newbe, want to cut Al, have shopsmith

[alchemistAZ]

hi all,
I am new to cnc but have been interested in it for some time. I have some 0.032" aluminum sheet material I got from the hobby store and would like to cut out some shapes. I read a thread on how can I cut aluminum and it helped out with a basic understand of what was required. I guess I would need a double flute bit running 2000 rpm at around 6 ipm. right now the only piece of hardware I have is a shopsmith which I can use as a drill press and dial the speed to 2000 rpm. And I was thinking of getting an x-y table from Harbor Freight. (yea, I am really cheap). I was wondering if anyone thought this setup might work? I am just wanting to cut some shapes about 1 inch square and later bend the edges to make small boxes. Basically I am wanting to make brackets to hold hobby servos so I can make a small robot like at http://www.lynxmotion.com . But my servos are alot smaller than at lynxmotin so I am having to make my own brackets. If my robot work well than I will look at getting a better setup later on.
BTW, I don't have much experience working with metal, especially milling it, so this is a big experiment for me.

Thanks,
Michael

[Stepper Monkey]

I know exactly what you are making, and unless you are going to make an absolute crapload of them I'd just cut them and bend them manually. A drill press or a simple centerpunch and hand drill, a vise, and a proper blade in a chopsaw and you are golden.
Even for dozens of them this would actually be faster. For myself, even with a shop full of proper CNC gear I'd still do it manually.

If you want to go into production that is a different matter, in which case neither your shopsmith or a cheap drill press XY table is going to cut it. If that is the case, the money will be there to justify a mill.
This sounds like a better job to just farm out for shearing/stamping though in quantity, milling is likely not the right process for these.


Try these guys, it's likely a lot easier and cheaper to get them pre-made; http://servocity.com/html/90_degree_universal.html
If these don't work, there are other companies that get even smaller. Try Google, there are several.