Low cost ways of working with aluminium for a n00b

[Stonelesscutter]

Hi!

I have zero experience in working with metal, yet I find myself wanting to take on a project with aluminium. As you can imagine, I have some questions, so I looked for a community which could perhaps be of help and that's how I ended up here.

The project I'm considering is a custom PC case of my own design. I've looked around for manufacturers who could do the machining for me if I supplied the design files, but first of all it seems relatively hard to find them here in the UK (Northern Ireland) and I would still first have to actually create a completed design just to get a quote. So far, I've found two specialized companies in the USA, but the costs seem to be much higher than I would expect. In one case, I found something which would cost about 250 pounds to manufacture, and I was just about ready to go for that, but then it turned out the shipping from USA would add another 150 pounds on top. So, I've started looking at other options.

Now I've been watching some videos on Youtube, and in one of them it was mentioned that because aluminium is a relatively soft material, it can be cut with saw blades intended for woodworking. This got me thinking, because I do have some (not a lot of) experience in woodworking. What if I didn't need to outsource the machining to a specialist, but could do it myself, using basic tools and a lot of patience and perserverance, and get the satisfaction that comes from making something with your own hands?

And when I say basic tools, I really mean basic tools. When I moved over here from another country about six years ago, I basically had to leave almost all of my stuff behind, including most of my tools. What I have available at the moment, amounts to not much more than a hammer and some screwdrivers. I do have a handheld rotary tool, but it's a cheap one, not a Dremel. I would be okay with investing in some additional tools, but I wouldn't want to spend a lot of money on them, since they might just be used for this one project and it might end up being just as or more costly than outsourcing the job to a specialist.

It seems to me that most of the machining which would need to be done for what I want to make, would be relatively straightforward. Cutting along straight lines, drilling some holes, cutting out some mostly rectangular shapes, and then some circular cutouts. So, obviously a drill would come in handy, and that is something simple enough to get and which might prove useful for other things later on. A hole saw bit for the drill would be handy for the circular cutouts. I've seen that I can order aluminium sheets already cut to size. This leaves pretty much only the cutouts which would go into the back panel for the power supply unit and motherboard outputs. So now here come my questions.

What would be the best/easiest/cheapest/most effective way to cut out pieces of material containing right angles from the middle of an aluminium sheet?

Would it be possible to for example drill a hole and then use a figure saw to cut through this material, either by hand or with a power saw?

What about using just a hammer and a chisel, could that be feasible?

Can you use a file with aluminium?

I would appreciate any insights and suggestions anyone might have on accomplishing these tasks I'm looking to do as cheaply as possible, although I'm not saying I wouldn't be willing to invest in equipment which costs a little bit more but gets the job done better or more easily.

Thanks in advance for your consideration. I certainly look forward to any replies.