Thread: Have you ever cut alumium on your table saw?

Originally Posted by manofaus

Like most 'machining' jobs try to keep the cut as long as possible, ie the tooth of the blade just passing through the material, not chomping like a chainsaw. This will also avoid the blade crushing your profile and jamming the blade and also reduces the noise and 'chatter'. Don't forget you can put the cutting fluid on the job and not just the blade. Good for long cuts.

Sorry I disagree.....If I am cutting sheet or extrusion on the saw bench I always keep the blade at full height for a number of reasons.

1. it keeps the chip length short and allows less time for the aluminium to build up on the face of the teeth.
2. because the material is significantly harder that wood it put less loading on the tips and the braze holding the tips on
3. it results in a cleaner cut
4. lowering the blade will significantly increase forces required to hold the work in place and will significantly increase the liklyhood of and consequences of kickback.
5. keeping the blade higher on the table saw will in fact decrease chatter because the cutting forces are more directly onto the table

yes you can cut without lubricant.... but it is so much better with.

I have a mate who also did quite a lot of aluminium cutting but he was not as fussy as me and very rarely used lube....I used to take his blades to my saw doctor for him........I always noticed aluminium build up on his blades and several times missing teeth.

Many of the rules that would apply to machining aluminium with metal working tools and the rules of cutting timber and plastics simply do not apply when we are cutting metal with wood working blades.

We need to remember that we are talking much higher tool speeds than typical in metal work, the material is harder than timber so there are high stresses on the tooling
In metal working mostly the feed and workholding is mechanical... we are hand feeding so issues of kick back and such are a priority.

it must also be remembered that one of the big problems in cutting aluminium is material getting hot and adhering to the face and to a lesser extent to the edges of the tooth......direct cutting angles and proper lubrication of the blade will significantly improve cut quality, reduce machine and tooling loadings and tool life.

It may be possible to apply lube to the material ( and advantageous on long cuts) but it is far more effective to get the lube onto the blade in particular the face of the teeth.....by far the best way of achieving this is to use an oily wax product fed into a rotating blade

cheers.