Best way to cut stainless steel trim and molding?

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Ken
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Best way to cut stainless steel trim and molding?

Post by Ken »

I’m tearing out some old carpet in the house and replacing it with engineered hardwood. There is a long stretch between the kitchen and living room where the new hardwood will butt up against the tile floor in the kitchen and I need to install a t-molding trim piece to cover the seam. Rather than using the regular hardwood t-molding that will create a big bump running down the middle of the floor I want to use a lower profile stainless steel trim piece like this: https://www.schluter.com/schluter-us/en ... cets=false

The transition between the two floors has a zig zag so I’ll need to cut four perfect 45 degree miters. I don’t normally work with metal and I’m not sure which would be the best tool for cutting miters in this sort of stainless steel stock. In my toolbox I have an angle grinder, sawzaw, jigsaw, and circular saw. I can put metal cutting blades on any of them. I also have a table saw which would allow for perfect miters, but I’m leery of getting metal shards flying into the motor and damaging the saw.

Anyone with metal working experience have any suggestions? I’m loath to buy something new just for this small job. I’m thinking of probably using the angle grinder with a metal blade and then hand-file the rough cut edge to finish. But these trim pieces are not cheap and I don’t want to mess it up.
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PeterG
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Re: Best way to cut stainless steel trim and molding?

Post by PeterG »

I have a few years' experience working with metal. If the angle had to be absolutely perfect, I'd borrow or rent a miter saw. My local Home Depot rents out miter saws for $36/day, and your local mom-and-pop rental business might also have them. If a perfect angle weren't that critical, I'd use the jigsaw.

Alternately, you might want to reconsider the wood trim. We have a floor seam like that in our house. It's probably at least 12 feet long and covered by a fairly prominent piece of wooden t-molding, and I hardly notice it.
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Ken
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Joined: Thu Jun 13, 2019 12:02 am
Location: Washington State
Affiliation: former MCUSA

Re: Best way to cut stainless steel trim and molding?

Post by Ken »

PeterG wrote: Tue Oct 19, 2021 5:42 pm I have a few years' experience working with metal. If the angle had to be absolutely perfect, I'd borrow or rent a miter saw. My local Home Depot rents out miter saws for $36/day, and your local mom-and-pop rental business might also have them. If a perfect angle weren't that critical, I'd use the jigsaw.

Alternately, you might want to reconsider the wood trim. We have a floor seam like that in our house. It's probably at least 12 feet long and covered by a fairly prominent piece of wooden t-molding, and I hardly notice it.
I called my brother who is a tile contractor (should have asked him from the start!) and he says for stainless he just uses a good manual hack saw with a new blade and scribes an angle line to follow with blue tape. Then touches it up as necessary with a hand file. For aluminum he would just use his miter saw with a metal cutting blade.

So I guess maybe sometimes the old hand tools are best.
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A fool can throw out more questions than a wise man can answer. -RZehr
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