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best metal for building a mill enclosure out of? insights?

Some shops do an atrocious job on powder coat prep. I'd be surprised to have enough damage to worry about touching up for quite some time.
 
I'd be surprised to have enough damage to worry about touching up for quite some time.
Right in line with the cutter. I'd run well into the red on alloy steels. 6'es and 9'es at high speed eat powdercoat. And polane, and epoxy .... stainless would probably hold up but no paint I tried did.

Outside is not as much of a problem but if you have to redo the inside anyhow ...
 
See, this absolutely does not work if you cut steel and have a little oomph in the spindle. I've used everything on internal sheet metal - polane, epoxy, powdercoat - and none of it holds up, the way I run them inserts.

Possibly in a hardinge or bostomatic it'd be fine but not on a cinturn or an eagle or a panther or a k&t.

Much easier for me to just hit the sheet metal quickly once in a while with rattlecan. Looks just as good, easier to touch up, overall faster. I even quit trying to use bondo and all that to make the outside look beeyootiful. 85% is good enough, it's a machine.

That discovery saved me literally hundreds of hours. Also actually made the shop look nicer overall, cuz a half hour here and there is a lot easier to find than yet another major project.


Rustoleum on the outside is soft, dull, shows all the scratches and just looks cheap on the outside of a machine.

Wipe Powdercoat off with a rag and it looks nice again.
 
I am working on designing and building an enclosure for my PM-30MV conversion (mill)

I am trying to figure out the best metal for building the enclosure out of. I will be TIG welding it and possibly do some bending.

3105-H14 aluminum, painted both sides 0.063" thick
3105 H14 White Painted Aluminum Sheet | Coremark Metals

6061 aluminum 0.063" thick
6061 T6 Aluminum Sheet | Coremark Metals

A366/1008 cold rolled steel 16ga
Cold Rolled Steel Sheet Supplier | Coremark Metals

The steel is the cheapest, but I will have to paint it and worry about rust
6061 is easy to weld but it doesnt bend easy and I would want to paint it
3105 comes pre-painted, but I would have to grind the pain off in spots to weld and then re-paint

Anyone have experience building an enclosure/ maintaining one that can offer some insight?
Thanks!
I've been down this road. I designed a folded sheet metal base from
.09" Aluminum. Basically a single piece with flanges bent to accept 4020 extrusion for the vertices to support the acrylic sides windows/doors. All said and done was ~$1200. It worked, but chip management is an absolute PIA
I am working on designing and building an enclosure for my PM-30MV conversion (mill)

I am trying to figure out the best metal for building the enclosure out of. I will be TIG welding it and possibly do some bending.

3105-H14 aluminum, painted both sides 0.063" thick
3105 H14 White Painted Aluminum Sheet | Coremark Metals

6061 aluminum 0.063" thick
6061 T6 Aluminum Sheet | Coremark Metals

A366/1008 cold rolled steel 16ga
Cold Rolled Steel Sheet Supplier | Coremark Metals

The steel is the cheapest, but I will have to paint it and worry about rust
6061 is easy to weld but it doesnt bend easy and I would want to paint it
3105 comes pre-painted, but I would have to grind the pain off in spots to weld and then re-paint

Anyone have experience building an enclosure/ maintaining one that can offer some insight?
Thanks!
I've went down this road years ago with a hobby machine....
I designed a folded sheet metal base from .09" 5052 aluminum. Various flanges to mount to the existing stand and 4020 extrusion. All said and done was ~ $1200.
Yes, it contained the mess, but there was no getting around chip control/coolant flow nightmares. I spent countless hours chopping up the stand and running 3" PVC ports on both sides to enter the coolant "tank" inside the base. The deal with the hobby mills is they are all converted open manual mills. People want to run mostly aluminum. Aluminum requires flood coolant. I tried the MQL method and it just sucks for drilling and pretty much everything else. As soon as you turn your back, something will clog the micro nozzle and your scraping parts. Flood coolant is the only way to go unless you want to sit in front of the process the whole time. The more flood the better. That means a larger coolant tank and good recharge flow to prevent starving the pump. Now your going to need to filter the chips with a screen which will also clog up pretty quick. These issues cascade to the point where your constantly in front of the machine anyway. Yes, it did work at containing the mess, but it was a LOT of work. The only upside was hobby mills can only remove 4 cubic inches/minute on a good day. The enclosure was designed to the absolute minimum to fit the mill. It ended up being 2" wider than my Brother S500 with 6" less X travel.


To the OP,
Not dumping on your plans, just sharing my experience. My problem was my hobby machine phased into making money. When that starts, you end up loosing money quickly relative to a VMC I outgrew the machine way too fast. I won't even go into geometric accuracy, speed etc. If it's never going to be anything other than a hobby, with no customers, schedules etc. go for it.
 

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