general purpose wire,

I am expecting an Agie 100 wire machine to land on my doorstep in a couple weeks, and I need to order a spool of wire to set it up with.

I will be working with Aluminum, cutting 1-2" thick for the most part. What is a good General Purpose wire to use for this? My line of thinking is the thicker wire is fairly break-free, while there are more feet per spool with thin wire.

Are there any other boards out there with truly knowlegeable folks out there? There is Intech's board, but they are all salesmen slamming each other's products. Past time to shut it down.

[This message has been edited by pogo (edited 08-06-2002).]

.010" wire is probably the most popular. There are plenty of sorces to buy from and most have varying qualities to choose from. The cheaper wires tend to be dirtier and cause some wire feed problems on some machines. I wouldn't go any smaller than .010 in aluminum. You can get more speed with .012" wire I think, but I'm not sure it gains you that much dollars wise, but probably less wire breaks. Once you establish the ideal settings you shouldn't see many wire breaks anyway.

For 99% of my jobs I burn, alum. tool steel, some stainless, I use Gisco "Megacut 900" hard brass wire .010 dia. I have tried .012 but have some threading problems in small start holes due to the wire retaining it's "memory". The cost is greatly justified with this product, I pay about $37.00 for 11 lb. spool. Do not use the cheap wire, the minimal amount of money you save will only give you problems.

Pogo: I've beeb running AGIE machines for 15 years now, and we do have an AGIE 100. The technology included with these machine is for Cobra Cut "A", and Cobra Cut "B" wire. This wire is a little pricey though. If you are not too concerned about finish use plain brass. You might also call AGIE for application support, their number is 1-800-438-5021.

I had a 100D and I did cut a lot of aluminum. I usually used .008 brass for cost reasons and was not concerned about speed. The brass would leave residue on my parts which had to be bead blasted off so I switched to Cobra Cut A and D wires. Both worked fine and I found that the extra price was well worth it to me when I figured the cut speed, also the brass residue was gone. Cutting aluminum will clog your filters really fast expecially if you cut aluminum on new filters that have not been used before. I would always precondition my filters by cutting steel or stainless for a few hours first. You will get double the life from your filters in cutting aluminum if you do this. The other reasoning in using .008 instead of .010 is that you are putting 20% less aluminum particles into your water. Filters last longer and there is less to clean up in your tank. Other benefits of using smaller wire are less belt wear and less guide wear (lower tension). I found my 100D would cut 55-65 square inches/hr using Cobra Cut D wire in 2 inch thick Aluminum (good seal for flushing top and bottom)

TheMetalDoc

Pogo, It looks like you finally got a Wire
EDM. The only thing I know about wiring
burning aluminum is it creates poisonous gas
that needs to be vented properly. Are you
still going to wire burn recievers. Where
did you get the machine? Ebay?

Thanks, all! - I found a 33 lb. spool of .008 cobra cut A on sale for 60 bucks. It will allow me to get this beast up and running and have something to compare against.

It looks like the previous owner used a lot of this wire, judging by empty boxes and notes packed with the machine.

Pogo: We go through about 1 spool of .010 Cobra Cut "A" per week on our AGIE machines. This is based on cutting 18 hours a day average and 7 days a week.

Pogo, now that you have the EDM machine will you be able to burn AR15 magwells. I am looking for someone who can do that on a couple of blanks. I have done it with mill, drill and files but it is difficult and time consuming. Let me know if you can, I have another project in mind.

leadbutt, If Pogo doesn't work out for you, maybe you could give me a chance to quote your needs. I've been EDMing for 15 years now and am sure I can cut whatever you need. Drop me a line.

EDM Dude, You bet! I just figured that Pogo would already have the program running for the magwell already. After all it has been several weeks I will e-mail a couple of pics about what I am trying to do. Thanks.
Pogo, we are anxious to hear how you new machine burns. And also let me know about the magwell burns. There may be a small niche market for those. If you are familiar with the "Build it yourself" Topic heading at the ar15.com forums, you see posts from a number of builders who also have problems with those cuts.

EDM Dude, I just tried to e-mail and couldn't get though to you. Your address was not accepted by hushmail or hotmail.

If you could e-mail me: [email protected] I could reply with thos pics.

[This message has been edited by leadbutt (edited 09-13-2002).]

[This message has been edited by leadbutt (edited 09-14-2002).]

Hi, folks,

I'm still around. I work out of town for weeks at a time, and everyone has to work around everyone elses schedules. hm.

The installer/trainer will be here tomorrow. I hope I can be cutting by Monday morning.

Yep, I plan on cutting AR lowers. Magazine wells and more, pending ATF review. I found a US manufacturer offering 1911 forgings, hope to do the same and broaching trigger wells, etc.