I often find myself in situations where I need to remove materials around the ouside of a tube, like maybe a few MM, and sandpaper isn't cutting it.
However, often these tubes are rather long, so they wouldn't fit in a mini-lathe.
Are there tools that can be used with a drill or grinder that function similarly to a lathe, but are more portable and easily stored?
Wood lathe and a grinder? Warning I'm not the safest guy.
What materiel are you removing from a tube? Softer than the tube material? Cut a slice fore to aft down the side and peel it off?
914Driver, I think the "s" might be a typo, and he's just removing material, as in removing wall thickness from tubing. pheller, confirm/refute?
A better description of the tubing, dimensions of the cut, required finish and accuracy... would help at guessing what either exists or could be fabricobbled.
Also, the thread title says ID, but the description is OD... I'm assuming you mean OD since that's what's spelled out more thoroughly.
Sounds like you need a lathe, so you may have to fabricobble a lathe like way of doing it by hand. Drill on one end, steady rest on the other (another drill maybe?) and some careful angle grinder work where necessary?
If you don't need precision, OD could be as simple as a couple of rolling stands, a grinder or belt sander, and a helper to spin the tube. If you need to do a bunch of them, a drill or gear motor to spin the tube would make it a one man job and probably give better results.
For ID, a cylinder or brake hone would probably do the trick.
Before i got my lathe i used to clamp my belt sander to a surface and use that. Obviously they also make sanders for that and i have one but my old makita hand held one is way better than the $58 chinese benchtop one
For soft material I have chucked it up into my drill press and sanded off the OD. If it is long you can fabricate a bearing that can be secured to the Drill press plate.
Guess I do better with pictures .....
OK wow I worded my original post terribly.
What I mean to say is:
I need some way of turning down the OUTSIDE DIAMETER of Metal Tubing.
For example, I've been installing some new ceiling fans. I wanted to use the overly short supplied downrod with the downrods I have currently. The current downrod was only a MM away from fitting inside the new downrod. I needed some way of making it smaller. This isn't the first time I've encounter this problem, sometimes with bikes, sometimes with other projects. I just need some way of removing metal from the ouside of a tube, and sanding isn't aggressive enough.
Also, I don't have any "big" equipment like a drill press or what not. All of my equipment is portable and I want to keep it that way.
I found something that might work.
Of course the downside is that it's pretty short. I sometimes work with long pieces, sometimes that are bent. I would need some way of "holding" the end not being turned down.
Clamp a belt sander to the top of a workbench... lock it to the 'on' position, grab the tube with two hands and spin it...
Of course I would probably crank up the MIG, grinder, and then rattle can the result. 
We have a machine at work that clamps to the outside of the tube and a machine head spins around the OD cutting the whole od. We try to dial it in to 0.00025-0.0005. Not bad for a portable machine.
WAY too expensive for your application though.
Honestly, for that little of a measurement you could get by with a file and then sand the highspots after
Toyman01 (Moderately Supportive Dude) said:If you don't need precision, OD could be as simple as a couple of rolling stands, a grinder or belt sander, and a helper to spin the tube. If you need to do a bunch of them, a drill or gear motor to spin the tube would make it a one man job and probably give better results.
For ID, a cylinder or brake hone would probably do the trick.
This.
Back in my pipe fitting days I used two sets of rollers to roll the pipe while grinding flush a flame cut pipe end and then bevel for welding, typically 4-6" pipe. Pneumatic sander w/ 7" 24 grit disc. Position the disc to grind and spin the pipe at the same time (it absolutely will spin on rollers), no helper needed. Short learning curve but once figured out and it's off to the races. I could match the pipe mill beveled end w/ that grinder.
I think OP could do similar w/ a set of rollers and disc sander but for the OD. Make gauge for the required OD. Grind/ spin tube down to gauge diameter. Mark oversize, grind there and on and on.
I truly believe it's doable.
File.
pheller said:For example, I've been installing some new ceiling fans. I wanted to use the overly short supplied downrod with the downrods I have currently. The current downrod was only a MM away from fitting inside the new downrod. I needed some way of making it smaller.
Alternately, is there enough wall thickness on the new downrod that you could drill it out, so the old downrod will fit inside?
You'll need to log in to post.
