Quote:
Originally Posted by JWA
I had no idea aluminum could be milled with a router. If its not too much a distraction could you detail how you accomplished that? Variable speed router? What sort of mills were used?
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JWA...I just noticed that I misunderstood your question above earlier in the thread. Yes I indeed milled/routed the upper hatch hole in the bumper with a router. I thought you were referring to the machined hinge brackets.
Since the bumper is way too big to heave-ho up on my Bridgeport Mill, I had to resort to other means....so as shown earlier, I made an MDF template, rough cut the hatch hole with a jig saw and sheet metal blade, and routed the opening to it's final dimensions just like you would do on a piece of wood.
In this case I used a 1/2" diameter two flute end mill, but a typical router bearing bit would also work quite well. Faster RPM usually results in a better surface finish....so season to taste. If I were using a 4 flute end mill I likely would have went with less RPMs.
*I would be a bit hesitant to use a 1/4" shank router bit for this but 1/2" is plenty beefy.
I treat aluminum much like wood....I cut up to 2" thick aluminum on my table saw with a Freud non-ferrous blade, and I rout it occasionally and also sand it with sandpaper.
Yep, very, very impressive!!
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