Of course, Nathan's description of throwing sparks everywhere just made me want to try it myself. Unfortunately, the reality was different. And at Toolbane, catastrophic.
I went to Ace yesterday and bought two cutting blades for the grinder. One was 5/8, the other 7/8 (I think -- the point is, they were different sizes, okay?).
I set everything up, clearing out plenty of space so nothing would get burned by molten sparks. I attached the 5/8 x 4" wheel, measured to be sure it would cut through the aluminum, and started cutting.
No sparks, but a whole lot of loud. Next time I go to Ace, I'm buying ear protection. There was also an awful smell, which I assume was burning metal, and lots of aluminum dust. I tried hard not to breathe.
Before long, the wheel wasn't 4" long any more. It couldn't actually cut through; I had to cut from the bottom. That made a really ragged cut.
And useless, too. I needed a piece with a flat top, about 3 fingers wide (no side at this spot on the mount, so a guess was sufficient), and long enough to put two bolts through. The piece I was looking at was definitely not it.
So I set everything up again. This time I used my "square" to draw a couple of parallel lines to cut on. Then I attached the larger wheel. Neat setup, that. The grinder supports both 5/8 and 7/8 wheels through a clever shaft configuration.
It was very hard keeping the grinder on the line. After I scored it, I started cutting through from the edge, just to make sure it call all the way through.
Loud, loud, LOUD!
Suddenly everything got a lot quieter and easier. Then I noticed no cutting was actually being accomplished.
Toolbane is a magnificent garage; it won't allow anything to work as expected on its premises. The cutting wheel had flown apart. You can see the pieces in the first picture in this entry.
Tomorrow I have a date with my wife, so I'll be getting back to this on Saturday. With ear protection.
I've been swamped with family stuff for a couple of weeks; very little has gotten done on the EV. Nathan came over Saturday to fix that. He did make some progress, but not as much as he'd hoped. He also left behind a trail of stuff that needed atte
Tracked: May 15, 16:17