Quote:
Originally Posted by Lil Giants
Yeah, thanx Cooper for taking the time to take the pics & post them up... I know how time consuming that in itself can be.  How much time clocked to make those two parts?
I made a simple clevis hitch the other day from a block of aluminum... I really got focused at what I was doing & did it all the milling & drilling in one sitting, I'm embarrassed to say how many hrs it took... maybe a mill of your size with its rigidity & digital readouts would have cut the time in half - especially with the use of a slitting saw.
I never heard of a slitting saw or knew of its use in a mill till you mentioned it a few pgs back, what a great tool accessory! I've always used a hacksaw & as hard as I try, never do I even get it unnoticeably crooked. 
What spd do you run it at? What's the thickness of that particular blade? And is it specific for cutting aluminum?
99% of the holes I drill/tap are 3mm and I have always drilled once with 2.5mm bit b/c bit wonder for me is indeed a problem to go bigger than 1st hole, especially with aluminum.
Also, the blade in your chop saw, what is that? Does it cut the aluminum bar perpendicular with 99.9% accuracy? |
Lol, time? Uhhhh,, yea half hour,,,, well all said and done I would think I had about 3hours in them. It wasn't all at once so hard to tell and the second part was about 2/3 less time than the first as I knew what I was doing for the second one.
The slitting saw, my experience is that are somewhat of a mystery to some. I've only used on aluminum. Lots of coolant and definitely not milling speeds. Usually slower speed and slow feed. Lots of coolant. I like to use it for parts as I can make one big part and then have two. Some of those small parts are hard to work. That blade I think was .063? 1/16.
The chop saw is as accurate as the chop table there. The blade is for metal, cuts pretty good. Most metal saws are slow. Using a chop saw is more for abrasive cutting. But you can't abrasive cut alum. Loud dirty mean machine but cuts aluminum stock like butter. Doesn't leave a finish cut but cuts pretty square. Like I said it will cut as square as you can adjust the clamp table to blade. Plan on spending about $80-100 on a blade if you want it to cut. Any carbide tipped circular saw blade will cut aluminum. Trick is in the heat. If it heats up too fast too much it will immediately dull. A dull blade will burn up the saw. Not saying to cut alum with your circular saw but just putting in perspective,,, and this blade is metal specific.