New to Aluminium

Hi, I am new to this forum. I found it very helpful everyone is sharing experiences.
Can anyone guide me about 2D cutting on aluminium.
-Machine: shapeoko xxl
-Material: 26 Aluminium
-Design: Simple 2D cut Text
-Max. Thickness of cut: 6mm
-Min. Thickness of cut: 0.6mm

  1. Which Drill bit is needed to do the job?
  2. What are its cut speed, plunge rate and spindle speed?
    Thanks in advance
1 Like

Hi @Salman,

I recommend watching Winston’s MaterialMonday videos:

The first two cover cutting aluminium, with recommended feeds and speeds.

I highly recommend getting single-flute ZrN coated cutters (for example #278Z on the C3D store), they are much more forgiving than three-flute in aluminium, especially if you are going to do contour (slotting) cuts.

The diameter of the cutter to be used will of course depend on the size of the text you want to cut, so you may need to go smaller than 1/4".

Note sure what you mean by “26” aluminium though ? The aluminium grades are usually referred by a four number code e.g. 6061

5 Likes

Thanks for the detailed reply.
Aluminium thickness is 26gauge.
I’'ll watch the videos now.
Thank you again!

Ah, right. Try and figure out what kind of aluminium you will be cutting, it’s quite important as different grades of aluminium have very different machinability

4 Likes

26 gauge is 0.4mm, so work holding is going to be important otherwise the parts start flying away (assuming this is a full cut-through job). lots of double sided tape? or even blue-tape with superglue method?

0.6mm features are going to be a challenge, i would almost consider a laser cutter for the job?

2 Likes

Drill bit? Because you plan on drilling, or did you mean an end mill since you are doing some cutting?

end mill. cutting of some text

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