Cutting mooring ground chain in-situ?

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Trevelyan

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I need to cut some heavy (20mm++) ground chain and am wondering if it is feasible to do this in-situ? No prior experience dealing with anything that big. Hacksaw? (how long will that take!) Battery powered angle grinder?

All advice much appreciated,

Trev
 
Should be easy to cut with a hacksaw fitted with a quality blade.(Note not a junior hacksaw).Probably take about 5mins.I take it you are not cutting underwater.
 
If the bar from which the chain is made is, in fact, 20mm in diameter an hacksaw is a non-starter. That's the normal nomenclature for chain - the bar diameter.

I'd suggest hiring a large angle-grinder and a portable generator. If the bar is, as is more likely, 10mm a hacksaw with plenty of good blades is a viable alternative - don't forget for every cut you make you have to do one on the other side of the link.
 
Rather than a grinder and generator, get a petrol-driven cutter such as a stihl stone saw (with a metal cutting blade or two) - cuts out the risk of electrocution and is more portable.

Potential downside - easy to melt your trouser leg with the rooster tail of sparks it produces!
 
If I had that job to do then I think I would be reaching for my angle grinder and generator.

Oxy-acetylene would probably do very nicely, but if you had that to hand you wouldn't be asking here :)

I've never used a battery powered grinder. I guess a decent one (Makita etc) would probably be fine. I'd be wary of DIY shed cheapies - the cost-cutting is mostly in the batteries and it might well not last the job.

A hacksaw would do the job eventually, assuming the chain isn't some special steel.

But for me it's grinder and genny.

Pete
 
Cutting 20mm bar with a hacksaw is dead easy. I still cut 19 mm ground chain from time to time ( I sell it) if I have no power supply
As a teenager i had to cut tons of steel with only a hacksaw I can still remember the boredom as a 14 year old not being allowed to enjoy school hols but work the whole time. If I was not cutting it I was bending the B...dy stuff for reinforcing

You need a steady even stroke with the steel clamped solid
Do not rock the blade & use its full length. hold the saw in 2 hands - one on the handle & one on the outer end of the frame
do not pull to one side. keep steady straight strokes
I can assure you that I have cut a number of 8 inch * 4 inch rsj's with an ordinary eclipse hacksaw & it does not actually take that long
( yes i know - try telling kids of today etc etc but it is true)
 
I've been slowly cutting away the 25mm rings from my pile moorings with a Junior Hacksaw. Takes over 20 mins, but you get there in the end.
 
No real problem in cutting 20mm bar with a hacksaw but make sure the blades don't come from a £ shop but are of decent quality. We often cut even thicker chain than that on the mooring raft when checking our moorings, full saw strokes and nice and steady. Cutting compound does help and it will also partially collect some of the dwarf but it is not essential.

Make sure that the chain is well secured before starting to cut it, any movement of the chain will make the task very difficult.

MORE IMPORTANTLY
Whichever method you decide to use to cut the chain, protect the deck around the area you are working unless you want it to be peppered with a mottled pattern of virtually immovable rust spots. This applies equally whether the craft is made from GRP, wood or steel.
 
charles_reed said:
If the bar is, as is more likely, 10mm a hacksaw with plenty of good blades is a viable alternative - don't forget for every cut you make you have to do one on the other side of the link.
Click to expand...

Erm, for a ground chain?
Even 20mm seems minimal, IMHO...

Hacksaw with extra blades, good for the biceps.
 
Most chain sold for ground chain is going to be Grade 30, possibly Grade 40. Neither of these is heat treated, so should be relatively soft, 160 Vickers or somewhere near. Easily cut with a hacksaw as most people have said. When I fitted my Aquadrive I cut the one-inch stainless steel shaft, about the same hardness, using a hacksaw about four times when getting the length just right. Recently I cut a long length of 8 mm chain into short pieces for use as dinghy racing buoy weights, probably 30 - 40 cuts in all, in about half an hour.
 
You need a proper hacksaw, not a junior one, so that the blade doesn't bend. And use a brand new blade (or a few if need be).
 
Someone has touched on it, but it's worth repeating that securing the link you are cutting solidly is very important. If it is free to move slightly, using a hacksaw will be a trial and if using a cutting disc will be a positive danger.
 
Did the same myself on 20mm diameter link. Used a small petrol generator (1000w) and electric angle grinder with a good cutting disc. I fund the small electric grinder easier/safer than a heavy petrol cutter. As stated, need to secure the link, or in my case the next link to the one I was cutting off. I did this with a strop through it secured to the dinghy I was working from (large stable dinghy). Good luck.
 
Strathglass said:
Cutting compound does help and it will also partially collect some of the dwarf but it is not essential.
Click to expand...

That made me chuckle, where does the dwarf come from?

Good quality hacksaw blades in a standard frame should certainly do the job with a little time and effort. All the battery/generator cutter crowd seem to forget that we all need a little patience to do some jobs. I do not think their suggestions will ultimately save any time as hiring (one suggestion) will certainly cost a lot of time and money compared to the manual method. Try the simple method first and then go down that route if the simple method does not work.
 
I went through this recently. I ended up using my cordless jigsaw with a metal blade in it. Took the arm ache out of hack sawing. Would have used a battery angle grinder had I got one.
 
As Vyv says ground chain is not hard to cut. Its a lot easier to carry a hacksaw out to a mooring than lugging a generator or Stihl saw and petrol. I've cut chain and shackles in situ several times with a hacksaw and it's not hard. The important thing is to keep it still and a helper is invaluable for this. Cutting stainless chain is harder i understand.
I'm assuming that the OP is working on the ground (drying mooring) rather than on his boat with vices etc available or this this not what he means by 'in situ'?
 
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