Over at a Plumbing question thread, I mentioned using a cutting wheel on a grinder to cut soft copper, and my actual plumber friend chilcutt questioned my veracity for using this approach. Not that I'm complaining, if you think of a normal angle grinder wheel, it does sound whack.

Here's some pics of the kind of cutting wheel I was talking about. In my experience, not too many people know about these -- one job I was on, I persuaded the supe to buy a box of them, and this guy had way more experience running jobs than me and it was the first he'd heard or seen of them.

Good lord, I've had that li'l tool box for my grinder for more than 12 years -- some sort of weird emotional attachment.

I got the number wrong in the earlier thread -- they're .045" thick. Hard to find sometimes -- White Cap supply has them as well as many welding shops. I propped up a normal grinding wheel next to it for comparison. These things cut through steel very nicely -- much less room for difficulty than with a sawsall, for example. But be careful. That little wheel will do a number on your fingers, especially with the guard removed, like I've got it. Once, the blade sort of caught in the steel and it whipped around and bore down on my little finger. I stuck my finger in my mouth to prevent dripping blood on the floor (not to mention to recycle nutrients) and later, while I was bandaging the finger, I noticed something in my mouth. It was a small chunk of flesh! Recycled that too.

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K