OK I am going to try and post this again as this the third time
( PC problems) lets hope that it is true, what they say about the third time being the charm!
You can cut out blades successfully with a right angle grinder. The hardest thing to learn is what you can and can't do with a right angle grinder and how to do the things you can do. First you have to let the blade do the cutting. If you force it you are one wearing out the blade prematurely and two probably not going to like the results that you get from your effort. A screwed up cut or a blade on the grinder exploding! You will learn to look thru and around the shower of sparks or at least when to stop and take a better look at your cut before you go to far.
First thing you need to learn is on curves you kind of let the blade skate to get started and that is even good to do on a straight cut, but a curve demands that you keep the skating effort up or the blade will bind and that not going to be good. In other words the first pass or two is just to establish the groove that you will be following with the blade. You will need to leave at least approximately 1/8" minimum around the outline of the finished blade. This last 1/8" will be taken off at the grinder or at the drill press with a drum sanding attachment, or by file.
I have a hand drawn drawing that I am going to upload. Look at the direction of the arrows around the profile of the blade. They would indicate how I would approach cutting out this blade on a right angle grinder. In fact most of this one was cut by a right angle grinder and some of it was done with this.
My porta band saw which I did not have when I first started . Even with this type of saw there are cuts that can't be made in one pass. It is still impossible to cut a tight radius without binding the blade and that is something you want to avoid on a band saw too!
On the curve of the handle I can cut it within a 1/8" in most places and the final shape was done on a grinder or by file as previously stated. In the tight area I had to do straight in cut in a series of V's to either make the metal fall away or sometimes the slices are small enough that they can be broke out. These are the areas that more or less in some cases have to be finished profiled with a small wheel, drum sander or file.
I hope this helps too explain how to do the cutting with a right angle grinder!
Or, put the angle grinder in the vise and hold the steel so you can see it and control it.
I agree this is an accident waiting to happen! And with a thin metal cutting blade it will jerk your hand into the blade before you can stop it and a cut will ensue or worse. I have been cut with a metal cutting blade in a kick back and it hurts like hell and it doesn't cut flesh nearly as smooth as it cuts metal! I was on a scaffold two stories up trying to cut a door into a metal barn. Luckily it resulted on a surface cut that left a small scar instead of leaving a finger laying on the floor. This is why I now always use my right angle grinder with the supplied handle. Two hands on the tool keeps one of them from getting somewhere it shouldn't and it gives me more control of how I am using the grinder. I won't make a cut anymore that I can't do without using both hands. Those are the ones you had better figure out some other way to do.
I always clamp the piece with at least one clamp and sometimes two if possible. I have learned from my mistakes. I will destroy the blade the blank but I always try to put myself in a position so that its not me that gets destroyed. If you know what I mean. This kind of stuff is inherently dangerous so don't make it worse than it is.
Maybe count was talking about grinding and not cutting out with a metal blade. That would make it like taking the piece too your grinder to do the work. Now I could find that acceptable but there is no way I would try it with a metal cutting blade. That's kind of like peeling back the guard on the skill saw and trying to cut by shoving the piece of wood into the blade. NOT A GOOD IDEA!
