Low cost ways of working with aluminium for a n00b

[Doddy]

Interesting challenge!

I'm not sure Ali will be your friend in this game because it is so soft. Also, it doesn't "work" well - forming 90 degree bends can crack the material unless you have a silly large bend-radius. Maybe steel sheet with something like a scroll-saw with a metal-cutting blade would offer a cheap entry level capability?, next your challenge would be to finish the product - powder coating or similar, can be outsourced.

If you're doing one-ers, then as Jazz says ask for someone with suitable machine to do the cutting for you; if you're planning to do more then you need to be a bit more realistic with your machining requirements and costs.

[JAZZCNC]

I'm not sure Ali will be your friend in this game because it is so soft. Also, it doesn't "work" well - forming 90 degree bends can crack the material unless you have a silly large bend-radius.

Nah it's easy to bend if you get the right stuff. I bend it all the time, all my Z-axis covers are bent and folded 90Deg, I fold up water tanks and header, petrol tanks etc upto 3mm with out any issues.

[Stonelesscutter]

Google "JB Weld". This is the cheaper part of the job.

Thanks Doddy!

I had good hopes for the J-B Weld when I read your comment and was thinking it might be a good thing to use to put together the inner cube-shaped frame to mount the side plates on. After work however, I went through a bunch of Youtube videos and my first impression was that it's pretty messy. Maybe that's because the people who made the videos were just doing a shoddy job, I don't know. But at the end of a lot of the videos, when it came to testing the bond, they proved to fail. So at the moment, I'm not exactly sold on this technique, although I will definitely be keeping it in mind. I'll be trying to come up with some sort of alternative though.

Interesting. This is where, if you wanted to, you could sink an awful lot of money.

I might agree with you to an extent about the use of flat sheets of ali. You may want to research two finishing technologies that may go hand in hand with what you're trying to do - "shot peening" and "anodising", particularly if this is going to be an aesthetic piece. This is likely work you'd want to farm out once you have your panels cut. Your point of making a skeleton and bolting the plates to this does offer an easy-out for this, and you can get the Ali sheets guillotined reasonably accurately by most metal suppliers. Add your holes, then erase your markings with the peening process and hard-anodise to get a durable and sexy finish.

Yeah, I agree that the finish is the last of my worries right now. That said, I had to look into shot peening and anodising as you suggested. Both are things which I would have to outsource, like you said. The shot peening seems to be mainly for relieving the metal from inner stresses which might cause it to warp. Anodising looks like a sweet option. But these panels are a lot bigger than the small parts I've seen people do in videos. I imagine this could be quite a costly affair. Any idea of what having this done might cost?

While looking up videos, I came across some nice ways of finishing aluminium. Just wanted to share two videos.

https://youtu.be/cpMetNWS98E

https://youtu.be/NBpfa3fcmZc

Widening holes is easy (files, etc). It's filling them in afterwards that's trickier. Get everything fitting properly before looking at the finishing processes.

Good to know this can be done, thanks! I've been looking for videos about using simple hand tools to cut aluminium, but it seems they are hard to find. What I did find out is that apparently you need to be careful what you use to cut it, as the relative softness of the metal can cause the space between saw teeth to become clogged up.

[MartinS]

The shot peening seems to be mainly for relieving the metal from inner stresses which might cause it to warp

Fake news alert!!

Peening is the art of creating a compressive stress in a metal surface. (check out ball peen hammer and its uses)

The roots of gear teeth are control shot peened to increase their bensing strength through inducing a compressive stress in the metal surface. Con-rods are strenghtened by shot peening (this also removes suface imperfections). Peening is also used to bend wing surfaces before fitting.

Bead blast and shot blast are similar processes but with different intended results

.......just to clarify.

[Stonelesscutter]

Fake news alert!!

Peening is the art of creating a compressive stress in a metal surface. (check out ball peen hammer and its uses)

The roots of gear teeth are control shot peened to increase their bensing strength through inducing a compressive stress in the metal surface. Con-rods are strenghtened by shot peening (this also removes suface imperfections). Peening is also used to bend wing surfaces before fitting.

Bead blast and shot blast are similar processes but with different intended results

.......just to clarify.

Thanks for clarifying that Martin. I may have misinterpreted the explanation I had found before.

[spluppit]

Fake news alert!!

Peening is the art of creating a compressive stress in a metal surface. (check out ball peen hammer and its uses)

The roots of gear teeth are control shot peened to increase their bensing strength through inducing a compressive stress in the metal surface. Con-rods are strenghtened by shot peening (this also removes suface imperfections). Peening is also used to bend wing surfaces before fitting.

Bead blast and shot blast are similar processes but with different intended results

.......just to clarify.

This man is totally correct and is one of the few with correct engineering information, quite rare these days. It can also be commonly known as 'surface conditioning', which also includes other processes affecting the surface of a component. Well done MartinS!