spinning.
Westfield Steel: A Cut Above
When we say, “We do more with steel,” we mean it. Westfield Steel’s expansive cut-to-length processing capabilities are just some of the many value-added services our experts can apply to your steel pipes, round tubes, and similar products.
How can Westfield Steel help get your job done faster? Speak with a steel expert today to learn how our steel pipe-cutting and delivery capabilities can serve your supply chain.
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