Cutting up mild steel plate - What tooolz??

[PaRaDoX]

hey,

i just got a 150mm x 100mm x 5mm (thick) slab of mild steel
ive got 2 flanges to make and it cost me a whole $2.95 for it
now ive gotta cut it up and bore holes in it (they dont have to be uber perfect, as they're not essential to power making)

im making a BOV and Wastegate flange...

im looking for the cheapest way to do this...

im thinking using a jig saw with a very fine teeth (similar to a hack saw)
and drilling holes round in a cirlcle and joining the dots and finish off with my carbide cutters and my die grinder...

on 5mm thick think a jig saw will work???
its a project for tonight/tommorrow as my turbo manifolds take form

throw me some ideas ive had to fork out over $1500 in expenses this week for non car related things (rego, tafe enrollment, books etc)

so my pockets arnt the deepest at the moment so cheap is good...
im sure some of you guys enjoy taking angle grinders and using them as valve spring compressors like my self soo im sure someone has a idea

[Holden2gether]

You could use a jigsaw and a fine tooth blade but you would have to go the expense of buying some cutting oil,otherwise with the speed of a jigsaw the blade speed would be too fast and it would heat up and burn the blade out in no time,if your jigsaw is a variable speed then you get away with not using cutting oil but make sure the saw is running at it's slowest possible speed.
Don't know what your engineering shop rates are over there in Oz but you could take to a shop that has a bandsaw,couple of flanges like that in 5mm plate,they could have them cut out in 10 maybe 15 minutes and say they charged $60 an hour,then they could have them cut for you for $15.Save you alot of mucking around and time.

[Not_An_Abba_Fan]

If you have an exhaust shop handy go in and see if they have a couple of small s/h flange plates. A lot of places keep them for when they do custom work. Or maybe go through their bin and cut some off your self.

[craigvk]

It would probably take you till Christmas to cut that with a jigsaw. Angle grinder with cut off wheel, drill press and die grinder with diamond steel grinding bit.

[PaRaDoX]

when you work fulltime till 6:30 each night in the city you cant exactly get to a engineering shop in time and they're never open on weekends

when i say drill holes i mean like millions of them..like with only 5mm to cut between them... i know what you mean by blades brake, oh well ill give it a shot anyway, i already have cut off wheels and a die grinder

well see what happens tonight, thank god bunnings is still open till 9pm,
think they'd do it???

[craigvk]

Yeah that's right. Drill a heap of holes and then round it off using the die grinder to achieve a round hole.

[PaRaDoX]

yeah thats the plan...

[PaRaDoX]

done and ported, they look good aswell

[chappy]

Look around find a sheet metal workshop that has a Plasma and profile cutter they can knock them out in a few sec's for you

Cheers

[Zuicider]

the problem with engineering places is that they have a big work load at my workplace we are booked out till like june so its quicker to do it by yaself