Aluminium sheet grade for machining?

[Raz]

What grade of aluminium do you guys typically go for when buying sheet material for machining from Aluminium warehouse? Options include 1050 or 5251.

Was originally planning on the 1050, but reading the description which says "99% purity" makes me think it might gum up the cutters similar to 5083 grade plate. I'm looking for something that ideally cuts similar to 6082 as that's been my 'go to grade' for plate so far.

Cheers,
Raz

[magicniner]

Change supplier and use your ideal material, it will probably cost more to source what you want but it will behave as you would like and will cost less time, tooling and grief ;-)

- Nick

[cropwell]

Aluminium sheet is designed for bending and not machining. It is difficult to find any supplier of 6082 in sheet form. If anyone know where I can get it in 2 and 3mm thickness, please let me know !

Ta

Rob

[Raz]

Cheers guys, 2mm & 3mm is exactly what i'm looking for too and seems to be that even local suppliers cant do this grade at these thicknesses. One option is machining down from 4mm 6082 plate, but this is going to end up costing way too much for the quantity/sizes required.

I may have to just test my luck with the 5251, but got a feeling that roughing it out with a 3 flute rougher tool (as normally done with plate) isn't going to go down too well...

[magicniner]

Cheers guys, 2mm & 3mm is exactly what i'm looking for too and seems to be that even local suppliers cant do this grade at these thicknesses.

Are you ordering a full sheet or just a bit?
If the latter they're probably not prepared to buy a sheet to cut a bit off for your order, if it's a full sheet just find a supplier who can be bothered.

Edit:
It's obviously an available product -

http://www.ssaltd.net/index.php/aluminium-stock/aluminium-grade-6082

[Raz]

Are you ordering a full sheet or just a bit?
If the latter they're probably not prepared to buy a sheet to cut a bit off for your order, if it's a full sheet just find a supplier who can be bothered.

Edit:
It's obviously an available product -

http://www.ssaltd.net/index.php/aluminium-stock/aluminium-grade-6082

Thanks for that, yeah unfortunately its just smaller bits - makes sense now that you mention it, why no one has it 'in stock'!

I will try search around a bit more locally to see if I can pick some up, but will likely order in some 5251 anyways to test it out. As if I can machine this ok, it will solve all future problems.