Metal With a Wood Router???

[Sanghera]

Hi Guys,
I was just wondering if any of you guys use your wood router for metal as, sort of a milling machine? I know this is the DIY Wood Router section, but just wondering. I think I've seen it done before but I'm not sure.
Thanks.

[vacpress]

Sanghera - i havent tried it with my wood machine, but i know people have succesfully milled aluminum and steel with their MDF\wood mills. shallow cuts! start with a very small cut and do experiments with the manual mode. i would imagine anythign thicker than 1/4 or 3/8 is pushing your luck. With my machine, if i tried to cut 1/4" aluminum, it would take... 8 or 10 passes, and the accuracy would be pretty bad by the end. It may work on a better wood machine. Mine is pretty bad. I was just using it to learn, which i have.

You will probably get a more detailed first hand reply from someone who does this.

Another option with a wood mill is to make a foam or wax pattern to do an "investment" or "lost wax" casting. then you would need either a way to melt aluminum, or to take the pattern to a foundry. there is lots of info on DIY furnaces, inc,uding easy to follow directions.

[ESjaavik]

I regularly cut aluminum sheet using a regular carbide blade. No problem. I always use new/sharpened blade for fine cutting. When worn I use them for MDF and occational aluminum. It seems to me alu does not dull it any faster than MDF. But *go slow* it is likely to snag, and that can break the carbide. And only straight aluminum. Anodized *will* dull your blade. It's covered with aluminum oxide, also used in grinding paper.
Back to your router. It's just the same. The cutting angle for wood is also right for aluminum. It uses high cutting speeds, again also right for aluminum. But then it's the tool control! Basically by hand you don't have it. Vacpress's advice is very much right. Shallow cuts to keep as much control as you can. If it catches better than you can resist (not much), then it's not like wood that it will just snare and chew out a big chunk. No, it will act like a gearwheel on a rack and your router will take off.
So if your plan is to lightly edge trim some alu plate or thin stock, yes it will work provided you always have in mind where will the router go if it snags. If you think about routing pockets or inside holes, don't try it!
If you're talking about a CNC router, yes it could work fine. But you will find out how well built your machine is. It needs to be much more rigid than necessary for wood.

[Sanghera]

I have thought about casting, but it is very very dangerous isn't it? I mean, you can not have any moisture around with that kind of heat or else you could get very severly burned. OUCH. I am a little skeptical about casting because of some of the dangers involved. What do you think? Also, what do you mean by manual control. I'm new to CNC, and I have heard about joystick control a little, is this what you are talking about?
Thank you very much.
I really appreciate it.

[vacpress]

i was refering to using the manual jog controls in your CNC control software.

and as for the dangers of casting - yes it sounds scary. i have never done it directly, but im sure a small furnace and propane tank is a frightening thing to have in the same general area. im sure thats why many people prefer the very messy charcol foundry. this requires land though. i have "space" just no "land".

[Sanghera]

Thank you very much.

[Swede]

Guys, don't be afraid of casting! It's a fascinating and very useful skill. Sure, you don't want to let your kids cast an engine block, but if you stick with aluminum, the temps are low (that's relative, of course) and with modest precautions you'll be fine.

I've never had the slightest problem with moisture. Of course, if you INTRODUCE moisture, you're asking for trouble, but by the time the aluminum melts, any existing water is driven off.

The real problem with water is not eruption, it is bubbles in your casting. Atmospheric moisture reacts with molten aluminum, causing minute Hydrogen bubbles to form in the aluminum when it is poured. As the metal chills, the H2 bubbles come out of solution and are frozen in place after total solidification. This can be corrected before you pour with a simple "degas" procedure which uses dry nitrogen, argon, or commercial pellets.

Here is a link to my little foundry page:
http://www.5bears.com/foundry.htm
Note: DO NOT pour over concrete like I did here, that CAN cause problems with a spill. Pour over dirt or sand.

[ESjaavik]

And WEAR A FACE MASK!
Mine is aluminized just in front of my eyes. Not while pouring, but when I put another chunk of old hard disk down into the melting pot. It obviously had some water trapped in a hole or pocket, and I had not held it over the furnace long enough for this to evaporate. I got scared but not injured thanks to the protection.

The spatter is thin enough that I can see through it, looks like it's anti-glare coated.

If using Hexachloroethane tablets for degassing, do it in a well ventilated place or outdoors for health reasons. There are now less harmful products available.

Things I placed out loong time ago:
http://home.eunet.no/~einar/metalmodel/
http://home.eunet.no/~einar/casting/
http://home.eunet.no/~einar/casting/smelteovn/

[maxbela]

Originally Posted by Sanghera Hi Guys, I was just wondering if any of you guys use your wood router for metal as, sort of a milling machine? I know this is the DIY Wood Router section, but just wondering. I think I've seen it done before but I'm not sure. Thanks.

Yes you can do this if your machine is rigid enough.
I have milled recesses an inch deep in alloy blocks with no trouble at all.
You need to take shallow passes say 2mm per pass and either pre-drill the entry point or ramp into the material. The weak point of a router compared to a milling machine is lack of rigidity of the gantry. In terms of X-Y movement, as long as your feed speed is not too high, the relatively high spindle speed, compared with a milling machine, reduces the force required and tends to leave you with reasonable accuracy but the Z feed is hard work even with a centre cutting endmill unless you drill first.
I find steel cutters better for alloy than carbide but they need to be razor sharp which basically means brand new.
Can't advise on cutting thin sheet since I have never tried, maybe a downward spiral cutter?

Cheers
Max

[Oldmanandhistoy]

Hi Max,

Do you have any pictures or a link to your machine; just want to see how beefy it is.

John

[tahustvedt]

I mill lots of aluminium with mine. Here are some parts I made for one of my RC helicopters.

[maxbela]

Originally Posted by Oldmanandhistoy Hi Max, Do you have any pictures or a link to your machine; just want to see how beefy it is. John

Hi John,
My machine is a Heiz S-1000 or google "prototools" for a UK distributor.
All the Heiz machines have twin X axis drive screws which means the gantry stays square, a big help if you do heavy work well off the centre of the table.
I suspect the smaller machines would be more rigid as there is less length to flex.
My client for the alloy blocks won't let me post pictures, -copyrighted design or something-, but basically I was taking a 130mm by 260mm pocket 22mm deep out of 30mm thick alloy blocks.
I made 10 of them altogether.
I can think of several ways to beef up my machine, if I needed to, but the basic design of it is excellent.
As I have said elsewhere in the forums, I needed a machine in a hurry for a specific contract I landed, and bought this one on the grounds that I knew it would do that job and, even if it didn't come up to scratch on other work, it would have paid for itself already.
I have been doing all kinds of work on it for a year or so since then and I am very happy with it. I also like the Win PCNC software that came with it. I upgraded to the Pro version to get a 4th axis control and the ability to digitise with a probe which the supplied version does not support but for most 3 axis work the included version is fine.
I bought direct from Germany since they had no UK distributor then and got excellent customer support via e-mail from both Heiz and Lewetz " www. lewetz.de" who wrote the software. I consider I got at least what I paid for and probably more.

Cheers,
Max