Cutting rolls of heat treat foil

JTknives

JTknives

Blade Heat Treating www.jarodtodd.com
Joined
Jun 11, 2006
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How is everyone cutting down your heat treat foil. We have come across a problem and that is cutting up foil. With the number of knives we get it has become a problem. Yes we gas shield but not often. It’s good for large batches of the same alloy but we see lots of small individual batches of different alloys. So foil is our go to for shielding. We order our rolls 24” wide as that’s the cheapest way. But even after building a shear to cut it straight off the roll it’s still taking to long. So we are wanting to shear it on the roll to 6” wide individual rolls. I was given a narrow roll of foil years ago and it’s the bees knees. So nice to just pull out the length you need and cut it off. Very little if any waste this way. When using 24” rolls you have waste as your always cutting off a 24” long strip.

So this brings us to the question at hand. Does anyone know of a place that sells narrow rolls or will cut rolls down. I’m going to try slitting it on the lathe using a rolling blade like a pizza cutter. Just turn the roll and push the blade into it. I don’t know how well it will work but anything is better then what we are doing now. I found rolls that are 10” wide but that’s way to wide for our uses. Any other ideas?
 
Sounds good to me.
A rolling bladewheel is how most roll products are cut.
Excepting toilet paper/towels. Those are cut with round knife fixtured like a chopsaw.
The roll just needs to be on a strong and snug fitting mandrel.
 
Is it worth at least trying a bandsaw? Wont be a pretty edge, but i dont think that matters at all, right?
 
Try Brown Metals in so Cal, they will slit to any width. For best pricing you might need to buy 100# though. They sell 321 and 304, not sure if they have 309. Get the .002 321 annealed.

Hoss
 
When I want to cut without tearing on carbon fibre arrows I either cut with an abrasive wheel with my rotary tool or else put a fairly fine toothed blade onto my chop saw backwards. The backward blade still cuts but without tearing. Never thought of trying to cut foil, but this might work here too.
 
And don’t think I haven’t thought about rolling it out on the cnc plasma and cutting out pouches. Lol
 
I would try this:
Tightly wrap the places to be cut on the roll in several layers of 3" masking tape. Feed slowly into the bandsaw.
 
I just use trauma shears.
I bought a set of leatherman raptor shears that work well.
 
He is cutting the entire roll all at one time to make a narrower roll... like slicing a loaf of bread.
 
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