"planer" for aluminum lat bar? is that a thing?

[BT Fabrication]

I guess a multi axis head huh?
When all you have is a hammer….
I never even thought of a tilting head to cut it all… what kind of dimensional tolerances and wall smoothness can be achieved? Not that I need anything wild, just curious.

no, laser cut general shape out 500 pcs at a time oversize. bolt to fixture enough to cover entire table and hit start. 32" long table can do min 8 pcs per cycle start if one row. now imagine 5x that if its 20x32" 40 pcs in minutes. 500 done in hours and not a whole year.
laser can be plus or minus 0.003"

 

[Peter Colman]

If you make the discs and use a vacuum table with a stop on the thrust side to hold them, you should be able to mill them flat.
The table would have to be made to deal with the holes or drill them after.

 

[TaperPin]

You aren’t making a lot of parts and tolerances aren’t tight, so a wide thickness sanding drum as you’d find in a woodworkers shop would seem to work. These have a motorized belt to feed the material and the abrasive paper is only a few inches wide and wrapped around the drum in a spiral and secured on the ends.

Im no expert on these, but a middle of the road version that I’ve seen operate would probably be able to take off .005” per pass with a coarse abrasive on 4” wide material - not much more since the motors are quite modest - no, material removal just plain sucks.

Even in a hardwood board 8” wide in something like oak you’d be lucky to take off 1/32” (.031”) per pass with fresh paper. The rubber feed belt won’t produce great consistency as the belt wears.

I know nothing about grinding wheels for aluminum, but a simple 15amp 115v motor with cup wheel mounted over a bed and a simple height adjustment, paired with decent guides could be hand fed if you weren’t too aggressive.

Knifesmiths have rigged up all sorts of contraptions to thickness blades - a belt sander set to a certain gap over a bed comes to mind.

I‘d say a hard no to using a wood planer - the feed system requires the part to skid across the bed and the feed rollers would quickly get aluminum imbedded and stop feeding. Many things in its design require the material to be somewhat soft and forgiving.

If I had to do it today I’d use a big 15amp handheld wood router with the depth built in to a guide in the baseplate and make 4 passes, but I’m quite familiar with the machine, making odd guides, and have good quality bits. 4 passes is still 480’ of aluminum 1” wide and .010”ish deep and I don’t have a frame of reference for how well wood cutters would hold up - probably have to be sharpened a few times at best. An overhead router with cast iron base would be ideal as far as routers/shapers go.

A cold saw cutting disks from round bar would get you within .005” with a simple stop if it wasn’t worn out - I can get that from a wood cutting chop saw. Hell a cheap bandsaw with tight joints, decent roller alignment and new blade would as well.

Let us know what you try and what works out!

 

[Garwood]

Blanchard. It would be crazy fast to do these on a Blanchard. No workholding whatsoever to worry about. Tip the tram so the wheel's leading edge is a thou or two high. Run a chuck ring and you can do 10+ per batch every 5 minutes.

 

[EmGo]

Blanchard. It would be crazy fast to do these on a Blanchard. No workholding whatsoever to worry about.

They're aluminum, Gar. I know you love that thing but magnetic chucks don't work well on aluminum

I agree you could but it might not be the easiest way to go ....

 

[Garwood]

They're aluminum, Gar. I know you love that thing but magnetic chucks don't work well on aluminum

I agree you could but it might not be the easiest way to go ....

And what does Carbide Bob grind on his Blanchards?

That step around the chuck is for a ring. The ring is for parts you can't hold with the magnet.

You tram the spindle a tiny scoche up on the leading edge so the back side of the wheel pulls the parts into the chuck ring.

 

[EmGo]

And what does Carbide Bob grind on his Blanchards?

That step around the chuck is for a ring. The ring is for parts you can't hold with the magnet.

You tram the spindle a tiny scoche up on the leading edge so the back side of the wheel pulls the parts into the chuck ring.

Did you change the wheel ? That's not much fun on a blanch, and the wheel for hogging steel is not going to be happy skimming aluminum. Ja, you could do it but wouldn't be my first choice ... or second, or third. Have to go with the Timesaver idea, myself.

Grinding aluminum already kind of sucks .... and these guys are skinny, and light, so coolant gets under them and they come off the table a little then hit the wheel .... I don't think it would be fun but could be mistaken. You do it and make a video

But maybe while you have that thing turned on you could grab this spammer and run him through there ? We'd pay to watch !

 

[Garwood]

Did you change the wheel ? That's not much fun on a blanch, and the wheel for hogging steel is not going to be happy skimming aluminum. Ja, you could do it but wouldn't be my first choice ... or second, or third. Have to go with the Timesaver idea, myself.

Grinding aluminum already kind of sucks .... and these guys are skinny, and light, so coolant gets under them and they come off the table a little then hit the wheel .... I don't think it would be fun but could be mistaken. You do it and make a video

But maybe while you have that thing turned on you could grab this spammer and run him through there ? We'd pay to watch !

The segments I'm running are almost as smooth as brushed concrete. I don't think you can load them up.

 

[EmGo]

The segments I'm running are almost as smooth as brushed concrete. I don't think you can load them up.

Next time you're messing around, chop up some 1/8" aluminum and toss a few pieces on the barby. You could be right and I'm just paranoid.

Wear a helmet tho, just in case

 

[4GSR]

You are going to need more than a helmet for protection from getting hit by them pieces being chunked off that Blanchard!!! Yikes! I've been around a few in years past, never operated one, but the thought is what scares me.

 

[EmGo]

While we're here messing around with Stirling's money how about a vacuum chuck and a razor-sharp flycutter ? (Not to the plate, cut them up into part-size chunks first). One quick pass across the top, make it look pretty as well as being the right thickness ?

(Don't even say it, Gar. I know what you're thinking.)

 

[memphisjed]

Rolling mill. Just have guides to keep bar kinda straight-ish. You are bolting these bars to angle in the steps two down from this.

Or just bevel head laser.
Better yet, bevel waterjet. Near perfect edge quality

 

[Overland]

If I understand correctly, you're looking for 4" wide strips of aluminum 1/8" thick.
Does your supplier have a shear ?
Surely 1/8" sheet is pretty consistent ?
Wouldn't this be an easy way for you to get good stock to start your process ?
Seems too obvious.
Bob

 

[Garwood]

You are going to need more than a helmet for protection from getting hit by them pieces being chunked off that Blanchard!!! Yikes! I've been around a few in years past, never operated one, but the thought is what scares me.

One of the tricks Blanchard shows in thier manuals is making a mask for the chuck with windows for non-magnetic parts. The chucks have bolt holes between the coils for fixturing.

I'd try the ring first. I've been amazed what I can grind without it moving.

 

[EmGo]

Surely 1/8" sheet is pretty consistent ?

Maybe you missed this ? "im struggling with obtaining aluminum flat bar that meets dimentional tolorance these days" I don't think he'll be much luckier with plate, we're complaining about a few thousandths here .... belt sander, imo.

Unless .... Garwood's pretty good with the blanchard idea, but I think Stirling should go full-on. Change to steel, a man's material, and make his own strip, so he could control thickness better



Or go for castings, then he could control materials chemistry and use gar's blanchard !



plus scare all the neighbors and make his insurance company wet their pants ...



but personally, if I went to all that trouble, after making the bar I'd want to forge it for strength, then could still use that blanchard and most of the other cool facilities



Stirling just needs to expand his imagination a little ...

 

[Garwood]

It's funny. If you search this site way back you get a handful of folks recommending Blanchard grinding aluminum as the fastest way to size aluminum flats. You get segment recommendations, and general praise for the process. There's a whole section in the Blanchard "how to use a Blanchard" book on grinding aluminum.

I don't think I'm totally out in left field for recommending it.

Dealer's selling Blanchards want stupid money for them. A No. 18 at auction doesn't often go for more than $2k. For a machine that's dirt simple, costs nothing to run and works semi-automatically I don't get why every shop doesn't have one.

 

[EmGo]

I don't think I'm totally out in left field for recommending it.

If you get bored some time, toss some 1/8" aluminum up on the chuck and go for it ? Tell us how it worked out ?

I'll probably have to eat crow. Can I substitute pigeon ? It's easier to get.

 

[Garwood]

If you get bored some time, toss some 1/8" aluminum up on the chuck and go for it ? Tell us how it worked out ?

I'll probably have to eat crow. Can I substitute pigeon ? It's easier to get.

The one chuck ring I have sticks up a lot more than 1/8". That's the only thing preventing me from walking over and trying it.

If the OP's plates are all the same at qty 500/yr it seems like a masking plate would be a given instead of just using the chuck ring. I can't see how it couldn't work with a masking plate.