Kitchen Garden Forum

I collect my own rainwater using large, blue barrels.

Previously, I have always managed to obtain barrels with the tops cut off, but was recently given a new one with the top very much still in place. In fact, the barrel is a moulded unit, with just a small (two inch diameter) hole in it in the centre.

To remove the top, I need to cut vertically into it, rather than taking off as I would a a tin lid with a tin opener.

I guess I can drill some holes very close together into the top to insert some sort of hand saw and then cut it out, but what type of saw will be any good in quickly and cheaply (it has to be cheap!!!) cutting round the lid to remove it?

I guess I am looking at a very thin blade.

Can anybody send me any links to commercially available saws that might do the job? And we are talking under £10, since this is a one-off job and I am unlikely to want the saw again.

Evening Barry, an electric jigsaw is the easiest answer, can you borrow one of someone!!!

I havea stanley padsaw, their modern equivalents seem to be this
https://www.stanleytools.co.uk/product/196027
Or
https://www.stanleytools.co.uk/product/147296

A small angle grinder will also do it I made a strawberry barrel out of one over winter I cut a series of six inch cuts with a four inch grinder it's like the proverbial knife through butter

Talking about a "Knife through butter". Would a knife heated with say a blowlamp, do it, I wonder.

Thanks for all the advice. On Peter's recommendation, I have ordered a jabsaw, which I think will do the job! It was cheap enough and the only option that I had available!

robo wrote:A small angle grinder will also do it I made a strawberry barrel out of one over winter I cut a series of six inch cuts with a four inch grinder it's like the proverbial knife through butter

Be careful using an angle grinder on a material that may melt. I ground my leg when mine melted some aluminium and snatched.