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Hello Guy´s I never worked with Aluminium befor and want to try it. I saw a few very good vehicles in a few Magacins and that stuff what they made there looked tremendous and unique good !!!
Now me Question to you is : Could somebody give me some Suggestions and Advise for working with Aluminium ???? I think that I am not a bad Installer and think I could do it, if I know how !
Please would you give me the Step by Step instruction ???
1.What kind of Aluminium do I need ???
2.With what do I router it ( first I make a Template out of MDF) ???
3.How do I polish it and what do I use for it ???
4. How do I get sutch a shiny finish like chromed and how long would it probably take ???
5.Do I have to precut it ???
A lot´s of Questions, but I think you 'Guy´s know what I mean, and can also help me
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Steven What are you planning on building with aluminum? I will try to give you some pointers, but they may not work for everything you would want to do. I have worked with aluminum extensively in the past in a machine shop and have done some work recently without the benefits of the good machinery with good results. I have always used 6061 Aluminum just because that is what we had easy access to. The next grade, 7074 I think, is much more expensive and of no real added benefit for non structural applications. I’m not too sure of other types and/or grades since I didn’t do the material buying. I personally like to use a CNC mill to do this work, but I don’t have access to one anymore and not many other people do either. But fortunately with a little more patience you can get a regular router to do the job. I suggest you get a router bit designed for metal cutting, you can get an endmill in whatever shank size your router takes in 2 or 4 flute, carbide tip would help. I know of places to get these in the states but have no idea where to get one in Austria. Looking in the phone book for Industrial tools, or machining supplies, would be a good start. The other thing to get is something to help cool the router bit, this could be a air powered tool that blows a fine mist of coolant on the workpiece, or it could be a buddy with a squirt bottle (much cheaper and works just as good). Either way use something, it will keep the bit sharp and the aluminum from galling up. Each time I only drop the router bit about 1/16” into the aluminum and take a number of passes. I have used this method for making speaker baffles up to 5/8” thick, but they were very basic rectangular shape with circles cut out, so the jigs and guides were easy to make. Straight cuts and circles are easy to do this way. If you have something more intricate that you want to make something out of MDF and then use that as a guide onto the aluminum, I suggest you don’t make it any thicker than 1/4 ” or so. To do this I have always cut the aluminum with a jigsaw until it is very close to the final shape you want. Then secure the aluminum to the MDF, clamps don’t always hold perfectly, I like to use double sided tape and clamps and some friends to hold it (trusting friends are a must). I have used regular carbide tipped flush bits with a ball bearing on the bottom to do this. It is best to go slowly into the workpiece but still hold the router firmly. I wouldn’t remove more than 1/16” each time. If you aren’t comfortable cutting that close to your final shape with a jigsaw you can add some tape around the ball bearing so the diameter of the bearing is larger than the router bit. This way you can go around the piece once, remove some of the tape and go around again, and repeat until the all the tape is removed. That way you don’t try to take too much off in one pass. I’m not an expert at polishing so maybe somebody else will give you some better ideas but the aluminum we used was pretty nice on one side and we never needed to polish it too much, I was always into the brushed aluminum look myself. But if I needed to polish anything I would start by using some very fine sandpaper around 800 grit wet. This normally got rid of any markings, writing, and small surface scratches. Then I used some 1500-2000 wet/dry grit to go over the whole thing again. Then finally I use some aluminum polish and follow the instructions with the polish. I don’t know how long it will take to polish something without knowing the size and shape. The last thing I polished was a shifter knob I built for my car and it took a half hour or so. If you had a 3-4 square foot piece of aluminum you could easily factor in 5 hours or so depending on what the aluminum was like to begin with.
Well I know that was long but hopefully that helps you some, if you have any questions or if anything is unclear let me know.
On a somewhat unrelated note, why do Americans say Aluminum, and everybody else says Aluminium? I always get a laugh out of a British person saying Aluminium.
Hey that was VERY, VERY GREAT and so exact Answer. Thank you very mutch for your help, and I think I can benefit from that.
I can tell you what I want to make out of Aluminium.
I want to make a cover for the Speakers.
If you could tell me (or somebody else) how to put a Picture on the Forum (I don´t have the Idea how to do that) I could show you what I want to build on you will see what I mean
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