Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Some members may not know about these, they make pvc pipe cutting a lot easier (and especially when you can't get a hacksaw in). Racheting pipe cutters, pic below:-

Didn't realize those could be used on pipe, thought they were only for tubing.

Mine work on class 18 PVC up to 42mm OD. Which usually means 1" on class 18 and 1 1/4" on the slightly thinner stuff.

Got a set of those the other day. You think they would of made them 3mm larger. Should of put this post in the venting corner. They do cut PVC easy as butter. Just be nice to not have to fiddle to start cutting the 40mm PVC. $15 ish

I find that if you roll the pipe slightly, while holding pressure on it with the cutter... that it starts the cut much easier... particularly if the pipe is toward the max for the cutter.

+1: that's how I do it
these cutters are excellent for ABS, PP and PE tubes

frank

Wear safety glasses when using those cutters though, I have had the blades break on me and was lucky it only hit my cheek instead of my eye. I have had trouble with those cutters tending to give a diagonal cut for some reason. I now prefer the mini hack saw unless it is in a space where there is no room to work.

I got a $15 pair from Amazon.com. They make my life MUCH easier.

+1 for a hacksaw, it only takes 20 seconds to cut a pipe, and it's safer apparently. Broken blade you say TC! wow. If there's a tool I can use without safety glasses, it will always get the vote over the other, unless there's a massive time or effort saving.

The PVC cutter above reminded me of how good these pruners of our are. Perhaps not for your HP but your fruit trees etc.

I'm not sure of the price now, (about $50) but from memory they were less than our pair of Felco pruners. The brand on them is 2WP Powerkut, and we bought them at the Perth gardening expo, the same time we first met Joel and his crew. He has go a lot to answer for that bloke!. Anyway, I have just pruned our apricot tree, and gave up on the Felco pruners, used these ones and I must fully recommend them. One snip for a twig, then up to four squeezes for a good 25mm stem. I have used them on some dead wood, they cut it alright, but it can't be good for them. These are now about 6 months old.

They are not a bypass cutter, but they close onto the bottom jaw.

I use a angle grinder to cut my pvc pipes. You get a really nice finish that way (can sit right up in the pipe).

My tip of the day is to use aquarium safe silicon whenever you're putting pipes together. You smear it on the inside of the fitting, and the outside of the pipe, then when you push them together they "slide together" very easily and whats more, you're pretty much guaranteed a seal. You can still pull them apart easily, and the silicon just rubs off. Can't use it on high pressure corners or anything (glue!), but it makes putting together your drain pipes easy peasy.

Agree with the silicon on low pressure, works well

Rick, We have them on this side of the island as well!
Had a set (And the loppers with the extendable handles) for about 4 years before the wife tried to twist off the branch instead of taking another bite at it! The cutting blade snapped off as luck would have it, there was a stall at the local shopping centre selling the unit, The question was asked if replacement parts were available, the reply was " bring it to me and I will install a new blade for you" He was really suprised that it had busted!!

This guy charged about $5 bucks for the blade and installed it for nix!

Yeah Rick! Worth a plug!

If you think the pipe size you're using is big enough then go one size bigger.
First I bought 3/4" and then after a failed test run immediately went to 1". Ended up dumping the barrel system and went with a biofilter instead so I went to 1.5" and thought perfect now everythings finally working. Then I had an epiphany, changed pumps, increased my flow rate, and switched it all to 2" dia. So yeah just go bigger and save a couple hundred dollars on plumbing (and brain cells too).