Having trouble drilling Aluminum

[Nick Gatel]

"get more aluminium, make it twice as wide as you want, drill down the middle, split it in 2, and you now have a nice pair of saw blades."

Peter,

As usual, a simple solution to a difficult problem given the tools at hand.

[Ken Thompson]

Just so you know there is this one too

http://snowsaw.com/about.html

[Tad Englund]

Thanks, everyone for the responses. I think rather than waste 4 saw blanks, I'll try cutting just inside with a complete hole. Now a second question:

Would it be easier to stack all the blanks on top of each other then clamp to save time, cutting 16 holes deeper holes instead of 16 times 4 shallow holes, one blank at a time?

(Yes Peter, I should have not tried to be so aggressive about how many saws I could get out of a small sheet and next time do it the way you suggested- which is how I did it last time. The difference this time is I am making pistol grip saws and the length and width of the sheet made it so I had to stagger the blades)

[Roger Caffin]

> Would it be easier to stack all the blanks on top of each other then clamp to save
> time, cutting 16 holes deeper holes instead of 16 times 4 shallow holes, one blank
> at a time?

Provided you clamp the lot properly to the drill table and drill inside the line, bulk drilling should be just fine. 4 sheets of 1/8" = 1/2" = 12.7 mm. I routinely drill 20 or 30 mm deep. That said, use a peck style of drilling: keep pulling the drill bit back out so it can clear the swarf. Doing so does not cost any significant time.

Cheers

[David Bontrager]

3/8" isn't huge, but it's still quite a chunk of metal to remove all in one go, even for aluminum. One trick (that gets more important as hole size gets bigger and material gets harder) is to start with a small bit – maybe 1/8" – and step up from there. To get to 3/8" you can do 1/8", then 1/4", then 3/8". (A little tedious, but it wears your drill bits less and gives a nicer finish on the hole edge).

Also like someone mentioned – slow it down. Sheet metal has a tendency to let the drill bit take too big of a bite, and the drill bit goes through without keeping the hole round (it doesn't cut metal out of every part of the hole, only enough to grab the sheet) which means it'll rip the metal out of your hands, and probably throw it across the room with the bottom half of your drill bit.

And yeah, like a lot of people have said, drilling holes that fall off the edge doesn't really work on a drill press, regardless of material and whether or not you clamp the sheet down. You need a mill to pull that off.

Hope it turns out well for ya!

[Nathan Hays]

"I'm not trying to break up a perfectly good MYOG project, but I guess you know that these aluminum snow saws are commercially available. The teeth even have an alternating crosscut pattern. With the MYOG version, I think you will end up with rip pattern teeth, even if it works.

–B.G.–"

Bob, I think it depends whether he's making long skinny ice blocks or just trimming ice cores into short lengths.

[Lawson Kline]

Hi Tad,

Your drill bits are fine. Use something like toilet bowl ring wax. Far best solution for cutting/drilling aluminum. Its dirt cheap and you can buy one of those wax seals about anywhere.. Good Luck.

[Author]

Posts