This is one jig that took me much less time than I expected and turned out one of the most useful tool adaptions I have made ... turning my angle grinder into a mini chop saw for cutting off little metal parts, like ready-rod, bolts and so on, for all the woodworking jigs I am making.
Watch it on Youtube: https://youtu.be/Jcmqv1mwHE4
It's not that my angle grinder doesn't do a good job on its own, but it would be nice to have something that worked like a small saw, and this jig turned out to be very easy to make ...
I started off by getting a few pieces of wood together, my base was some 3/4" plywood, the wood to hold the actual angle grinder was some 3/8 construction grade plywood and the hinges to hold the angle grinder was simply some old garden gate hinges I purchased many years ago and never used because I ended up changing the whole garden entrance location. The nice thing about the hinges is that they have built-in springs, so they are self-closing hinges. When I did some preliminary testing to see if the hinge was strong enough, I found that it actually took 2 hinges to hold up the angle grinder. No problem ... I would just need to make the holder for the angle grinder wide enough to accommodate the 2 hinges.
I first of all laid out all the pieces I needed in a way that was a mock-up of what the jig would look like assembled. This way I could cut all the parts to size, When this was done, I again used the layout to mark where the hose clamps would need to be fed through the 3/8" plywood that would be holding the angle grinder. To cut the slots to feed the hose clamps through, I used my Multi-Tool, but if you don't have one of these, the blade from a hacksaw or a recip saw, can do the same thing. Just use the blade and drag it back and forth until the blade finally penetrates the plywood. I used this method for many years and it takes longer, but still works.
After the clamp holes are made, I was then able to assemble all the major components of the jig, feed the hose clamps through and even attach the angle grinder to see if it positioned correctly, which mine did. I did add one little block of wood so that I could easily re-position the angle grinder when I need to take it off the jig and reattach it later.
At this point, the jig is nearly complete. I did add some feet to mine to lift it off the workbench so that the cut-off wheel would have some space above where it is cutting and not cut into my workbench. I also added some anti-skid material to the base to keep it from sliding on my workbench.
The last thing I added was a stopper or block that I could use to abutt the rods and bolts and so on that I am cutting. a small piece of wood works fine and is easy to clamp the pieces to that I am going to be cutting off.
And finally ... the first test cut, and it couldn't have gone smoother. The cut-off tool worked perfectly .. and I could see this was going to be a great addition to my workshop, a homemade, metal chop saw made from an angle grinder.
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