Quote Originally Posted by Frank S View Post
The steel that oilfield pipe IE 2 3/8 or 2 7/8 if it has ever been down hole will become almost as hard as the steel that the hole saws are made of. Oilfield pipe is made out of much harder steel that regular pipe.
ASTM and ANSI covers most structural pipe, but oil field falls under the more stringent specs of the API often times having as much at triple the hardness and tensile strength of black pipe.
I'm afraid that the hole saw rig that I posted will not be very suitable for making saddles in that type of pipe also it would take a very long time to make the cuts.

I hope this helps
Thanks for the input. i suspected that a holesaw on 2-3/8 oil pipe would be taxing on the saw.

I had an idea to scavenge an old drill press and retrofit the electric motor with a hydraulic motor. Then this could be powered via the remote hydraulics on a tractor. Mount up the drill press via 3 point hitch and build a mobile pipe notching station. The hydraulics would provide adequate power to cut through anything that the drill bit or hole saw could handle. I would think that this would have to be rigged up via pulley system to allow slippage on the belt because the drill bits would shear off under the load of a hydraulic motor.