What's the application, and does it have to be stainless? Depending on what you're looking for possible source here
https://www.mcmaster.com/rings/material~stainless-steel/

If it can be done safely... could you secure the tube around a sacrificial, longer core (i.e. maybe pressure fit a wooden dowel) and clamp that in the saw to then cut the tube?

Doesn't have to be SS, but wanted to make sure the substance is food safe. I'm making some baking molds. I've ordered some hose clamps that might work, but those have perforations in the metal, which might make removing the items after baking difficult.

Searching on "rings" produces a lot of hits that are actual rings, cylindrical metal formed into a ring, which probably wouldn't work, since, again, the material would be hard to remove after baking. (And wouldn't produce a flat edge.)

The ID is 2.5", so a dowel would be too small. I left out the ID, because I didn't think relevant, but suddenly it is. :-)

But, yeah, I was trying to think of some way to make it effectively longer. Didn't think of something on the inside. Might be able to insert a 2x4 or something.

​

(McMaster-Carr does have a SS tube with thin walls I could buy that might work, but 1 ft length is about $100. And I might be only able to use half of it, because of clamping length requirements.)

Hose clamps for baking molds is definitely a cost effective approach, and would save you a lot of the work of cutting things. Maybe just a liner of aluminum foil or parchment paper inside the clamps would do the trick

You can’t do it without a vice. You will not be able to make a straight cut without one. Get a longer piece.

1/4” is very small. Unless you’re an expert at using a pipe cutter, you’re going to end up with pieces that are 1/4” +/- 1/8”. A longer piece will also let you practice several times to lower the tolerance.

Also google or amazon"baking ring molds" you've got a lot of options, these look fun :)

Yep, I was thinking along those lines. Would hate to have to cut parchment every time, though. I do have some silicone bands that are too thin to hold a round shape, but might be able to line the clamps with those.

I'm hoping the dough is too stiff to go through the perforations. Will just have to try it and see.

Thanks for kicking around the ideas.

precision isn't that important...I'd be OK with 1/8" variation. I am considering a pipe cutter...wasn't sure how well it would with these rather flimsy tubes.

It’s just the easiest tool to use. Shouldn’t deform anything sch5 or higher really, but you have to check.

OK, I'll order one and experiment with it. Can't have too many tools. Thanks for the suggestion.

A machine shop would do it in a lathe for probably very little money.

Make a wooden plug that fits inside. Use a lathe if you have one, but hole saw, bandsaw, hand tools, whatever. Glue it to the end grain of 2x4, then you can just slip the tube over the plug and clamp the 2x4

I was afraid of annoying them with such a little thing. Small $ customers can be so aggravating...

That's where I got the ones that I want to slice up. :-)

If it's a slow day at a small local shop they might just knock it out for something to do. Maybe go drop it off and let them decide when they have down time ....unless you're in a rush for it.

I assume you know what a spring form pan is? You could make your own “rings” like a spring form pan using stainless steel shim stock. The shim stock is flat and you can cut it with good scissors, then roll it up and secure it with a piece of wire or something around the outside.

I thought about something like this, but didn't know what to look for. Shim stock? Half of life is knowing what to Google on.

And I wasn't sure how to close the ring. I do have a MIG welder, but never got around to assembling it.

Make a clamp block out of wood. Drill a hole in the wood the same size as the tube and then split the wood with a saw. Now you can clamp the block in a vise and cut the tube with a hack saw.

Doesn't have to be a dowel. You can put a square peg in a round hole lol. Just size it so the square peg hits all 4 corners a little bit. When you tap it in with a hammer the corners shave off and you have a tight fit.

Yep. Amazon has lots of shim stock options. You probably want to be at 0.01in (0.25mm) thick or less to make it easier to cut.

I would just wrap the outside with stainless steel wire and twist the end like a bread tie.

Find a high school or college with a machine shop program. I could do this for you in five minutes if you walked into my classroom.

use the shim stock with your hose clamp

What tool would you use?

>Glue it to the end grain of 2x4

Gluing to end grain never makes a solid joint.

I'd probably go with a hacksaw and patience

A pipe cutter can do it but they're expensive.

Seems like there should be some biscuit or cookie cutters out there that will work.

Seamless tubing is hard to make, the price reflects the labor more than the material. Stainless strip with a spot weld to make a ring is a cheap process.

If I were doing this in my basement, with the tools on hand, I would do the following.

Insert a long bolt through the tube, add a washer and nut, then tighten firmly.

Clamp the exposed end of the bolt into the soft jaws on the vice.

Use my tubing cutter to portion off the pieces I need.

Disassemble and de-burr.

Failing that, de-burr and lube the tube, then jamb a wooden dowel through it, and take that to the cutoff saw.

My wife disagrees.

>Seems like there should be some biscuit or cookie cutters out there that will work.

They come in sets, so it's an expensive way to go. I'd need a couple of dozen. Biscuit cutters are also probably too deep, being 3/4+. I don't know yet how important the height is; there needs to be some airflow over the baking item so it will dry and brown.

>A pipe cutter can do it but they're expensive.

Yeah, the cheap ones can't handle the diameter and the ones that can seem to get pretty pricey.

I would get a longer pipe and cut my small rounds from that

Try asking your local metal supply amd fab shop. You will get the best results this way

I'm not sure this is well expressed, but try to imagine the steps and how it all fits together.

If gluing doesn't work, try this: smack in the middle of the length of the tube, drill two holes, one on each side of the tube, and run a screw into the wood through each hole. You'll then have a wood piece with SS material over it, with screws going through the SS ring into the wood. The screws keep the ring from rotating.

To cut, clamp the whole thing in a lathe. Turn the lathe and cut the far end of the ring so it has a perfect edge. Then move that tool/blade closer to the mounting screws and cut through the SS. That will give you your first ring. Move the blade one step closer to the mounting screws and make another cut: this will give you your second ring. Continue until you've run out of material.

Tubing Cutter

Run a dowel through the tube leaving enough to hold on to, then use a tubing cutter.

portable bandsaw. you can clamp the tube in place and cut with the band saw. The blade thickness is perfect for this type of work you wish to do.

For a moment, SS meant something so different.

For Gd's sake, if you value your fingers or if you don't want to risk the tube kicking and flying around, then go buy a longer tube. Just not worth it.

Probably solid enough for OP's needs. I wouldn't do it on a chair I planned on sitting in, but for this it should work.

Honestly I'd just cut the end of a 2x4 to get a pressure fit from the ring, but anything big enough to hit the 2.5" ID of the ring should have enough surface area that even end grain to end grain you'd still have some decent hold.

If I'm following correctly based on all your comments etc.

"T bolt hose clamps" is what your looking for. 2.5inch is 64mm and a 10 pack on Amazon for 26$

Lmk if you can't find them and I'll get a link.

Sometimes it’s nice for them to have an easy job and it makes future customers.

lathe with a parting tool

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Oh, yes, very, very close! I see something about a nylon insert locknut. That sounds like a problem in an oven. Is that just one particular design or are all brands likely to have that?

Could have attracted a very different audience!

So you'll see a "bolt" and "lock nut" the lock nut is the part with the nylon, it should be removable and swapped for a "jam nut" there may also be some with no nuts and just a threaded insert that will also be no problem.

Fantastic! I'll order a few of these. They seem to be thicker than I wanted, but they still might work fine; I won't know until I try them. Thanks for the idea.

When it comes in, take the nut off and swing by hardware store. I do not suggest galvanized nuts they can let off a smell when heated.

Hopefully I can find some SS ones, then. I'll have to bake them first to make sure there aren't other nasty substances hidden on them.

Good thing this is a sacrificial piece of wood that will get thrown out

Well yeah if he has a metal lathe he could just do the whole job there... I'm assuming he doesn't because nobody who owns a metal lathe would ask this question.

Sacrificial or not, what good will it be when it breaks off while OP is cutting?

End grain joints are super, super weak.

Definitely a bandsaw but a bench bandsaw would be better.

"So there was this youth league I used to be in and they gave me this ring I'm trying to get off"

"I used to work as a camp counselor and they gave me this ring I'm trying to get off."

I got you.. get some pack-n-fill packs and break a hole in each side. Put in a large garbage bag so they have room to extrude. Fill them within the tube outside the garbage bag. It makes a big rigid expanded foam used in delicate shipping. They expand massively!

>End grain joints are super, super weak.

They really aren't. They're a little weaker than a side-grain glue joint. Maybe.

Get a couple chunks of 2x4, glue them end to end properly with wood glue and clamps, and I bet you $1000 you cannot break that joint. The wood will break first.

I would never do this in furniture, but there is evidence that an end grain joint is not as weak as it traditional joinery topology has made it out to be. Modern wood glues are a lot better than traditional hide glues and end grain joints can be surprisingly strong. Rob cosman on the subject: https://youtu.be/l_w_or3KhH4

For a temporary, practical use, I think you could get away with it.

Hammer a dowel rod into it. Clamp the dowel, cut away.

2" diameter PVC pipe gas a 2.375" OD and is cheap. Use something to take up the extra 1/16" each side.

For something that size, I'd probably just be patient with a dremel , cutoff wheels and a bunch of patience - especially if I'm trying to get as many rings out of it as I can. No form would be needed to hold it; you could mark the height you're cutting off on the tube and hold it with either vice grips or a good glove (it will get hot).

How thick of a wall do you need? Just get a foot long piece of straight stainless exhaust tubing from summit racing and make them from that.

Can you not just buy the baking molds you want? There has to be thousands to choose from on Amazon or similar

>straight stainless exhaust tubing from summit racing

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/stw-2-5hss-2?seid=srese1&gclid=CjwKCAiAqt-dBhBcEiwATw-ggCAQKQMXPgs2qbzpNtzDoyuTyOVIKa9e1Ua0EhB1FnQY4vUr2bunrRoCIQIQAvD_BwE

2ft for $38!

No, I've spent hours looking. My purpose is non-standard--I'm going to use them for cookies and people don't use molds for cookies. That's why I wanted them about 1/4"H. I'm worried that taller ones will make them brown funny, but I won't know until I try. I did find some that were 2.5Dx 0.75H" high on a restaurant supply site. For 3.0" D, the height jumps to 1.0".

This is totally trivial with a lathe and cutoff/parting tool if you can find one - community colleges, maker spaces, etc. Also any metalworking shop, of course.

Lots an lots of places have maker spaces these days, so even if you didn't want to bug a local metal shop, i have to imagine it wouldn't be that tricky to find a maker space with a lathe that can handle this.

I was just pricing one at Harbor Freight....$800. If I had any other use for it, I might go for it. I understand they can be pretty dangerous, though, if you don't know what you're doing. And I don't. :-)

Yeah, for a one-off it's easier to find someone with one.

If you are going to do stuff like this overall, i'd take a community college metalworking class. They are usually very cheap, and things like lathes/mills are very easy to learn. They often have ones you can use once you pass safety training.

Metalworking lathes, for simple things like this, are relatively safe. Definitely much safer than woodworking lathes.

I am well aware how strong modern wood glues are but end grain joints are weaker than shit. I make money woodworking, I've seen enough "idiot customer requests" that I knew would have failed joints that this idiot woodworker thought, again, a warning that they would fail would mean the customer wouldn't come back at me as though it was my fault.

Did Google tell you that? I bet it did.

Google should also tell you how easily end grain tears right the fuck out which is why you don't make end grain joints and don't put screws into end grain.

I see I'm up against the Googlers tonight. Y'all have a good weekend, I'm gonna go turn some maple bowls.

If OP had a lathe couldn't they just use that to cut the tube into pieces without anything extra?

Fair enough. Good luck

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Screws and nails into end grain, never. That is super weak.

Glue into end grain... not recommended by master carpenters I guess but for holding a jig together it's fine. Especially if it's a short fat piece of wood like a chunk of 2x4. I've done it before, and when the glue cures, it's near enough unbreakable. It's not "super super weak" like you were saying... you're thinking of screws into end grain.

I hadn't bothered googling it, was just talking from experience, but since you rudely called me a googler I went ahead and found this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7HxBa9WVis It shows that you can break the end-grain glue up at the glue joint, BUT it takes more force to break the glue joint than it does to break the wood on a side-glued joint. So I was partially wrong, the glue will break before the wood if you glue end grain to end, but it is still super strong.

If he had a metal lathe yes. Clearly he's not a metalworker. But it was still possible he had a wood lathe.

I guess you could cut stainless steel tube on a wood lathe, slowly, maybe? But you'd have to make that plug to hold it on the lathe anyway, at which point it's faster to take it out and use it as your clamping jig on the cutoff saw. Not to mention safer

Oh, I thought you had a SchutzStaffel ring and came here to advice against slicing it, but nvm carry on

Longer tube, stainless blade in drop saw, like this

Hacksaw it with a thin blade. If you have any manual skill that it. Should be easy, as long as you can keep a straight cut line.

Don’t bother with mcmastercarr— waste of money for a hobbyist.

They charge a lot extra for materials because their business model revolves around supplying materials ASAP — overnight delivery to most industrially zoned addresses.

Residentialsndont get overnight delivery so you’re just paying a lot for something you can get anywhere else (McMaster carr makes 0 products)

Look into a metal supply in your area

Silicone tubes would be a lot easier to cut, and cheap too. I just found some food grade ones at eBay... https://www.ebay.com/itm/Food-Grade-Clear-Silicone-Rubber-Hose-Tubing-Brew-Hose-ID-0-5mm-50mm-OD-1mm-60mm/144007235098?chn=ps&var=443290852298&_trkparms=ispr=1&amdata=enc:11Z4pf3TBRqyFO1Ws2h3DRA68&norover=1&mkrid=711-117182-37290-0&mkcid=2&mkscid=101&itemid=443290852298_144007235098&device=t&mktype=pla&googleloc=1018251&campaignid=17597089569&abcId=9300988&merchantid=424807978&gclid=Cj0KCQiAzeSdBhC4ARIsACj36uFFOT6v2v3GhtCNUxa3Ifc2GcGljGgDZOIQveNnICwXjzmkH4TKsf0aArCmEALw_wcB&pageci=7c238ab5-83b2-4502-8695-b12a15b904e3&redirect=mobile

I had no idea such things existed! This item doesn't come with a big enough ID, but I'll look around. Thanks!