(sorry, no pics for now, left Digicam at out-of-state jobsite last week, stuck taking 35mm progress shots)
Well, finally got started. Boy, WHAT A MESS!!
Using 3/4" Sched 40 PVC.
Using a 10" miter (chop) saw.
Have (10) 10' pipe sections bundled together, taped every 18" or so. BTW - taping the (10) pipes in a triangle-shaped bundle didn't work so well - the bundle was too tall to fit under the blade shroud. Settled for a bundle in three layers, 3-4-3.
Have a .25" thick piece of lumber clamped to the saw's body/platform as a bump-stop - just feed the bundle against the wood, and chop.
Was using my fine-tooth blade, getting some burring / melting, then thought to switch to my carbide-tipped rip blade. This makes a good quick cut through the pipes.
There's a little roughness to the cut edges if you go too fast, and at first I was put off by this, but the more I thought about it, the more I like it - makes the rings look more 'hand-made'.
Anyway, the other drawback of the carbide/rip blade - huge waste of material - the blade is basically as thick as my finished rings, so I'm losing 50% of my stock.
And that 50% waste material is laying EVERYWHERE like artificial snow.
Anyway, game called on account of darkness. Have about 5' cut, by my calcs, that ought to be ~2400 rings.
Rings are about 1/8" thick, and a quick 4-in-1 test shows they lay flat enough.
I have a good pair of sheetmetal shears, they go through the PVC rings readily enough, but after I cut 5000 rings, I don't expect them to be worth anything on thin metal. We'll see.
It's gonna take a while to inspect, sort, cut, and repeatedly vac all the static-clinging PVC shavings.
And on the black PVC, would work. Same for the grey PVC (ABS?), and it would already be close to the right color, just a little silvering needed.
.
Also thought the black polyvinyl drip-watering-system tubing would work nice, but too expensive to mess with.
More later, and maybe some pics by Halloween.