Printable View
I am sure many people have wondered about routing aluminium with a wood router, I wondered if it was possible or even safe.
The face of the pictured was clock started out life as a flat plate of ali and was done with a Ryobi 1HP router with a tct wood cutting bit.
With the aid of a rotary table. The edge was drilled on a drill press.
Nice job, well done.
i have used a router and electric plane on aluminium. Works fine but very noisy
Don't much fancy trying the planer on ali but have used a circular saw like you say a bit noisy.Quote:
Originally Posted by Beardy
Nice work MD.
My BIL is an ally boat (The longest one he has worked on was 80m long - see photo) builder and besides his MIGs and TIGs, his tool kit consists mainly of WW gear, 10" bandsaw, routers, portable drills and sanders, circular saws, a box of hard wax and squirt bottles of meths. He shapes/curves Al plate up to 25 mm thick with a 3m long hydraulic press and then MIG/TIGs them together and routs the edges using large round over bits.
Attachment 456298
Ideally you should rub the cutters and cut line with hard wax and use negatively raked toothed blades. This is what can happen if you don't do that.
Attachment 456297
The swarf off circular saw blades can be like little razor blades so good DE is handy.
Drilling and tapping I use meths as it evaporates leaving no residue.
After the above incident I bought a special negatively raked toothed blade for my TS and because I cut so much aluminium and plastic it is now the standard blade on my TS. It also cuts wood slowly but produces a very fine finish.
I know a few workshops (in Sydney) that used to use old table/panel saw blades to cut all their ally... They simply turned the blade around... ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by BobL
I had a job where I had to plane down lots of aluminium extrusion, ended up with 2 garbage bags full of ally shavings :CQuote:
Originally Posted by mark david
didnt enjoy it much but it did the job ok.