Patent ID: 6868901

Claim:
A tubular cutting tool for remotely cutting tubulars from the inside, comprising: a housing; two or more sets of retractable anchors mounted in the housing at longitudinally spaced apart locations, adapted to be advanced from an initial retracted position out of contact with the internal wall of a tubular to be cut to an anchoring position in contact with the internal wall of the tubular, such as to anchor the tubular cutting tool rigidly in position within the tubular, and to be subsequently retracted from the anchoring position back to the retracted position; a first electrically powered or controlled actuator mounted in the housing and coupled to the retractable anchors for moving the retractable anchors from the retracted position to the anchoring position prior to performing a cut and then for moving the retractable anchors from the anchoring position back to the retracted position once a cut has been performed; a rotary cutting head mounted on the housing, the rotary cutting head having a retractable cutting blade adapted to be progressively advanced, by rotation of the rotary cutting head, from an initial retracted position out of contact with the internal wall of the tubular to a cutting position in contact with the internal wall of the tubular, and to be subsequently retracted, by rotation of the rotary cutting head, from the cutting position back to the retracted position out of contact with the internal wall of the tubular once a cut has been performed; a second electrically powered or controlled actuator mounted in the housing and coupled to the retractable cutting blade for progressively advancing the cutting blade from the initial retracted position out of contact with the internal wall of the tubular towards the internal wall of the tubular and for subsequently retracting the cutting blade back to the retracted position out of contact with the internal wall of the tubular once a cut has been performed; and a third electrically powered or controlled actuator mounted in the housing and coupled to the rotary cutting head for rotating the rotary cutting head.