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| Square holes on aluminum.... how do you do it? |
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| beanflying:
The issue becomes the blades on most coping saws and in particular electric scroll saws. I have owned an electric one for over 30 years and I don't use it on Aluminium ever. Balsa, Ply and some plastics is about it. You will do much better with the hardened teeth on a jigsaw blade than a scroll saw on Aluminum. |
| soldar:
--- Quote from: beanflying on October 16, 2019, 11:58:00 am --- The issue becomes the blades on most coping saws and in particular electric scroll saws. --- End quote --- I am having trouble parsing and understanding this. What's the issue? Obviously you need to choose the right blade. I have used a fret saw on aluminum without problem since forever. It allows cutting of all sorts of shapes without problem. |
| drussell:
--- Quote from: beanflying on October 16, 2019, 11:58:00 am ---The issue becomes the blades on most coping saws and in particular electric scroll saws. I have owned an electric one for over 30 years and I don't use it on Aluminium ever. Balsa, Ply and some plastics is about it. You will do much better with the hardened teeth on a jigsaw blade than a scroll saw on Aluminum. --- End quote --- Have you tried the abrasive blades? They are usually called things like "Carbide Blade" or "360° Cutting Saw Blade". A manual coping saw version with carbide or diamond grit is usually available inexpensively in the tile cutting section of your local hardware hut. You can also usually easily find a thicker model blade intended for use on a standard hacksaw handle for a few dollars if your panel is small enough to be able to use the typical hacksaw's limited reach. Eg. $3.73 Canadian available at Home Depot here, but online order only, apparently, but they do free "ship-to-store-for-pickup": https://www.homedepot.ca/product/qep-10-in-rod-carbide-saw-blade/1000164562 |
| Bassman59:
--- Quote from: EEEnthusiast on October 16, 2019, 04:45:37 am ---I have a suggestion for the front and the back panels if you are doing prototypes. Instead of cutting on the metal plates or 3D printing, you could use black acrylic sheets (2mm thick) and cut the shaped into them using a laser cutter. I have a low power laser CNC and use that to cut the acrylic panels. They come out very well and it is much faster to cut. --- End quote --- I don't have access to a laser cutter! |
| Bassman59:
--- Quote from: soldar on October 16, 2019, 09:25:01 am ---I like to use a manual scroll saw. --- End quote --- I have a coping saw and I used it for a panel with only a few largish (1.5 cm) square holes, and it worked well. I also used it on plastic. My latest thing has a couple of long slots for a bargraph LED meter, and cutting that by hand in 1.5 mm aluminum doesn't seem like that much fun. |
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