question about aluminum sheet

Any tools you own that can cut wood, will work just fine on aluminum. Aluminum will tend to gall in saw teeth and on drill bits. This can be helped with a wax stick if it is a major problem.

If you have drills, jig saw, coping saw, hacksaw blades, scroll saw, etc give them a try. Any time you are cutting aluminum/metal with forward and back motion (recip saw, jig saw, coping saw, hacksaw) some of the difficulty will be holding the material well enough to pull backwards on the blade without marring the material. A vise with the jaws wrapped or padded with leather/rubber/cloth/etc will help. ___________________________ Keep the whole world singing. . . . DanG

Have you considered painting with an acid resist and then soaking in a tray of acid. I have seen this done for decorative plaques. The tray was made out of wood and lined with black plastic sheet. Afterward the high areas were sanded with a reciprocating pads so that all the fine scratches were inline. Randy

If you have drills, jig saw, coping saw, hacksaw blades, scroll saw, etc give them a try. Any time you are cutting aluminum/metal with forward and back motion (recip saw, jig saw, coping saw, hacksaw) some of the difficulty will be holding the material well enough to pull backwards on the blade without marring the material. A vise with the jaws wrapped or padded with leather/rubber/cloth/etc will help. ___________________________ Keep the whole world singing. . . . DanG

========== Do you want to go through the metal or just cut the surface?

If surface only, than one technique would be to lye etch after using a resist to lay out your pattern. FWIW -- the rub-on/dry transfer "Kroy" (TM) letters and designs work well as a resist with a little care. Be sure and cover the back with resist also.

see http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:gavMlUGDHw0J:

I understand there are products that allow you to make a resist for a printed circuit board on an ink jet printer. You might check into this for use with some of the art software.

Unka' George (George McDuffee) .............................. Only in Britain could it be thought a defect to be "too clever by half." The probability is that too many people are too stupid by three-quarters.

John Major (b. 1943), British Conservative politician, prime minister. Quoted in: Observer (London, 7 July 1991).

i want to cut thru the peice, i forgot to mention that i DO have a dremel tool and a few bits for it, what i hope this peice to be is a sort of a kitchen decoration, that can be used for sitting hot pans on top of..........my Ex-Wifr had something similar that was brass, and i have found that i don't have the equipment or knowledge to even attempt casting a brass peice, but i do have these aluminum plates that are the test plates for calibrating a smooth top pan sensing cooktop that i repair at my day job. and wanted to try and an use them

So, you're making a sort of aluminum trivet, but without legs. This shouldn't be too difficult. If you have the pattern drawn out on paper, copy it so you don't destroy the original. On the copy, draw another set of lines inside of the lines of the design. I'm going to guess a 1/8" drill will work for this, so make the new lines 1/8" inside of the lines of the design.

For example, if you wanted to cut a 1" square in the aluminum, draw a square inside of it that's 1/8" smaller on all sides: a 3/4" x 3/4" square.

With a piece of carbon paper (if you can still find one ) laid carbon-side down on the aluminum, tape your new pattern on top of it and draw over the new lines you made. Remove the paper. Take a prick punch (an awl or a masonry nail, if you don't have a prick punch) and make a small punch mark every 1/8" along the new lines, tapping the punch with a small hammer, to guide your drill bit.

Put a 1/8" bit in your drill press and drill holes where the prick-punch marks are. The pieces should almost drop out after you've finished drilling. Remove them.

Now you have the pattern you want drilled into the aluminum, with lots of little cusps that have to be removed. I'd remove them with a file. If you don't like files, use your Dremel, but be aware that it will be harder than hell to get nice smooth lines with it. This is a good time to buy a few small files -- flat, triangular, and round -- and get some practice.

Eighth-inch-thick aluminum is VERY easy to file to shape. If you want the shape to have chamfered tops, file in the chamfers after you cut out the shapes.

Go for it. Even if you've done no metalwork, this is pretty easy. FWIW, I've used this method to cut through 3/8" steel, to make parts for a gunlock. I got a little fancier with the drilling for that, using a skip technique that lets you place the holes closer together, and I used a diemaker's chisel to cut out most of the waste. but I wouldn't bother with that in aluminum. It cuts easily with a file.

-- Ed Huntress

Draw the design and then draw a line just more than a drill radius outside. Then drill a long line of holes on this outside line - making a serrated edge cut that then needs filing down to the line. Most of the metal gone.

Martin

Martin H. Eastburn @ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net TSRA, Life; NRA LOH & Endowment Member, Golden Eagle, Patriot"s Medal. NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder IHMSA and NRA Metallic Silhouette maker & member.

treebeard wrote:

Being a wood worker - do you have a coping saw ? - that can do a nice job. You need to find at the hardware store or better yet a web site some fine pitch blades for metal. Often they are not pin types - but pin types exist. Even Sears sold metal cutting coping saw blades.

Martin

Martin H. Eastburn @ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net TSRA, Life; NRA LOH & Endowment Member, Golden Eagle, Patriot"s Medal. NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder IHMSA and NRA Metallic Silhouette maker & member.

treebeard wrote:

I'd second that. Or, for a few bucks more (I haven't priced one lately), he could get a jeweler's saw. X-Acto makes a decent one that's readily available at bigger art-supply stores and hobby shops.

-- Ed Huntress

this sounds like a better way for me to start, i do have a coping saw somewhere,

and i have a bunch of the plates so if this doesn't work, i still can try the other as a backup plan.......

thanks to all for the tips,

Gene

Make yourself a bench pin to go along with your coping saw. Most in this pictures are jewelry sized, but should give you an idea of what you need.

Ned Simmons

If you're going to go the saw route, Gene, look up one more thing on the Web: a birdsmouth. I'd search on something like "jeweler's saw birdmouth" without the quotes. You can make one in five minutes and it will save you a lot of time.

Of course, if you do any fret sawing with your coping saw, you probably know about the birdsmouth.

Good luck. Aluminum is not hard to work at all. After that you'll be ready to do one in brass.

-- Ed Huntress

now i'm confused, what is a bench pin used for? Someone also mentioned a "jeweler's saw birdmouth" I have no idea what either of these are, or how they are used, LIke i said at first i'm a real novice at this sort of thing Gene

A bench pin is used to support the metal while providing clearance for the saw blade. The simplest type is simply sawn out of wood, about

3/4"-1" thick: ___ | | sort of thing

They're the same thing. Think of the bench pin as the table of a scroll saw. You hold the saw with the blade vertical near the apex of the slot in the bench pin and cut on the down stroke while guiding the material on top of the pin with your other hand. Here's a not so great picture...

Ned Simmons

Scroll down to the middle of this group of photos (and cool photos they are, too):

Take a look at the "fretsaw boards" (same thing as a "bird's mouth") at the bottom of this page:

www2.rlarson.com/customer/files/Catalog/44.pdf

A fretsaw board is about 2/3 of the way down this page:

I make mine out of scraps of hardwood. I make one end a narrow "V", like the first example above. I make the other end a broader V, with a hole at the point of the V, like the last example above.

Clamp the bird's mouth/fretsaw board to your bench with a C-clamp. It makes the work a bit easier, once you get the hang of it, and a lot quicker than clamping the work in a vise. It's also easier, for me, to keep the blade truly vertical this way.

When I'm cutting harder metal I dispense with the bird's mouth and use a vise. The work wants to slide around too much. Or, sometimes, I'll use the bird's mouth and a tiny C-clamp to hold the work in place. This is good for thicker pieces, hard brass, or steel.

Have fun. Don't miss those luthier photos in the first URL I listed above. There are pages of them.

-- Ed Huntress

============== A Coping saw is often used with a v-board, also known as a birdsmouth board, which is a flat board with a "V" shape cutout in one end. In use, the v-board is clamped to the bench so that the section with the cutout hangs over the edge. This allows the work to be held down flat whilst shapes are cut into it. The cutout allows the coping saw blade to pass through the work unimpeded. This technique is common in marquetry. from

Also called a v-slot board. Basically a thin board with a v or notch cut in one end on which you lay the material. The saw is set up so it cuts on the down stroke pulling the material against the board. Most articles mention clamping to the table. I find this is too low and gives me a crick in the back. I put two bolts through the board at the back with washers and nuts, and clamp the exposed ends of the bolts in a vise which holds the board firmly and elevates it to just under eye height when I am setting. [I am near sighted]

A bench pin fits a special mortise cut in the bench or vise/clamp for quick change/set-up. A birdsmouth board just clamps to the table.

goto

a whole bunch more.

So many tools -- so little time....

Unka' George (George McDuffee) .............................. Only in Britain could it be thought a defect to be "too clever by half." The probability is that too many people are too stupid by three-quarters.

John Major (b. 1943), British Conservative politician, prime minister. Quoted in: Observer (London, 7 July 1991).

Speaking of frets i recently tried 3 times to get a job at Taylor guitars here in San Diego. They are highly automated and use lasers and milling machines to crank out the blanks. One machine really caught my eye for cutting the fret slots in the fingerboards. I was a series of ganged slitting saws on a mandrel and with one stroke would cut all the fret slots perfecly aligned and spaced.. Clever and way faster than cutting with a tiny saw.If any of you ever get to San Diego you should really take the tour. Deering banjos is here also. No I didn't get the job.